Daughters of Hajar

Mohammad Gill
Jun 5, 2007

It’s time to take the slam out of . (Asra Nomani, founder of the Daughters of Hajar)


Daughters of Hajar, (DOH), is a feminist movement led by Asra Q. Nomani, for in the Muslim world. that they seek is not confined only to social issues, it’s more comprehensive and includes the religious issues as well. The movement was initially fired by the demands for praying side by side with the men in the main hall in her mosque in Morgantown.

are usually allocated a separate section in mosques to pray. These segregated facilities are generally shabby, inadequate and uncomfortable, and kind of make-shift arrangements only. And they are not integral part of the main structure of the mosques. They are like an after-thought. They are sort of structural hijabs in which are compulsively required to hide.

Ms. Samina Ali who is one of the seven founding members of this organization has described such a facility in one mosque in which she prayed, “The prayer room for in the mosque was as bad as I have seen in other places. We had a small bedroom in the rear of the mosque where 50 of us would try to squeeze in, no air-conditioning, no air movement. The men had a large, open space upfront that was so big it never was filled to capacity. However, if some of the came out and tried to pray in that area, they were looked down upon. It was best to stay in the cage. And that is what they want: to keep in the cage. Now, through Daughters of Hajar, we are breaking those bars.” Similar experiences have been described by others also.

Although this kind of inequality is quite ubiquitous in the Muslim world and everyone seemed to have accepted it, Asra was motivated to do something about it after her hajj in 2003. According to washingtonpost.com (The Woman Who Went To the Front of the Mosque, June 5, 2005), “She (Asra) and her made a pilgrimage to Mecca. There, with 3-month-old Shibli strapped to her chest, she saw men and praying together, side by side, in the Masjad-al-Haram, the Sacred Mosque…And that’s where her problems with her mosque back home began.”

Asra Nomani claims her ancestral lineage from Maulana Shibli Nomani who was a distinguished scholar of in and is renowned for writing Seerat-al-Nabi among several other books. She was born in and moved to New Jersey with her elder brother when she was only four years old, where her father was working on his Ph.D. at Rutgers University. They moved to Morgantown, West Virginia, when her father obtained his Ph.D. and got his employment as a professor of Foods and Nutrition at West Virginia University.

She received her B.A. in Liberal Studies from West Virginia University and M.A. in International Communications from American University, Washington, D.C. She is a journalist and worked for Wall Street Journal as a reporter and has published articles and editorials in The Washington Post, The New York Times and several other newspapers and journals. She is now a free lancer. She has written two books, Tantrika: Traveling the Road of Divine and Standing Alone in Mecca: An American Woman’s Struggle for the Soul of . She has described her personal life-story in Standing Alone. She is a single unwed mother.

According to washingtonpost.com, “When she was 27, she left her long time , an American who offered to convert to , to marry a Pakistani woman who lived in Washington. They wed in a traditional Muslim ceremony that took place over days in . The lasted three months..”

She again fell in with a Pakistani in where she went on an assignment to cover the on terror for Salon. She became pregnant as a consequence of her affair which did not materialize in . When she told her lover about her pregnancy, he, as it happens quite so often, abandoned her, advising to get an abortion. On October 16, 2002, she gave birth to her son whom she named Shibli Daneel Nomani. The middle name honored Daniel Pearl who was a friend, colleague and a journalist with Wall Street Journal. He was kidnapped and killed in by a terrorist outfit under a shadow of his implication with Israel.

Hajar was Prophet Abraham’s wife and the mother of Ismael. Abraham took them to Mecca (at the site of the Masjad-al-Haram) and abandoned them there (at Allah’s command?). Identifying herself with Hajar, Asra chose to call her organization “Daughters of Hajar.” In her own words, “Daughters of Hajar came together behind the spirit of Hajar, or Hagar in Biblical and Jewish histories, a strong-willed woman who was the historical mother of . It is dedicated to the empowerment of Muslim and girls. As part of a broader agenda, the organization laid the groundwork for a national ‘Take Back Your Mosque’ campaign with a mosque bill of for .”

Other six who are the founding members of DOH are: Nabeelah Abdul-Ghafur, a community leader and a poet; her daughter, Saleemah Abdul-Ghafur; Samina Ali, the renowned author of the novel “Madras on Rainy Days”; Sarah Eltantawi; Mohja Kahf, a professor of and an author; and Sajida Nomani, Asra’s mother.

Asra’s struggle for gaining began at her mosque in Morgantown where she was denied entry into the mosque from the front door. She expressed her frustration by saying, “I can interview the Taliban but I can’t walk through the front door.” According to the Associated Press (A Muslim woman breaks a taboo – the search for in mosques, January 25, 2004), “About three months ago, Nomani, her mother and her 12-year-old niece rejected the ’s entrance for the front door. Once inside, the chose not to pray in a balcony built for in the rear of the mosque – where the main prayer space cannot be seen. Instead, they began praying under the same vaulted ceiling as the men – but several feet behind them. The men interrupted the start of taraweeh prayer..” A man told them they couldn’t pray until she left. They asked her to leave but she refused and the battle lines were drawn. The battle for began earnestly at that moment.

It is not easy to change the old traditions; change usually takes long time and sometime the eternity. It was reported in The Associated Press (January 25, 2004), “Despite the protests, Ms. Asra has entered the mosque through the front door and prayed in the main hall about 30 times. But only four other have joined her, one being a relation. She said during the days of Ramzan this year (2004), she tried to accept the status quo, entering the mosque through the rear entrance, praying upstairs in the ’s section and listening to sermons addressed to ‘brothers’.”

The logjam was broken on March 18, 2005. According to boston.com (March 19, 2005), “With a heavy police presence keeping about a dozen protestors at bay, a woman went against hundreds of years of Islamic tradition by leading a prayer service yesterday where Muslim men and sat together and worshiped inside an Upper Westside Episcopal church. Speaking in soft tones, Amina Wadud, a professor of Islamic studies at Virginia Commonwealth University, led a 90-minute service at the hall of Synod House at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, an Episcopalian church on 110th Street. ..About 100 people attended the service, half of them .”

The event was sponsored by the Muslim ’s Freedom Tour with help from MuslimsWakeUp.com. Asra Nomani was the founder of the Freedom Tour. The event was received with mixed feelings. One of the placards of the protestors against the Tour read, “Mix prayer today. Hell fire tomorrow.” A 25-year-old Pakistani-American, Omar Haque, said, “I think it’s a long time coming…It sent a message to the many Muslims who felt their message had been represented” He said he particularly liked the fact that Wadud, who is African-American, used ‘he’ and ‘she’ in the service to describe Allah.

Again, according to boston.com, “Sheik Sayed Tantawi of Cairo’s Al-Azhar mosque, one of the world’s top Islamic institutions said permits to lead other in prayer but not a congregation with men in it…A woman’s body is private - when she leads men in prayer, in this situation, it’s not proper to look at the woman whose body is in front of them. Even if they see it in their daily life, it shouldn’t be in situation of worship, where the main point is humility and modest.”

In the context of day-to-day life, Samina Ali, one of the founders of DOH, wrote in her novel “Madras on Rainy Days,” “I always knew I had to do these things because man, as said, was the weaker sex, so it was my responsibility to keep him from becoming aroused.” Reference to ‘these things’ is to correct behavior specified for the – covering hair, hiding legs, draping a scarf to conceal the curves of the breasts, etc. Poor Muslim men!

This indeed is the raison d’etre of hijab, separation of sexes, and our general way of life.

In addition to her search and her efforts for the attainment of in the mosques, Asra attempted to revolutionize the Muslim world by posting her bills of for the Muslim . She formulated The Islamic Bill of for in the Mosque (see footnote no.1) and The Islamic Bill of for in the Bedroom (see footnote no.2). She also presented the 99 Precepts for Opening Hearts, Minds and Doors in the Muslim world to make a progressive in the modern times. This formulation follows essentially the format in which 99 attributes of Allah are described in the Quran.

While this effort may seem laudable for its own sake, it definitely appears to be an “overkill,” particularly at a time when even her bills of seem somewhat premature if not naïve, and uncertain of formal implementation in practical life. It is immature to make personal and private matters so formal and definitive. Also, some of her demands in her bill of in the bedroom are completely ridiculous. For example, in her Bill of for in the Bedroom, she asserts, “ have an Islamic right to exemption from criminalization or punishment to consensual sex.” Any sex outside , for both men and , is not Islamic. Yet the Muslim men and do indulge in sex outside but not as a matter of right. Such acts are usually hidden and discreet. This is hypocritical but this is how it is. Religions are mostly hypocritical. The hudood laws are extreme and inhuman but sexual promiscuity is not Islamic either. Her other assertions are also extreme. Unfortunately, she is trying to have it both ways; she wants freedom which , or any for that matter, doesn’t accord and still wants to remain a Muslim. No matter how hard one can try to reinterpret the , sex outside is not sanctioned. It is better for her and the DOH to leave such tenuous issues alone and concentrate on seeking in other matters, which is attainable.

Regarding another demand for “respectful and pleasurable sexual experience,” one’s own initiative and inventiveness should play a more significant role in such matters. On the other hand, these bills of and the Precepts do arguably make the basic DOH agenda too heavy and unwieldy. For this reason, Asra has her ardent supporters on one hand and on the other, the inveterate orthodox opponents.

According to the washingtonpost.com (June 5, 2005), “It was two days after she appeared on ‘Nightline’ talking about her fight to change the mosque that the threats began. The first call came on her cell phone. The caller left a message in Urdu: ‘If you want to stay alive, keep your mouth shut. Otherwise, he said, he would slaughter her, halal style, saying a prayer as he slid a knife across her throat. If she didn’t shut up, he’d slaughter her mother and her father too. Think before you speak, he said. I know where you live. I know where your parents live.” This was quite a chilling threat. This may have rattled Nomani temporarily but it did not deter her from her mission. She stood her grounds and continued her work.

Reza Aslan, a religious scholar and an author, on the other hand, applauded her work, He said, “What she has done is perfectly in line with Islamic , tradition, and the prophet’s own desire to have men and working side by side, praying side by side, and even fighting side by side.” However, several of her supporters are diffident of her enlarged and provocative agenda. For example, Samina Ali, a notable founder member of the DOH, observed obliquely to Amar Deep Singh in an interview, “While she was proud of her involvement in the protest in Morgantown, she said she decided to take a step back from the organization after it seemed to have been hijacked by the interests of the right wing voices of the American . So when Amina Wadud led prayers at a Mosque in New York City three weeks ago – again getting major press attention – Ali deliberately decided not to be involved.”


Notes

1. Bill of for the Muslim in the Mosque

1. have an Islamic right to enter a mosque.
2. have an Islamic right to enter through the main door.
3. have an Islamic right to visual and auditory access to the musalla (the main sanctuary).
4. have an Islamic right to pray in the musalla without being separated by a barrier, including in the front and in mixed- congregational lines.
5. have an Islamic right to address any and all members of the congregation.
6. have an Islamic right to hold leadership positions, including positions as prayer leaders and as members of the board of directors and management committees.
7. have an Islamic right to be full participants in all congregational activities.
8. have an Islamic right to lead and participate in meetings, study sessions, and other community activities without being separated by a barrier.
9. have an Islamic right to be greeted and addressed cordially. 10. have an Islamic right to receive respectful treatment and exemption from gossip and slander.
2. Bill of for the Muslim in the Bedroom
1. have an Islamic right to respectful and pleasurable sexual
experience.
2. have an Islamic right to make independent decisions about
their bodies, including the right to say no to sex.
3. have an Islamic right to make independent decisions about
their partner, including the right to say no to a husband marrying
a second wife.
4. have an Islamic right to make independent decisions about
their choice of a partner.
5. have an Islamic right to make independent decisions about
contraception and reproduction.
6. have an Islamic right to protection from physical, emotional,
and sexual abuse.
7. have an Islamic right to sexual privacy
8. have an Islamic right to exemption from criminalization or
punishment for consensual adult sex.
9. have an Islamic right to exemption from gossip and slander. 10. have an Islamic right to sexual care and sex
.