Post instructions from the administration and a section of community leaders to comply with the guidelines issued by the government in the wake of Covid-19, the Sunnis have taken a decision to suspend their congregational Jumma prayers at mosques.

Due to the outbreak of the coronavirus and instructions on public safety by the administration, it is now being announced in many mosques after the muezzin’s call for namaz that due to the outbreak of the coronavirus and instructions from the administration, that all devotees except the staff at the mosques and dargahs, offer prayers from home.

Seeing the high number of cases in Maharashtra, the government has issued a shutdown to stop the transmission of the virus. Maulana Mahmood Daryabadi of the All India Ulema Council said that three days ago, the leaders of the community had a meeting with police officials in which it was decided that the older members and the weak would be suggested to stay home and the crowds at the mosques would be reduced, apart from ensuring that the mosques are disinfected regularly.

However, seeing the current situation where the number of cases is only increasing, the police is now stressing the importance of banning the entry of devotees, especially during the Friday prayers.

Maulana Daryabadi said that he had a conversation with Maulana Mufti Aziz-ur-Rahman Mudzila who said that seeing the spread of the virus and the instructions of the government, it could be that the mosques Imams, muezzins and khadims could offer namaz from the mosque and dargah premises. The rest of the devotees could offer prayers from home. Those mosques which do not have staff, can ask four to five people in the neighbourhood to offer prayers in the premises so that the rituals of the mosque continue.

He also said that the decision was supported by Mufti Darul Uloom Adidmiya, Chunabhatti, Mumbai and Mufti Jasimudddin Kasmi. Maulana Mufti Shakeel Mansoor of the USA also echoed similar views. Saying that all verbal and written instructions regarding public safety must be followed religiously, he told TOI, “Most of the muftis (those who issue fatwas) endorsed my suggestion that congregational prayers should be suspended and just a few people should offer daily namaz at the mosques.”

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Image Credit: Carlos Latuff/Mondoweiss

Prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared his support this month for the so-called “muezzin bill”, claiming it was urgently needed to stop the dawn call to prayer from mosques ruining the Israeli public’s sleep. A vote in the parliament is due this week. The use of loudspeakers by muezzins was unnecessarily disruptive, Mr Netanyahu argued, in an age of alarm clocks and phone apps.

But the one in five of Israel’s population who are Palestinian, most of them Muslim, and a further 300,000 living under occupation in East Jerusalem, say the legislation is grossly discriminatory. The bill’s environmental rationale is bogus, they note. Moti Yogev, a settler leader who drafted the bill, originally wanted the loudspeaker ban to curb the broadcasting of sermons supposedly full of “incitement” against Israel.

And last week, after the Jewish ultra-Orthodox lobby began to fear the bill might also apply to sirens welcoming in the Sabbath, the government hurriedly introduced an exemption for synagogues.

The “muezzin bill” does not arrive in a politically neutral context. The extremist wing of the settler movement championing it has been vandalizing and torching mosques in Israel and the occupied territories for years.

The new bill follows hot on the heels of a government-sponsored expulsion law that allows Jewish legislators to oust from the parliament the Palestinian minority’s representatives if they voice unpopular views.

Palestinian leaders in Israel are rarely invited on TV, unless it is to defend themselves against accusations of treasonous behavior.

And this month a branch of a major restaurant chain in the northern city of Haifa, where many Palestinian citizens live, banned staff from speaking Arabic to avoid Jewish customers’ suspicions that they were being covertly derided.

Incrementally, Israel’s Palestinian minority has found itself squeezed out of the public sphere. The “muezzin bill” is just the latest step in making them inaudible as well as invisible.

Notably, Basel Ghattas, a Palestinian Christian legislator from the Galilee, denounced the bill too. Churches in Nazareth, Jerusalem, and Haifa, he vowed, would broadcast the muezzin’s call to prayer if mosques were muzzled.

For Ghattas and others, the bill is as much an assault on the community’s beleaguered Palestinian identity as it is on its Muslim character. Netanyahu, on the other hand, has dismissed criticism by comparing the proposed restrictions to measures adopted in countries like France and Switzerland. What is good for Europe, he argues, is good for Israel.

Except Israel, it hardly needs pointing out, is not in Europe. And its Palestinians are the native population, not immigrants.

Haneen Zoabi, another lawmaker, observed that the legislation was not about “the noise in [Israeli Jews’] ears but the noise in their minds”

Haneen Zoabi, another lawmaker, observed that the legislation was not about “the noise in [Israeli Jews’] ears but the noise in their minds”. Their colonial fears, she said, were evoked by the Palestinians’ continuing vibrant presence in Israel – a presence that was supposed to have been extinguished in 1948 with the Nakba, the creation of a Jewish state on the ruins of the Palestinians’ homeland.

That point was illustrated inadvertently over the weekend by dozens of fires that ravaged pine forests and neighboring homes across Israel, fuelled by high winds and months of drought.
Some posting on social media relished the fires as God’s punishment for the “muezzin bill”.

With almost as little evidence, Netanyahu accused Palestinians of setting “terrorist” fires to burn down the Israeli state. The Israeli prime minister needs to distract attention from his failure to heed warnings six years ago, when similar blazes struck, that Israel’s densely packed forests pose a fire hazard.

If it turns out that some of the fires were set on purpose, Netanyahu will have no interest in explaining why.

Many of the forests were planted decades ago by Israel to conceal the destruction of hundreds of Palestinian villages, after 80 percent of the Palestinian population – some 750,000 – were expelled outside Israel’s new borders in 1948. Today they live in refugee camps, including in the West Bank and Gaza.

According to Israeli scholars, the country’s European founders turned the pine tree into a “weapon of war”, using it to erase any trace of the Palestinians. The Israeli historian Ilan Pappe calls this policy “memoricide”.

Olive trees and other native species like carob, pomegranate and citrus were also uprooted in favor of the pine. Importing the landscape of Europe was a way to ensure Jewish immigrants would not feel homesick.

Today, for many Israeli Jews, only the muezzin threatens this contrived idyll. His intermittent call to prayer emanates from the dozens of Palestinian communities that survived 1948’s mass expulsions and were not replaced with pine trees.

Like an unwelcome ghost, the sound now haunts neighboring Jewish towns.

The “muezzin bill” aims to eradicate the aural remnants of Palestine as completely as Israel’s forests obliterated its visible parts – and reassure Israelis that they live in Europe rather than the Middle East.

The “muezzin bill” aims to eradicate the aural remnants of Palestine as completely as Israel’s forests obliterated its visible parts – and reassure Israelis that they live in Europe rather than the Middle East.

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These charges are part of a PIL filed by Abdur Rahman, an MBA-holder from the UK, who claims to have himself become an unwitting victim of one such ‘court’: the ‘Makka Masjid Shariat Council’.    

The first bench of chief justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul and justice R Mahadevan has issued notices to the Tamil Nadu home secretary, director-general of police and city commissioner of police on the matter.

"Because of illegal functioning of the council, the family systems of a number of Muslim families have collapsed and hundreds of spouses suffer the ignominy of separation because of their poverty," the PIL said. The PIL states that because of its name and publicity, many local Muslims had come to believe that the council was being run in accordance with Sharia and all its orders and judgements were legal and religiously binding upon Muslims.

"Muslims facing family disputes are strongly and religiously encouraged to approach it by giving their complaints and on receiving them, the council would send 'summons' and also call the opposite party over phone. Under the name of religious injunction, the parties are forced to appear before it," Rahman said in his petition.

When the case came up for hearing before the Madras High Court, the petitioner’s senior lawyer A. Sirajuddin said the petition had been filed in the public interest to safeguard the interests of a large number of innocent Muslims who were silently suffering because of the functioning of Makka Masjid Shariat Council and other similar fora across the state.

Admitting his own gullibility Rahman said that believing that it was an authentic forum he too had approached the council with a plea to be reunited with his wife. Instead, the council made him sign a letter stating that he was willing for talaq and that council ruled the talaq had taken effect. Aggrieved by this, Rahman has approached the local family court for justice.
 

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Violence against women not only affects women and their families but also the communities and societies we live in. Violence impedes women’s development, access to education and health and equal rights in the family, which in turn hinders the progress and development of communities and societies. As the World Economic Forum’s 2009 Global Gender Gap Index points out, 18 of the 25 lowest-ranking countries are Muslim-majority countries. It is time to end the violence against Muslim women and allow our communities to flourish in peace.

Today WISE women leaders around the world are reclaiming the rich legacy that Muslim women have had in the history of Islam in order to end violence against women. Using their Islamic faith to justify and inspire Muslim women’s empowerment, WISE women aim to build a cohesive global movement of Muslim women that will reclaim women’s rights in Islam, enabling them to make dignified choices and fully participate in creating just and flourishing societies. A universal declaration for Muslim women and the cornerstone of the WISE movement, the WISE Compact highlights the basic rights of Muslim women. In particular, it focuses on the need to end violence against women and as its signatories, members of the WISE community commit themselves to the realisation of this endeavour: "We are dedicated to protecting and promoting life by promoting the mental, emotional, spiritual and physical health of Muslim women and by eliminating violence against Muslim women." Similarly, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states the importance of life and security for all individuals in Article 3: "Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person."

WISE is working in several areas to end violence against women. WISE’s Shura Council, a global council of Muslim women scholars, activists and specialists, recently launched their campaign, Jihad against Violence, which uses religiously grounded arguments against violence. In addition, WISE is collaborating with a number of women’s organisations around the world, including in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Egypt, to improve women’s rights and end violence against women. WISE women from the Noor Educational Centre in Afghanistan are creating the first holistic gender-sensitive imam training programme in Kabul and surrounding areas. In Pakistan, WISE women from the organisation, Bedari, are organising advocacy efforts, including outreach material and street theatre performances, in an effort to raise awareness about domestic violence against women. WISE women from the organisation, Egyptian Association for Society Development, have developed an economic incentive and religious education project to end female genital cutting (FGC) practices in surrounding neighbourhoods of Cairo.

For more information please go to: www.wisemuslimwomen.org.

Courtesy: Women’s Islamic Initiative in Spirituality and Equality

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