Going Backwards: How the Venerable Al-Azhar Is Shutting Women Out

Photo by Martin Wierzbicki

By Safiyya A.

It was more than two years ago since I first stepped into the 9th century mosque of Al-Azhar in Cairo, Egypt. Al-Azhar has been the center for learning in the Islamic world ever since its establishment and today Muslims from around the world flock to the university and thousands of visitors visit the mosque everyday. Just outside of the mosque are numerous beggar women, merchants selling the Qur’anic verses written in gold thread on black velvet, a juice store offering cold hibiscus and tamarind juice, in addition to a butcher, a cobbler, and others. Tens of people mill in front of Al-Azhar, creating a very congested atmosphere. The entrance of Al-Azhar is impressive, consisting of two large arches decorated with intricate stone carvings. To enter the mosque, you must first descend down a few stairs down to the level of the mosque, where you must then remove your shoes at the carpet.

It is here, where the lush red carpet of Al-Azhar begins, that I first came to know the mosque. Shoes in my hand, I entered the mosque and it was as if I was transported into another world.

What a calm and tranquil place it was. No yelling or car horns, just birds chattering and many voices quietly reciting the Qur’an. Immediately I felt at ease, I wanted to stay here for hours on end, soaking up the mystical and spiritual atmosphere. Here, students were sitting cross-legged on the floor, some reciting the Qur’an in sing-song voices and others memorizing scientific equations or preparing for exams. Families sat together, the children played on the marble courtyard, while the parents and relatives chatted under the arcades.

The first place that one comes to after proceeding through the doorway is the large marble courtyard. On the right side, women sit together, taking a break from the day’s shopping and watching the goings on. The majority of the courtyard and surrounding arcades are reserved for men, which seemed fair enough as male visitors far outnumbered women visitors. The main prayer hall was also reserved for men, but women were also allocated a large area, extending into the main prayer hall until the wall which included a mihrab. This area was to become my sanctuary, I spent many hours here when I had time, reading and contemplating in that ancient center of learning. There were often many students who would take a shoe-rack, turn it on its side and transform it into a makeshift desk. At busy times there could be more than a hundred women sitting in the mosque, and at prayer time, a few hundred.

I also enjoyed sitting under the arcades in the courtyard, sometimes with friends and sometimes with my Arabic teacher, with whom I would study medieval texts. I continued to draw great satisfaction from sitting in Al-Azhar, until one day it all changed…

…One day a mosque employee, dressed in a scruffy gallabiyya and bearing a scowl on his face, ordered me into the harim, or women’s section, when I was sitting with my Arabic teacher under the arcades. This is strange, I thought, isn’t this the house of Allah? Don’t men and women pray together in Mecca? Does Islam forbid women to sit in the house of Allah? Does Islam forbid women from learning in the mosque? Didn’t I see men and women sitting together in the courtyards of the great mosques I had visited throughout the Islamic world? What damage was I causing by sitting under the arcades in the courtyard of the mosque? Was my modest presence distracting to the men who keep eyeing the women instead of their Qur’ans? Was that my problem? Well, no, not really.

But someone high up in Al-Azhar bureaucracy (think a wholly unorganized, patriarchal, nepotistic, Kafkaesque organization), had decided that the presence of women sitting in the courtyard was threatening, and thus must be banished to the prayer area behind the thick mashrabiyya or wood lattice. Ok, I guess I could deal with this, I thought, at least I still have this large area inside, and if I sit next to the mashrabiyya, I could even catch a hint of a breeze to cool me down during those sizzling summer months. So, I made do, exiled from the main courtyard, I staked out my favorite place and continued with my studying. Yet, I was now forbidden from studying Arabic with my teacher, now we had to find some other place that was permitted to us. Since, the mosque was probably the most acceptable place for us to meet, we were at a loss.

On occasion, I would go to Al-Azhar and sneak into a place under the arcades in the courtyard. Sometimes I would get away, when the mosque employees were away, but more often than not, I would get a good scolding and be herded into the harim.

Since at times the harim was quite crowded, I would stake out the quietest spot, near the mihrab and makeshift barrier between the men and women’s section. This barrier was made up of low boards which cut up the main prayer hall. In this section, I could breathe; it was almost as if I was in the main prayer hall, and at least we had our own mihrab – also, during prayers, the men stood at the same distance from the Imam as women.

Then one day, not so long ago, I entered the mosque, and lo and behold, the makeshift barrier had traveled overnight. No longer were we granted access to the mihrab or any equality with the men in prayer, but now we were pushed to the back, into our little mashrabiyya room off the courtyard. I thought, ok, now, hopefully this is some kind of temporary barrier, it’ll be gone the next time I come. At prayer time, I could hardly concentrate, seeing the men in front of us, lined up in the space which belonged to us women. Now we were delegated to the back, as if we had no meaning or worth.

Yet, this was not the worst of it. A week after the makeshift barrier had apparently shifted positions, it was removed – for something much more permanent – the mashrabiyya wall had been extended, and now excluded us forever from the mihrab and the front of the mosque.

I immediately rushed to the Imam of Al-Azhar in his office. He apparently had just finished his large lunch, and was sunk deep into his plush chair, hand over his big belly and yawning. His small, beady eyes were red and watery and he looked as if he were about to drift off to sleep. He wore the traditional Azhari red cap and scholarly grey robe over his tired body. He hardly acknowledged my presence when I entered, and I nearly had to shout to attract his attention. Please, I asked, what happened to the harim. Why were we pushed to the back? Who did this, why? Why don’t women get any respect? I was very emotional, perhaps overly so that I was on the verge of tears, thinking of all the oppression and disrespect that women face in the world. And why, of all places, in the shining star of the Islamic world and center for Sunni learning, were women being pushed away? Pushed to the back, but when will it happen that women are finally pushed out of mosques altogether?

The Imam replied calmly that he had nothing to do with this ordeal, and didn’t even seem to know that the new wall had been built. He referred me to some obscure office, in some side alley, where he assured me, I could talk to someone who would help me. Sure, I thought, in a million years, someone will listen to a foreigner who talks about women’s rights and the injustice of this new wall. Besides, who wants to get involved in political activity in this country, you could end up in jail for this kind of stuff.

Ever since then, I have only returned to Al-Azhar once, and then for only a few minutes – I tried sitting under the arcades in the courtyard, but was soon kicked out. Poking my head into the harim, I noticed how few women were sitting inside, and most of the usuals were not around. And after the mosque employee yelled at the women sitting in the courtyard, they too made their ways outside, and not towards the harim. Presumably, they too were fed up of being delegated to a tiny, hidden room, and preferred to leave the mosque than sit there.

So what has the administration of Al-Azhar done to the women? No one knows, and no one will admit to the crime. We can only pray that this is not the beginning of a campaign to push women out of public areas in mosques and into their little, dark back rooms. It’s truly a pity that such an uplifting place such as Al-Azhar is controlled by misogynists who fail to uphold Al-Azhar’s honorable reputation and the ideas of equality between genders as found in the Qur’an and sayings of the Prophet (PBUH).

And Allah knows best.

Safiyya A. is a fourth-year student of anthropology at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada.