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Muslim women win right to pray at Haji Ali Dargah
In a major victory, and after five long years of a battle that finally entered the courts, the Bharatiya Muslim Mahila Andolan (BMMA) has succeeded in regaining the right of women to pray at the Haji Ali Dargah in Mumbai.
New Delhi: In a major victory, and after five long years of a battle that finally entered the courts, the Bharatiya Muslim Mahila Andolan (BMMA) has succeeded in regaining the right of women to pray at the Haji Ali Dargah in Mumbai.
The Bombay High Court restored the right of Muslim women to pray at the shrine, but stayed the order for six weeks giving the Haji Ali Trust time to move the Supreme Court. Visibly happy, BMMA convenor Zakia Soman said, “We are not like them (trustees), we respect the law and democratic rights and yes they can go to the higher court in appeal. We too are confident that given its past rulings on the Sabarimala temple the Supreme Court will give us justice.”
The Bharatiya Muslim Mahila Andolan went on to the streets for the right to pray, after efforts to persuade the management of the shrine to give them access failed. As Zakia said, “We tried hard to resolve it, we wrote them letters, we sought meetings, and it was only after they refused to respond to all our efforts that we approached the courts.”
BMMA will now study the observations, wait for the apex court ruling as per the stay order. As Zakia said, “It is not as if women are going to rush to pray at the shrine, we will go of course when it is finally decided, but it is a major victory for us.”
“Well it has been a political fight, where we have used the Quranic argument to call these bearded Mullahs bluff,” Zakia said. “We pointed out that Muslim women have full rights to pray, with both women and men taking active part in Haj. On the other side, it is a patriarchal state and the effort by all these self-appointed custodians of religion has been to suppress women. We made it very clear that we are not going to accept this, and we have religious rights equal to that of the men,” she said.
This verdict, if upheld by the Supreme Court now, is expected to go a long way in strengthening Muslim women’s case against triple talaq and some parity in the personal laws. There has been considerable resistance to this with BMMA and Zakia Soman determined not to allow this suppression of women to continue. “What nonsense they (Mullahs) are all talking, this is not Islam. And Sufi Islam is even more empowered with love and respect for all, but these chaps like to make it an exclusive preserve,” she said.
