RE: Women Fights for Equality in W.VA Mosque

Salaam,
I submitted this woman's story to the yahoo group I run - and believe me 
there are a lot of people who hate what she did.  Sad, really.  The other 
thing is - she has an illegitimate child - so most segregation freaks judge 
her by this alone.
Personally - I think its great.  I wont pray in a segregated mosque.

Wa'salaam
aisha


>From: [email protected]
>Reply-To: [email protected]
>To: [email protected]
>Subject: [Progressivemuslimsnetwork] Women Fights for Equality in W.VA 
>Mosque
>Date: Tue, 27 Jan 2004 13:52:18 EST
>
>Woman Fights for Equality in W.Va. Mosque
>
>Sun Jan 25,11:13 PM ET
>         Add U.S. National - AP to My Yahoo!
>
>
>
>MORGANTOWN, W.Va. - For three months, Asra Nomani has been defying 
>convention
>at the mosque she attends — by walking through the front door.
>
>      
>
>
>Nomani, a journalist who has written for the Wall Street Journal and The
>Washington Post, is trying to change a rule that women should enter the 
>Morgantown
>mosque through a side staircase and pray separately from the men. A growing
>number of mosques have such rules.
>
>
>
>"I can interview the Taliban," said Nomani, 38, "but I can't walk through 
>the
>front door of my mosque."
>
>
>
>Before ever approaching the front door, Nomani asked the mosque's board of
>trustees for equal access for women. But when she later went to the mosque, 
>the
>board president stood at the front door and said, "Sister, please, the back
>entrance," Nomani noted in a discrimination complaint she filed with the 
>Council
>on American-Islamic Relations.
>
>
>
>About three months ago, Nomani, her mother and her 12-year-old niece 
>rejected
>the women's entrance for the front door.
>
>
>
>Once inside, the women chose not to pray in a balcony built for women in 
>the
>rear of the mosque — where the main prayer space cannot be seen. Instead, 
>they
>began praying under the same vaulted, sunny ceiling as the men — but 
>several
>feet behind them.
>
>
>
>"The men interrupted the start of 'taraweeh' prayer," Nomani recalled in 
>the
>discrimination complaint. "A man said, `We cannot pray until she leaves.' A
>group of men told my father to tell me to leave. He said he would not.
>
>
>
>"Four men assembled around me and told me to leave. Two men took positions
>directly behind me and started to pray. One of the men assembled around me 
>asked
>in an intimidating way whether I wanted to remain with these men behind me.
>Another man poked his finger at me and spoke to me in a threatening way. I
>remained."
>
>
>
>Nomani and her father, Zafar, a professor emeritus of nutrition at West
>Virginia University, mosque founder and current board member, recently 
>filed a
>police complaint saying that one man in the congregation yelled at her, 
>called
>Zafar Nomani an idiot and waved his arms at them before other members of 
>the
>congregation restrained him.
>
>
>
>"If women are not treated with respect and dignity in our mosques, we have
>failed," Zafar Nomani said. "I am concerned not only about women but the 
>second
>generation of immigrant children growing up in America."
>
>
>
>Asad Khan, acting president of the mosque's board, said a meeting on the
>issue will be held soon but declined further comment until after the 
>meeting.
>
>
>
>Morgantown's mosque is among a growing number of U.S. mosques that put 
>women
>behind a partition or in another room to pray. In 1994, 52 percent of 
>mosques
>had such a practice, but that rose to 66 percent in 2000, according to the
>Council on American-Islamic Relations.
>
>
>
>The world's holiest mosque — in Mecca — allows women and men to pray
>together, said Nomani, who has prayed there. She was born in India and 
>lived in New
>Jersey before moving to West Virginia.
>
>
>
>
>

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