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Saudi clerics want to restrict women praying at Mecca

Aug 29, 2006 12:00 pm By Marisol Seibold

From Reuters:

RIYADH (Reuters) – Saudi clerics want to impose restrictions on women praying at Islam’s holiest shrine in Mecca, one of the few places where male and female worshippers can intermingle.

But women activists in Saudi Arabia, the birthplace of the religion where a strict version of Islam is state orthodoxy, say the idea is discriminatory and have vowed to oppose it.

At present, women can pray in the immediate vicinity of the Kaaba, a cube-shaped structure inside the mosque which pilgrims walk around seven times during the haj pilgrimage according to ancient rites established by Prophet Mohammad.

Plans by the all-male committee overseeing the holy sites would place women in a distant section of the mosque while men would still be able to pray in the key space.

“The area is very small and so crowded. So we decided to get women out of the ‘sahn’ (Kaaba area) to a better place where they can see the Kaaba and have more space,” said Osama al-Bar, head of the Institute for Haj Research.

“Some women thought it wasn’t good, but from our point of view it will be better for them … We can sit with them and explain to them what the decision is (about),” he said. The decision is not final and could be reversed, he added.

Pushing and shoving is common in the tight space around the Kaaba where thousands of pilgrims crowd during the haj season.

The plans are likely to provoke a furore among Muslim women in countries whose Islamic traditions are more liberal than Saudi Arabia.

Ordinary Muslims say it as a basic right to be able to pray as close as possible to the Kaaba which Islam regards as the place where God’s presence is most felt on Earth. It is towards the Kaaba that Muslims around the world turn when praying.

“Both men and women have the right to pray in the ‘House of God’. Men have no right to take it away,” said Suhaila Hammad, Saudi woman member of a body of world Muslim scholars.

“Men and women mix when they circumambulate the Kaaba, so do they want to make us do that somewhere else too?” she asked. “This is discrimination against women.”

Nothing new. For example, Bukhari 001.006.301:

Once Allah’s Apostle went out to the Musalla (to offer the prayer) o ‘Id-al-Adha or Al-Fitr prayer. Then he passed by the women and said, “O women! Give alms, as I have seen that the majority of the dwellers of Hell-fire were you (women).” They asked, “Why is it so, O Allah’s Apostle ?” He replied, “You curse
frequently and are ungrateful to your husbands. I have not seen anyone more deficient in intelligence and religion than you. A cautious sensible man could be led astray by some of you.” The women asked, “O Allah’s Apostle! What is deficient in our intelligence and
religion?” He said, “Is not the evidence of two women equal to the witness of one man?” They replied in the affirmative. He said, “This is the deficiency in her intelligence. Isn’t it true that a woman can neither pray nor fast during her menses?” The women replied in the affirmative. He said, “This is the deficiency in her religion.”

Surely this contributes to the rationale for freeing up space that would otherwise be taken up by women in the heart of the Grand Mosque.

The Grand Mosque is one of the few places where men and women can pray together in Islam although technically there are separate spaces for each gender throughout the vast complex.

Religious police charged with imposing order according to Saudi Arabia’s austere Wahhabi brand of Islam often harass women who decide to pray outside the prescribed areas.

Historian Hatoun al-Fassi said the move to restrict women’s prayer in the mosque would be a first in Islamic history.

“Perhaps they want women to disappear from any public prayer area and when it comes to the holy mosques that’s their ultimate aim,” she said, adding the religious authorities recently restricted women’s access at the Prophet’s tomb in Medina.

Perhaps.

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