Women as prayer leader?

Daily Times, March 27, 2005
THE OTHER COLUMN: Leading ladies —Ejaz Haider

In the post-modern era, the brassieres, despite becoming bras, symbolise lack of female emancipation. Of course, if female emancipation is merely about going back to the state of nature that is fine by me

In the past few weeks we have read reports of how a lady by the name of Amina Wadud, an associate professor of Islamic Studies at Virginia Commonwealth University in the US, led the Friday prayers in an Anglican church.

The “orthodox” Muslims protested, but they don’t matter in the great ecumenism we are witnessing and which forms the response of inter-faith enthusiasts to Huntington’s clash of civilisations.

But it gets better. Now we hear that another enterprising lady, a certain Asra Nomani, is also threatening to lead the Friday prayers. Ms Nomani has impressive “Islamic” credentials but I would confine myself to the information that she is an about-to-be author of a book on women in Islam (yes, there are women in Islam and they need a voice). More power to her elbow, I say, or, now with Microsoft, we could turn the idiom around and say may she work her fingers to the bone in the great cause of Islamic enlightenment.

Of course, the faithful have gone into trepidation mode.

Is this “revolution” in Islam — women leading prayers — akin to the apocryphal tale about feminists in the United States burning their bras? I am reminded of that because I see a common denominator here: hit out at the patriarchal structures (I may be excused for employing post-modernist jargon).

(Aside: The only difference is that while bra-burning never happened (they just tossed them into the bin, perhaps), at least one woman in the history of Islam has actually led the Friday prayers and that too in a church!)

The funny thing is that at some point women thought wearing brassieres was symbolic of emancipation (I use the full word deliberately because at that time brassieres were a rather dull, full affair compared to the shortened form we have today and which, in its bewildering but almost always skimpy variety, is therefore appropriately called a bra). This period of emancipation-with-bra, of course, coincided with the era when women had to put up with constricting camisoles etc.

Today, in the post-modern era, the brassieres, despite becoming bras, symbolise lack of female emancipation. Of course, if female emancipation is merely about going back to the state of nature (which is what seems to me to be a logical extrapolation from this premise), that is fine by me. Indeed, if it did actually lead to emancipation, I might even have recommended it; in the same manner that I’d also stand up for female prayer leaders. But it doesn’t and so perhaps one needs to take another look at the leading ladies.

Since one woman has already led the prayers, there’s nothing radical about that any more. Others, who may wish to do so, should perhaps go the whole hog. How about leading prayers on special days since under the hated orthodoxy, there is a religious restriction on women to say their prayers and fast on the days they are menstruating? And if this be very radical, perhaps women desirous of leading prayers could undergo hysterectomy and fully qualify to lead prayers.

I am not being facetious. Here’s how I look at it. There are two ways to approach religion. You can either reject it or you can accept it. If it is the first, you don’t need to do antics like getting women to lead prayers because that is supposed to somehow get the edge off Islam. And you won’t need to do this because religion won’t be the reference point. On the other hand, you can’t accept religion piecemeal, cherry-pick what is acceptable and what is not.

There may be various exegeses of Islam, and many sects — and there are — but there are also areas where there is consensus, where there are rules that the faithful are expected to follow since they have been laid down. And let’s not argue about who laid down these rules because that must also apply across the board to those rules that are being accepted as much as to those that are to be rejected.

Deconstruction may be the fad but you can’t be a believer and then begin to deconstruct religion in ways that would turn it into a hodgepodge of post-modernist poppycock. It’s much better to not be a believer and to reject religion as a medieval concept. Is there a theological point, even as there may be enough (geo-) political expediency, to transform Islam into something that it is not and can never be?

And if it’s about un-reading and undoing the patriarchal structures, why can’t that be done by simply rejecting religion(s) since all of them — revealed and for the most part even natural — are patriarchal and for the simple reason that that is how societies have evolved. Religion is not like language which can be purged of man-words. It’s a holistic idea, at least for the believer. To do otherwise is a tad like the horrible cliché about having one’s cake and eating it too: remaining Muslims, practising Islam but in a way that is politically correct in the post-September 11 world. Whatever it is may be called by some other name but it is not Islam. I am not a practicing Muslim and haven’t prayed for several years. But if I were to pray, it’s not going to be in the iqtada of either Ms Wadud or Ms Nomani.

Ejaz Haider is News Editor of The Friday Times and Contributing Editor of Daily Times