{"id":2037,"date":"2010-12-23T11:20:53","date_gmt":"2010-12-23T07:20:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/?p=2037"},"modified":"2010-12-23T15:11:53","modified_gmt":"2010-12-23T11:11:53","slug":"a-woman%e2%80%99s-reflection-on-leading-prayer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/middle-east-society\/religion-in-the-middle-east\/a-woman%e2%80%99s-reflection-on-leading-prayer\/","title":{"rendered":"A Woman\u2019s Reflection on Leading Prayer"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

On March 18, 2005, Amina Wadud (pictured above) led the first female-led\u00a0jum`ah<\/em> (Friday) prayer.\u00a0 On that day, women took a huge step towards being more like men. But did we come closer to actualizing our God-given liberation?<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t think so.<\/em><\/p>\n

What we so often forget is that God has honored the woman by giving her value in relation to God\u2014not in relation to men. But as Western feminism erases God from the scene, there is no standard left\u2014except 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.<\/p>\n

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 \u201cstandard\u201d had it.<\/p>\n

What she didn\u2019t recognize was that God dignifies both men and women in their distinctiveness \u2013 not their sameness. And on March 18, Muslim women made the very same mistake.<\/p>\n

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\u2019s leading. Had it been the role of women or had it been more divine, why wouldn\u2019t the Prophet have asked Ayesha or Khadija, or Fatima\u2014the greatest women of all time\u2014to lead? These women were promised heaven\u2014and yet they never led prayer.<\/p>\n

But now, for the first time in 1400 years, we look at a man leading prayer and we think, \u201cThat\u2019s not fair.\u201d We think so although God has given no special privilege to the one who leads. The\u00a0imam<\/em> is no higher in the eyes of God than the one who prays behind.<\/p>\n

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?<\/p>\n

When asked, \u201cWho is most deserving of our kind treatment?\u201d the Prophet\u00a0 replied, \u201cYour mother\u201d three times before saying \u201cyour father\u201d only once. Is that sexist? No matter what a man does he will never be able to have the status of a mother.<\/p>\n

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\u2014or 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\u2014a degradation. In the battle between stoic rationality (considered masculine) and selfless compassion (considered feminine), rationality reigns supreme.<\/p>\n

As soon as we accept that everything a man has and does is better, all that follows is 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\u00a0imam<\/em> is closer to God, so we want to lead prayer too. Somewhere along the line we\u2019ve accepted the notion that having a position of worldly leadership is some indication of one\u2019s position with God.<\/p>\n

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\u2019t need a man.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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\u2019s 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\u2014just because a man did it.<\/p>\n

Then, after working, we were expected to be superhuman\u2014the perfect mother, the perfect wife, the perfect homemaker\u2014and 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\u2019d given up.<\/p>\n

And so only now\u2014given the choice\u2014women in the West are choosing to stay home to raise their children. According to the United States 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 at home with their kids, but are compelled to work due to \u2018financial obligations.\u2019 These \u2018obligations\u2019 are imposed on women by the gender sameness of the modern West, and removed from women by the gender distinctiveness of Islam.<\/p>\n

It took women in the West almost a century of experimentation to realize a privilege given to Muslim women 1400 years ago.<\/p>\n

Given my privilege as a woman, I only degrade myself by trying to be something I\u2019m not \u2013 and in all honesty \u2013 don\u2019t 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.<\/p>\n

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\u2014I choose heaven.<\/p>\n

This article comes courtesy of SuhaiWebb.com,\u00a0 a site is dedicated to enhancing the spiritual and religious development of Muslims through sound, balanced & moderate Islamic teachings.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

YASMIN MOGAHED: As soon as we accept that everything a man has and does is better, all that follows is a knee-jerk reaction: if men have it, we want it too. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":20,"featured_media":2039,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[154,73],"tags":[3293,982,109,223],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2037"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/20"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2037"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2037\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2039"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2037"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2037"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2037"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}