Women in posh areas of Pakistan are increasingly thronging the mosques during the holy fasting month of Ramadan to join mass Tarawih prayers, while some use the trend as a social and charity tool, informs IslamOnline.net.
“There is a huge difference between offering Tarawih prayers alone at your home, and with hundreds of other women in the mosque,” Salma Ahmed, a Karachi resident, told Islamonline.net.
Thousands of women from higher social classes are now flocking to the mosques to offer the special Ramadan nightly prayer along with their husbands and children.
Their growing numbers have prompted many mosques to make separate arrangements for women.
“I used to feel that we are left out,” says Begum Ahmed, chairperson of Women Chamber of Commerce and Industries, who has been performing Tarawih at a mosque near her home for the past five years.
“But now I feel that we are part of the whole thing.”
In Ramadan, adult Muslims, save the sick and those traveling, abstain from food, drink, smoking and sex between dawn and sunset.
Muslims dedicate their time during the holy month to become closer to Allah through prayer.
“It provides an opportunity to meet other women, both from your neighborhood and other places, which otherwise is not possible because of the busy schedule,” said Begum Ahmed.
“We sit together in small groups after Tarawih, and discuss different issues ranging from religion to society and from education to weddings.
“It gives us a chance to mingle with women, whom we never see during the next 11 months. We establish new contacts, which help us in many ways.”
Change
Muneeza Saeed, a housewife and a mother of three, performs congregational Tarawih, though not at the mosque.
“Till four years back, I had been the only one from my neighborhood who would go for Tarawih at the house of one of my relatives, where hardly 12 to 15 women used to come,” she told IOL.
“But now, the figure has touched 200.”
She asserts that praying in big congregation gives her a sense of Ramadan spirituality she can’t have at home.
“Offering Tarawih together gives us a sense of participation.”
This is also reflecting on charity work.
“We have built a strong charity network within our circle,” says Saeed.
“We collect alms and donations from women who attend Tarawih at regular basis, and spend them on education, health and weddings of poor girls.”
Many attribute the increasing number of women performing congregational Tarawih to social changes in the predominantly Muslim Asian country.
“The taboo that women should not go to offer prayers at the mosque and should do that at home is vanishing gradually,” Begum Ahmed, a former lawmaker, told IOL.
“In posh localities, it has gone away. But yes, the taboo still exists in low and middle income brackets.”
Saeed, the mother of three, believes congregational Tarawih has helped change ideas she one had about the status of women in Islam.
“Every night after Tarawih, there is a Tafseer session, wherein the scholars explain the importance of a religiously literate woman in a Muslim society,” she said.
Many refer the growing numbers of women in posh localities heading for the mosque Tarawih to the Qur’an Network of Dr. Farhat Hashmi.
The influential scholar, whose Qur’an lessons are attended by a huge number of women, has a profound impact on women understanding of Islam.
She believes that congregational Tarawih prayers have played a vital role in women’s embracing of religion.
“Women in posh localities are converging fast towards religion,” Hashmi told IOL.
“Women in Pakistan, usually, do not know about their rights in Islam and their responsibilities as well.”
