A beautiful sight every year is to witness your local mosque fill more than ever with worshippers, including women and children, on an unprecedented scale. During the Friday prayers in Ramadan, the women’s section also acquires a new liveliness. We see women lingering long after they have wound up their supererogatory prayers. Moreover, every night, women throng the mosque for Taraweeh. Mosques have arrangements on the last ten nights, including women who stay in groups until midnight to listen and learn, offer more prayers, and read the Qur’an. As we know, habits formed in Ramadan should be extended throughout the year whenever possible at a suitable scale. The presence of women in mosques during Ramadan cannot be replicated at that scale – but some takeaways and lessons can certainly be taken.
The mosque is at the heart of Muslim society and an icon of Islamic spiritual resilience. The mosque signifies the existence of a functioning, thriving Muslim community, whether large or small, old or new. Mosques may serve a small local community or pull worshippers from across the city. There may be mosques with particular architectural interest or historical value. In a city like Delhi, there are many mosques with unique histories. Recently, with more interest and religious awareness among Muslim women, there has been a concerted interest in finding mosques that accommodate them. Nevertheless, beyond the mere ‘struggle’ of finding a mosque with space for women lies the more challenging work of building a habit of making the mosque a frequent home and not just something to visit on occasion.
It is certainly true that it is not fard (obligatory) upon women to pray in a mosque or offer their prayers in a congregation. However, as any woman who has ever offered her Friday prayers in a lively congregation or even has a group of friends or colleagues with whom she has offered prayers will tell you, there is a spiritual sanctity in such moments. In many countries, the women’s areas in mosques are designed to keep women’s needs in mind – childcare, libraries, and so on. Yes, there is a clear material question and challenge at hand in India, where most mosques cannot afford to do these things. However, for those that can, there must be a concerted effort.
There is a debate about the need for a “third space” in urban sociology – a space individuals need beyond their domestic (home) and work for mutual interaction, community building, shaping ideas, and healthy socialisation. In a society where most so-called ‘third spaces’ for youth are nothing more than shopping complexes, bars or restaurants, and there is a significant lack of open areas such as parks and green areas, can mosques not be imagined in order to be healthy third spaces for prayer, relaxation, interaction, and community building?
Ramadan offers a vision of what the mosque can be for women and children. Far too often, the debate around women and mosques has revolved around the fiqh of it – can women enter? Is it better for women to offer their prayers at home? – and nothing else. There must be a vision beyond these questions. If we have established that women can indeed enter mosques – and do – then we need to go a step further and work on making mosques engaging places of worship and learning. Women’s libraries where women can take a key role in managing the space, taking part as readers, and guiding others to do the same is one important way to utilise the space beyond the five daily prayers.
Similarly, since most women attend the mosque only during the two Eids and taraweeh, and occasionally, Friday prayers, they have not been exposed to the many etiquettes and practices of praying in the congregation that men are attuned to right from their childhood. We constantly hear the refrain that children should be brought to the mosque to make them familiar with and expose them to their faith, but it is a fact that as many girls grow up, they effectively’ age out’ of the mosque after their teens and become unfamiliar with many things. Mosques can be a place for active learning on all matters of the faith. The practicalities of this have to be figured out on a case-to-case basis.
It is also important that the vicious cycle is broken – mosques figure that since most women do not need to pray in it and do not attend daily prayers, they do not need as much accommodation as those for whom it is mandatory, and women, sensing a lack of invitation and acceptance as well as societal beliefs about women’s prayer in mosques, do not frequently attend the mosque or think about its functioning. This cycle must be broken in order to make women fully engaged members of Muslim society. At a time when mosques are under serious threat from the actions of a bulldozing penal state, it becomes even more imperative that our mosques are treated as our own – by men, women, and children alike.
