New Petition: “Allow Muslim Women To Pray In All Mosques, Cutting Across Denominations”

In a bold move, Yasmeej Zuber Ahmad Peerzade and Zuber Ahmed Peerzade have filed a plea in the Supreme Court to stop the ban on women entering certain mosques.

Woman: Will I get food?

Society: Yes, but you have to cook for everyone one else as well.

Woman: Will I get shelter?

Society: No, you can’t live alone so you need to wait till you get married.

Woman: Can I at least pray where I want to?

Society: Hell no! (And even we don’t know why…)

Whether it is at home, the workplace, or even in the realm of religion, the leaders of society have been consistent in keeping women at bay from any positions of power or even their basic human rights.

While it’s taken us ages to fight these norms and break the rules, it is still a long quest before we really are treated like equal humans. All over the world, there is unrest now to effect a basic change in the system.

Two years ago, Trupti Desai had waged a war to lift the ban on women entering the Shani Shingnapur temple. For this, she was inundated with death threats.

The Sabarimala case that erupted last year was proof of women’s refusal to take things lying down and a giant step in this direction. In a society where none of the major parties truly support women’s fundamental rights to enter a shrine, this is a long and lonely battle. However, the ruling from the Supreme Court came as an affirmation and their verdict, “What applies to a man, applies to a woman. Where a man can enter, a woman can also go” was heartening.

Now, it is the turn of more communities and groups. Recently, a Muslim couple in Mumbai have filed a plea in the SC to declare illegal the prohibitions on the entry of Muslim women in mosques. As reported in Scroll, the petitioners Yasmeej Zuber Ahmad Peerzade and Zuber Ahmed Peerzade, residents of Maharashtra, said that the prohibitions violate Articles 14, 15, 21, 25 and 29 of the Indian Constitution. They also highlighted that Islam does not really bar women from praying in mosques, nor are there any records to show that the Prophet Muhammad opposed it.

The ‘protectors’ of law and religion seldom realize that it was not bestowed upon them to ban women from such spaces. With their half-baked knowledge about menstruation and other aspects of a women’s physicality they have been carrying a completely warped idea of religion forward. If anything, women should be given a more special status to enter shrines and temples since they are also procreators and take a generation forward – literally.

The idea of may have evolved to bring about a more humane perspective to our animal-like existence as human beings. But little did we know that religion would be the reason that makes human beings behave like animals and wreak havoc on the dream of an equal and peaceful future for women.

Swapna Gandhi

I am the quintessential ya-ya girl, but also the silent rebel. I love fiction,

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