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Why We Must Recapture Scholarly Discourse from Extreme Bloggers | ImanWire almadinainstitute.org/blog/why-we-mu…
There is a very interesting story in the footnotes that highlights why I started @SideEntrance years ago & the importance of experiential learning that men often need to undertake before they become loyal allies of women as the Quran tells them to be.
Mufti Abdur Rahman Aazmi relates that he once wrote a detailed fatwa (legal opinion) that in general women should not be encouraged to come regularly to the mosque for prayers. Then, he visited Muradabad with his wife and guess what happened?
They go to a mosque to offer the obligatory fajr prayer. Though the mosque's communal prayer had ended, the muadhin prevented the Mufti's wife from entering the mosque. The mufti said, "we are traveling and she needs to pray." Guess what the muadhin said?
The muadhin told the mufti, "I have the fatwa of Mufti Abdur Rahman Azmi and he said women cannot enter the mosque!" His visitor tells him "I AM Mufti Abdur Rahman Azmi!" at which point the muadhin took the wife inside to pray.
The Mufti says, after this incident, it occured to him that when he writes similar fatwas in the future, he should specify that mosques must have designated spaces for women to pray. What can we learn about his relaying of this incident?
Some Muslim men - around whose normative experiences too many of our mosques are built - need to physically experience the barriers many mosques deploy that prevent Muslim women from offering their obligatory worship to God in God's house in order to realize that a problem exists
Religious scholars should have a diverse group of advisors, or people they talk with on a regular basis. Having a broad understanding of the diverse experiences of Islam will lead to more precise, thorough, and helpful religious discourse and legal opinions for everyone.
Women's experiences in mosques and with certain aspects of the faith ARE different than men's, so if you're a male scholar and you don't have female scholars in your orbit, and aren't reaching out to the women in your family/community, your teaching of the faith is incomplete.
It would be great if men would just believe us and take us at our word, but sometimes they need to physically experience the outcome of sexism to start to shift their views. That's why I started @SideEntrance - a visual representation of women's prayer experiences in mosques.
Allah SWT tells us in the Quran that the believing men and the believing women are "awliyaa" - loyal ally/protectors - of one another and we should enjoin the good & forbid the evil, establish prayers ... (9:71)
But for too many of our Muslim men, reading this in the Quran doesn't sink in. Hearing from women about the barriers placed on us by men who create spaces that cater to their normative faith experiences doesn't sink in. Only when they experience alienation do they get on board.
That is bc people who have privilege assume 1) their experiences are normative 2) anyone challenging the status quo is a nihilist or acting in bad faith (no pun intended) 3) Don't realize they have blinders on, much less have the ability to remove them.
May Allah SWT help them remove their blinders and help them become true awliya of the believing women. Ameen. Having said all this about one footnote (😂) - do read the article. It's an excellent commentary on the dangers of self-appointed spokesbloggers and an important read.
