The Women’s Mosque of America opened its doors on Friday in central Los Angeles, welcoming a crowd of Muslim women from around the country.
L.A.-based professionals M. Hasna Maznavi and Sana Muttalib serve as president and co-president of the mosque’s board, respectively, and have worked with the rest of their team for months to bring the project to fruition. By day, Maznavi is a filmmaker and comedy writer, while Muttalib works as an attorney. They teamed up with the Pico Union Project, an interfaith worship space in Los Angeles, to house their mosque, and held the first juma’a, or Friday prayers, on Jan. 30. Edina Lekovic, the director of policy and programming at the Muslim Public Affairs Council, led the mosque’s inaugural khutbah, or sermon, and congregants were invited to join in a post-juma’a discussion and Q and A.
The Women’s Mosque is making its debut at a time when many American Muslims are questioning the traditions and norms they grew up with. The Chicago-based writer Hind Makki started a website in 2012 called “Side Entrances,” which invited women to post their photos and experiences at worship services. Mosques are often segregated by gender, sometimes with wall dividers marking off each area. Many women have expressed frustration at these divisions, and as Makki told NPR earlier this month, many men had no conception of the women’s experience.
“They just had no idea that this was somewhat typical of women’s experiences at a mosque — that you go to a mosque and you don’t see a dome; you don’t see the imam, certainly; you don’t see the architecture — you see a big wall in front of you,” she said.
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How do you envision the future of Muslim leadership in America?
We envision a future in which every Muslim conference is filled with equal numbers of female and male Muslim speakers and religious authorities, in which every mosque in America has an equal number of Muslim women and men on their board, and in which each mosque has full attendance by their entire congregant base because of the improvements they’ve made in making their mosques more inclusive and inviting for women. We also hope male imams will increase their access and availability to their female congregants — particularly after juma’a prayer is over — and that they will work with women in their congregations and on their boards in the planning process when designing the architecture and seating structure in their mosques.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
