New Delhi, February 10: In a landmark decision, the All India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB) has said that the women can visit Mosque and pray but in an exclusive segregated place meant for them.
“There is no prohibition in Islam on women offering namaz in the Mosques in a segregated space exclusively for them. The Mosques have to make this arrangement,” the Board has said
AIMPLB is the supreme Islamic body that interprets various tenets of Quran and comes out with policy decisions time to time.
The Board stated this in an affidavit it submitted to the Supreme Court in response to a petition filed by Farha Anwar Hussain Sheikh, an activist-advocate from Pune.
Sheikh had petitioned the apex court to declare any prohibition on women’s entry into mosque as illegal and a violation of the gender justice laws.
The Board, however, maintained that “the free intermixing of genders in the common space is not in conformity with the position prescribed in Islam”
Though the AIMPLB has consented to women’s entry into mosques, the implementation, however, is a difficult task because most clerics remain opposed to the idea.
“Apart from the mindset of the clerics, the other biggest problem for the actual implementation of the new position us that most mosques do not have even elementary provisions for women.
EOM
