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will women be allowed to attend the trophy mosque?...or will they have to enter with the children through a small hatch in a back alley and worship in the basement with the livestock?
Police remove Muslim women from US mosque for breaking segregation rules
Police were called by an imam conducting a rug-butting session attended by around 20 men after Fatima Thompson, a convert to Islam, entered the male-only area with five “progressive” supporters.
The imam interrupted prayers to announce by microphone:
We are going to wait, because some people came to disturb the prayer, until the police come and take care of this issue.
Within minutes, three police officers arrived and told the women to leave or face arrest.
Washington police enforcing sharia law? Who woulda thunk it?
Thompson, who converted to Islam 18 years ago, said:
Wooden barriers have to be taken down and women have to be allowed to join, to pray behind the men in the main praying area. That’s our request.
She added:
We are against gender segregation, against the fact that women are put aside or in a totally different room at the mosque.
The Sunday protest was the second time women have sought to share the main prayer area at the mosque in Washington DC, after a group of women first tried in February.
Thompson said.
The general issue we are pushing is gender segregation and the ramifications it fosters. It’s not healthy, and not reflective of our society here. It’s very reflective of very restrictive, ultra orthodox societies.
Their hair covered with headscarves, the group entered the mosque’s prayer area via the main door usually reserved for men. Women and children ordinarily enter the Washington mosque, located in the city’s embassy district, through a small door hidden behind a screen.
Asra Nomani, a Muslim feminist who has participated in similar protests elsewhere in the United States, said:
If you are black in this country they can’t tell you to sit in a corner but if you are a woman they can.
The source of contention, according to Bare Naked Islam, is a small room created with seven foot high wooden walls. Jannah B’int Hannah describes how she feels in there where she cannot see the imam, or leader of the mosque, speak.
Boxed in, stifling, suffocating and totally a second class citizen.
Last month, Hannah and approximately 20 other women entered the main hall to pray, but D C police were called. They asked them to leave or be arrested.
Syed Burmi, the imam of Islamic Society of Western Maryland, says the physical separation helps maintain women’s privacy and modesty as well as keeps the focus on prayer.
"If I stand next to a lady or a woman stands next to me, maybe the focus will change and no longer be on God the Almighty. So that’s why we put the partition".
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