A Woman’s
Reflection on Leading Prayer
By Yasmin Mogahed
“Given my privilege
as a woman, I only degrade myself by trying to
be something I’m not - and in all honesty
- don’t want to be: a man. As women, we
will never reach true liberation until we stop
trying to mimic men, and value the beauty in our
own God-given distinctiveness.”
On March 18, 2005 Amina Wadud led the first female-led
Jumuah (Friday) prayer. On that day women took
a huge step towards being more like men. But,
did we come closer to actualizing our God-given
liberation? I don’t think so.
What we so often forget is that God has honored
the woman by giving her value in relation to God
- not in relation to men. But as western feminism
erases God from the scene, there is no standard
left-but men. As a result the western feminist
is forced to find her value in relation to a man.
And in so doing she has accepted a faulty assumption.
She has accepted that man is the standard, and
thus a woman can never be a full human being until
she becomes just like a man - the standard.
When a man cut his hair short, she wanted to cut
her hair short. When a man joined the army, she
wanted to join the army. She wanted these things
for no other reason than because the “standard”
had it.
What she didn’t recognize was that God dignifies
both men and women in their distinctiveness -
not their sameness. And on March 18, Muslim women
made the very same mistake.
For 1400 years there has been a consensus of the
scholars that men are to lead prayer. As a Muslim
woman, why does this matter? The one who leads
prayer is not spiritually superior in any way.
Something is not better just because a man does
it. And leading prayer is not better, just because
it’s leading. Had it been the role of women
or had it been more divine, why wouldn’t
the Prophet have asked Ayesha or Khadija, or Fatima
- the greatest women of all time - to lead? These
women were promised heaven-and yet they never
lead prayer.
But now for the first time in 1400 years, we look
at a man leading prayer and we think, “That’s
not fair.” We think so although God has
given no special privilege to the one who leads.
The imam is no higher in the eyes of God than
the one who prays behind.
On the other hand, only a woman can be a mother.
And God has given special privilege to a mother.
The Prophet taught us that heaven lies at the
feet of mothers. But no matter what a man does
he can never be a mother. So why is that not unfair?
When asked who is most deserving of our kind treatment,
the Prophet replied, ‘Your mother’
three times before saying ‘your father’
only once. Isn’t that sexist? No matter
what a man does he will never be able to have
the status of a mother.
And yet even when God honors us with something
uniquely feminine, we are too busy trying to find
our worth in reference to men, to value it - or
even notice. We too have accepted men as the standard;
so anything uniquely feminine is, by definition,
inferior. Being sensitive is an insult, becoming
a mother - a degradation. In the battle between
stoic rationality (considered masculine) and selfless
compassion (considered feminine), rationality
reigns supreme. As soon as we accept that everything
a man has and does is better, all that follows
is just a knee-jerk reaction: if men have it -
we want it too. If men pray in the front rows,
we assume this is better, so we want to pray in
the front rows too. If men lead prayer, we assume
the imam is closer to God, so we want to lead
prayer too. Somewhere along the line we’ve
accepted the notion that having a position of
worldly leadership is some indication of one’s
position with God.
A Muslim woman does not need to degrade herself
in this way. She has God as a standard. She has
God to give her value; she doesn’t need
a man.
In fact, in our crusade to follow men, we, as
women, never even stopped to examine the possibility
that what we have is better for us. In some cases
we even gave up what was higher only to be like
men.
Fifty years ago, society told us that men were
superior because they left the home to work in
factories. We were mothers. And yet, we were told
that it was women’s liberation to abandon
the raising of another human being in order to
work on a machine. We accepted that working in
a factory was superior to raising the foundation
of society-just because a man did it.
Then after working, we were expected to be superhuman
- the perfect mother, the perfect wife, the perfect
homemaker-and have the perfect career. And while
there is nothing wrong, by definition, with a
woman having a career, we soon came to realize
what we had sacrificed by blindly mimicking men.
We watched as our children became strangers and
soon recognized the privilege we’d given
up.
And so only now - given the choice - women in
the West are choosing to stay home to raise their
children. According to the United States of America
Department of Agriculture, only 31 percent of
mothers with babies, and 18 percent of mothers
with two or more children, are working full-time.
And of those working mothers, a survey conducted
by Parenting Magazine in 2000, found that 93%
of them say they would rather be home with their
kids, but are compelled to work due to ‘financial
obligations’. These ‘obligations’
are imposed on women by the gender sameness of
the modern West, and removed from women by the
gender distinctiveness of Islam. It took women
in the West almost a century of experimentation
to realize a privilege given to Muslim women 1400
years ago.
Given my privilege as a woman, I only degrade
myself by trying to be something I’m not
- and in all honesty - don’t want to be:
a man. As women, we will never reach true liberation
until we stop trying to mimic men, and value the
beauty in our own God-given distinctiveness.
If given a choice between stoic justice and compassion,
I choose compassion. And if given a choice between
worldly leadership and heaven at my feet - I choose
heaven.
Source: By courtesy & C 2005 Yasmin Mogahed
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