TAJIKISTAN: Ban on women attending mosques debated

[ This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations]

DUSHANBE, 24 Nov 2004 (IRIN) - A controversial ban on women attending mosques to pray is being debated in Tajikistan. The secularist government endorses the ban, while the Islamist opposition sees it as an infringement of women's rights.

"I was born and brought up in the ancient town of Ura-Tyube [northern Sogd province, some 350 km to the north of capital, Dushanbe], where there have always been strong religious traditions. But I have never heard of Tajik women going to mosques," Guljahon Bobosadykova, a 60-year-old leader of the local female association, told IRIN in the capital, Dushanbe. "Talk about women attending mosques emerged only in recent years."

The issue of whether women should attend mosques for Friday prayers or not has become a hotly debated issue in Tajikistan between the country's ulema council - the official religious body - and supporters of more conservative Islam in the country, which saw a civil war between the mainly Islamist opposition and secularist government that claimed the lives of thousands of people between 1992 and 1997.

On 6 November, Tajik President Emomali Rahmonov made a decree banning women from mosques. “More than a thousand years of Islam's history, including the Sunni branch and, particularly, the doctrine of the Great Imam (Azam), says that it is preferred that women pray in solitude, in other words it is more favourable if they pray at home," Rahmonov said, justifying his decision.

Negmatullo Olimov from the Tajik ulema council told IRIN that an example of women going to mosques was set up earlier this year by a group woman in Vakhdat district, some 30 km east of the capital. Vakhdat district was one of the strongholds of the United Tajik Opposition (UTO) during the civil war.

In August, there was an ulema council gathering, where the issue was discussed. It was noted that the majority of Tajikistan's Muslims, around 97 percent, were followers of the Imam Azam's teaching, which put forth that women should pray at home, not in the mosque.

But Hikmatullo Sayfullozoda, head of Tajikistan's Islamic Revival Party, told IRIN that the ban was an infringement of women's rights. "Many religious leaders, as well as rights groups, would not support the idea of keeping women out of the mosques. Women have the same rights to go to the mosque as men do," he told IRIN.

"The ban is a clear breach of women's rights. If a woman aspires to religious knowledge where except the mosque can she get it? I don't want to comment on the religious doctrine but I am sure that Islam does not discriminate one sex against the other. Both sexes have the right to follow the rules of Islam," Sayfullozoda added.

However, Nargis (not her real name) disagreed; claiming that gender based discrimination was quite common in the former Soviet republic and blamed the Islamists of demagogy.

"Gender inequality in local Muslim families starts with the birth of a child and ends with the death. In many families a lot of girls are dropping out of schools when they are 13-15 because parents do not let them go there, saying that further education is not needed for them," the 45-year-old resident of Dushanbe told IRIN.

"Moreover, a woman has to ask her husband whether she can go to the mosque or not. Thus it depends on his, not her decision, whether she goes there or not. What kind of equality are they talking about?" she asked.

"I understand that President Rahmonov made a decree as head of a secular state. Religious beliefs are everyone's personal matter. Therefore, women should decide themselves where they would pray at home or in the mosque. But this shouldn't become a subject of political speculation," Bobosadykova said, noting the need for a constructive dialogue on the issue.

[ENDS]