First Female Mosque in Islamic History

[Chimera]

Gabiley,Somalia

 

Geographies of Muslim Women: Gender, Religion, and Space

 

question the state’s commitment to democratic freedoms. As with the women protestors described at the beginning of this Introduction, Secor’s interviewees speak of veiling not so much as a religious imperative, but as abasic human right that cannot be denied by the state. Yet the articulation of the headscarf as a human right belies complicated ideas about democracy at the heart of Islamist discourse. For the advocacy of the right to wear the headscarf in public is not necessarily accompanied by a more general desire to abolish regulatory regimes of public dress and behavior. Instead, formany of those participating in Secor’s study, the state’s views on headscarvesbecomes proof of the need to Islamicize the public sphere—precisely what the Turkish state and many secularists are seeking to avoid by exercising rigid control over public space. Abdi Ismail Samatar’s account of the formation of a women’s mosque in the Somali town of Gabiley presents a very different instance of the contestation of Islamic space. In the early 1960s, Samatar shows, the education of girls had become a topic of intense debate in Gabiley, as government efforts to promote girls’ education clashed with local discourses about girls’ natural role as future housewives. Into this fray in the 1970s stepped Sheikh Marian, a female Islamic scholar who brought religious education to local women—a prerequisite for entry into state schools. A women’s mosque was built under her leadership, but it continued to lack the support of local townsmen, even after it was damaged in the civil unrest of the 1980s. At the heart of the controversy over the women’s mosque, Samatar argues, has been a conflict over views of women’s rightful geographical place and their place within Islam. As Samatar notes, the women who built the mosque were not informed by Western feminist ideology or by anti-Islamic sentiment. Rather, “they felt that Islamic practice in this society un-duly restricted women’s opportunities to learn and interpret Islamic texts and traditions,” and the radicalism of this project lay in its questioning of the marginalization of women in local Islamic practice.

[Chimera]

excerpt from Abdi Samatar's work -Women's mosque in Gabiley

 

Discrimination against female secular education began to change in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Demand for girls’ secular education opened girls’ access to Islamic education. Girls’ knowledge of the Qur'an was a prerequisite for secular school admission. This generated mutuality between secular and Islamic education. One of the biggest obstacles to girls’ secular education was the lack of women Qur'anic teachers. A miracle brought Sheikh Marian Sheikh Ismail and her family to the town of Gabiley in the early 1960s. She established her own girls’ Qur'anic school, which immediately became popular. Sheikh Marian also joined the town women’s Sitaad centre, traditional women’s devotional space where they sang religious songs and discussed women’s concerns. These women decided to build Somalia’s first women’s mosque. The purpose of the mosque has been to create an autonomous women’s space for praying and for studying Islam. More women are knowledgeable about Islam in Gabiley as a result of this effort. It also generated debate between groups based on the women’s mosque and others who subscribe to a more purist version of the Islamic interpretation of women and of Islam.