Women’s Mosque Opens In L.A. With A Vision For The Future Of Muslim-American Leadership

The Women’s Mosque of America non-stop a doors on Friday in executive Los Angeles, welcoming a throng of Muslim women from around a country.

L.A.-based professionals M. Hasna Maznavi and Sana Muttalib offer as boss and co-president of a mosque’s board, respectively, and have worked with a rest of their organisation for months to move a plan to fruition. By day, Maznavi is a filmmaker and comedy writer, while Muttalib works as an attorney. They teamed adult with a Pico Union Projectheld a initial juma’a

The Women’s Mosque is creation a entrance during a time when many American Muslims are doubt a traditions and norms they grew adult with. The Chicago-based author Hind Makki started a website in 2012 called “Side Entrancestold NPR

“They only had no thought that this was rather standard of women’s practice during a mosque — that we go to a mosque and we don’t see a dome; we don’t see a imam, certainly; we don’t see a design — we see a vast wall in front of you,” she said.

The Women’s Mosque tackles that emanate head-on.

“The presentation of a female-only mosque is a healthy outcome of a enlightenment of womanlike ostracism in mosques opposite a country,” Makki told The Huffington Post by email. “A female-only mosque empowers women to take tenure of eremite grant and spirituality in a protected and welcoming space.”

HuffPost spoke with Maznavi and Muttalib about a routine of opening a women’s-only mosque and what they see as a destiny of Muslim care in a U.S. Their answers were created and edited jointly solely where remarkable otherwise.

Why, in your opinion, is a women’s mosque necessary?

We trust that a Women’s Mosque of America can play an critical purpose in strengthening a Muslim village during vast by augmenting women’s entrance to Islamic knowledge, enlivening womanlike appearance in existent mosques and fostering Islamic care and grant — both within and outward of a Muslim community. The Women’s Mosque of America seeks to yield an atmosphere in that Muslim women are surrounded by their peers and feel gentle exploring some-more active care roles in a protected space.

What practice in your possess eremite life led we to embark on a project?

Muttalib

Maznavi

What has a routine been like? Have we encountered roadblocks?

We were means to secure a venue by substantiating a bargain partnership with a Pico Union Project in Los Angeles — a pleasing multifaith synagogue that hosts 6 opposite eremite groups, including Christians, Jews and now Muslims. We are respected to be a initial Muslim organisation to join this smashing multifaith bid toward assent and bargain between a Abrahamic faiths.

Though a formulation routine has been a mostly certain one, a primary roadblock we face is that of securing supports to cover a operational costs. At a moment, a Women’s Mosque of America is a volunteer-run classification that depends on a goodwill of a volunteers and a inexhaustible contributions of supporters and congregants. Our wish is that we will be means to secure sufficient appropriation that will concede us to enhance a programming.

What feedback have we gotten from group in your eremite communities?

We have perceived countless messages from group who have voiced that they are eager about a judgment and are enlivening their mothers, sisters, wives, womanlike friends and daughters to attend a initial Friday request service. Specifically, we have listened from a series of immature fathers who have told us they are beholden that their daughters can one day attend in a space like ours.

We also have dual masculine house members who were so bargain about this thought that they privately wanted to turn involved. One of them is a new father to a baby lady and wants her to grow adult in a universe where she has entrance to a space privately designed to rise her nearness to God.

What elements of a new mosque are we many vehement about?

We are many vehement by a fact that a lady speaker, or khateeba, will be means to residence women’s issues and concerns from a womanlike viewpoint and with an all-female congregation. In many existent mosques, women do not mostly get a possibility to entrance a masculine imam for questions or discussions after prayer, since he is in a men’s territory and is untouched until a after time. The judgment behind a post-juma’a review is to serve promote suggestive conversations between a congregants and a khateeba, and to boost women’s entrance to prolific sermon relating to faith and to Islamic scholars who can answer their questions and pronounce to their concerns.

How do we prognosticate a destiny of Muslim care in America?

We prognosticate a destiny in that any Muslim discussion is filled with equal numbers of womanlike and masculine Muslim speakers and eremite authorities, in that any mosque in America has an equal series of Muslim women and group on their board, and in that any mosque has full assemblage by their whole congregant bottom since of a improvements they’ve done in creation their mosques some-more thorough and mouth-watering for women. We also wish masculine imams will boost their entrance and accessibility to their womanlike congregants — quite after juma’a request is over — and that they will work with women in their congregations and on their play in a formulation routine when conceptualizing a design and seating structure in their mosques.

This talk has been edited for length and clarity.

Article source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/01/30/womens-mosque-los-angeles_n_6572388.html?utm_hp_ref=los-angeles&ir=Los+Angeles