Lucknow/Muzaffarnagar: The All India Muslim Women Personal Law Board (AIMWPLB) on Tuesday demanded setting up of separate mosques for women.

“Ulemas and influential people in the community should contribute in whichever form they can to set up separate mosques for women so that they too can offer namaz in the mosques,” president of the AIMWPLB Shaista Amber said here.

Citing Quran that Islam was not against women offering namaz in mosques, she said that Hazrat Bibi Hafsa, one of the wives of Prophet Mohammad, used to act as Imam and led women in offering namaz.

Amber also cited the example of a mosque in Rail Bazar area of Kanpur where namaz is being offered by men and women together five times a day. She said that in Tamil Nadu, another supporter of her Board, Sharifa Khanum, has opened a mosque for women recently.

On the dearth of women ‘Maulvis’ (Muslim clerics), she said that two years ago about 11 to 13 girls have acquired degree of Maulvi at a madarsa in Meerut.

Amber said that she had been offering namaz at a mosque on Rae Bareli Road since 1999.

Commenting on the AIMWPLB proposal of women leading in offering namaz in separate mosques for themselves, clerics of the Islamic seminary Dar ul Uloom, Deoband reacted sharply and said that Muslim women cannot become Imams (religious leaders).

Deputy In charge of the Fatwa Department of the seminary, Mufti Ahsan Kasmi told PTI that Islam does not permit Muslim women to lead prayer in mosques “to prevent evil”.

The president of the Uttar Pradesh Imams Organisation Mufti Zulfikar said that women are prevented from meeting men who are not their family members (Mahram men) to “avoid any untoward incident”. PTI

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