Banning Women from Mecca: Saudi Arabia Ponders More Misogyny
As if Saudi Arabia weren't already misogynistic enough in its laws, culture, and religion, some officials are actually considering banning women from being allowed to say any of the five daily prayers (required by Islam) in the immediate vicinity of the Kaaba in Mecca. Some even claim that this policy has already been instituted on an unofficial basis. I wish I could say any of this were surprising.
Women in Saudi Arabia are naturally upset about this. They don't see this as an isolated, if annoying, move; instead they fear that this is a step in the direction of limiting women’s roles in Saudi society even further than it already is. When religious conservatives are faced with modernization and outside influences, retreating even further inward and becoming even more reactionary is a common response. Is that what's going on here?
The chief of the King Fahd Institute for Hajj Research, which came up with the plan, told The Associated Press Thursday that the new restrictions are already in place. There have been word-of-mouth reports of women being asked to pray at new locations away from the white-marbled area surrounding the Kaaba in recent weeks.
But Sheik Youssef Khzeim, deputy chief of the Presidency of the Two Holy Mosques Affairs, a Saudi government organization in charge of implementing the proposal, denied the reports, saying the old arrangements that allow women to pray in the Kaaba’s vicinity are still in effect. He said if any woman were asked to move to the back “it’s only to maintain order.”
Mecca is Islam’s holiest city and the Kaaba is Islam’s holiest shrine. All Muslims are expected to make a pilgrimage to the Kaaba at least once in their lives and most make the effort, despite the costs.
Non-Muslims are already forbidden from entering Mecca because it is believed that they would undermine the city’s religious purity. If women are banned from praying around the Kaaba, it would probably be based upon similar arguments: women are so impure that their very presence would be harmful to the Kaaba and/or to the religious purity of Muslim men in the vicinity. It’s thus not surprising why this would be so upsetting to women — it’s not so much like being sent to the back of the bus as being kicked off the bus lest they contaminate the rest of the riders.
Fortunately, women aren’t the only ones who are upset with this — some Muslim men reject it as well. “The prophet, who is the first leader of Muslims, didn’t do it,” said Mohsen al-Awajy, an Islamist lawyer and cleric. “Those who are proposing the change after him have to come up with legal justification for it.”
Al-Awajy urged the Saudi government to put an end to “such a rigid and austere mind-set that could become the core of a violent trend in the future.”
The Grand Mosque, where the Kaaba is located, is one of the few places where Muslim men and women can pray and worship publicly together.
[The ways of Islam are hard. The ways of dhimmitude are even harder. If this is how their own women are treated, just imagine what they'd do to the i-can-do-anything-better-than-you femdoms of the West. Better yet, don't imagine. Just keep sleeping while they overrun Western culture. Then see for yourself...up close and personal. - Martel]
As if Saudi Arabia weren't already misogynistic enough in its laws, culture, and religion, some officials are actually considering banning women from being allowed to say any of the five daily prayers (required by Islam) in the immediate vicinity of the Kaaba in Mecca. Some even claim that this policy has already been instituted on an unofficial basis. I wish I could say any of this were surprising.
Women in Saudi Arabia are naturally upset about this. They don't see this as an isolated, if annoying, move; instead they fear that this is a step in the direction of limiting women’s roles in Saudi society even further than it already is. When religious conservatives are faced with modernization and outside influences, retreating even further inward and becoming even more reactionary is a common response. Is that what's going on here?
The chief of the King Fahd Institute for Hajj Research, which came up with the plan, told The Associated Press Thursday that the new restrictions are already in place. There have been word-of-mouth reports of women being asked to pray at new locations away from the white-marbled area surrounding the Kaaba in recent weeks.
But Sheik Youssef Khzeim, deputy chief of the Presidency of the Two Holy Mosques Affairs, a Saudi government organization in charge of implementing the proposal, denied the reports, saying the old arrangements that allow women to pray in the Kaaba’s vicinity are still in effect. He said if any woman were asked to move to the back “it’s only to maintain order.”
Mecca is Islam’s holiest city and the Kaaba is Islam’s holiest shrine. All Muslims are expected to make a pilgrimage to the Kaaba at least once in their lives and most make the effort, despite the costs.
Non-Muslims are already forbidden from entering Mecca because it is believed that they would undermine the city’s religious purity. If women are banned from praying around the Kaaba, it would probably be based upon similar arguments: women are so impure that their very presence would be harmful to the Kaaba and/or to the religious purity of Muslim men in the vicinity. It’s thus not surprising why this would be so upsetting to women — it’s not so much like being sent to the back of the bus as being kicked off the bus lest they contaminate the rest of the riders.
Fortunately, women aren’t the only ones who are upset with this — some Muslim men reject it as well. “The prophet, who is the first leader of Muslims, didn’t do it,” said Mohsen al-Awajy, an Islamist lawyer and cleric. “Those who are proposing the change after him have to come up with legal justification for it.”
Al-Awajy urged the Saudi government to put an end to “such a rigid and austere mind-set that could become the core of a violent trend in the future.”
The Grand Mosque, where the Kaaba is located, is one of the few places where Muslim men and women can pray and worship publicly together.
[The ways of Islam are hard. The ways of dhimmitude are even harder. If this is how their own women are treated, just imagine what they'd do to the i-can-do-anything-better-than-you femdoms of the West. Better yet, don't imagine. Just keep sleeping while they overrun Western culture. Then see for yourself...up close and personal. - Martel]
