divergent voices

i am seriously insulted by people who are misrepresenting islam in the world today.
for some reason, where knowledge and learning was the pride of our faith and so fundemental to it, we are misusing our holy text, to represent a retrogressive and biased view, that is blasphemous to say the least.

i am having issues, with the way islam is viewed by the moulana's of this city.
specifically the one "in charge" of my local congregation.truth be told and as i've mentioned previously, i have never had the privilege of joining congregational prayer. In johannesburg women have historically not been welcomed inside local mosques. i also have issues with the idea of seperate entrances for women, and seperate sections, usually the top floor of a mosque where women are "allowed" to pray, seperated entirely from the rest of the congregation.

this week, the pta running the madressa at the jamaat khanna used for prayer in my suburb (as the mosque is in the processes of being built )have invited parents to introduce them to ustaads (teachers) and see the new classrooms that have been built for learners. the "moulana" (in inverted comma's because he is a retoregressive thinker from the dark ages) wants strict pardah observed, mothers are to be seated in a side room with no excess to sound, so why are they invited?he believes it is hadith, so strict segrgation. also mothers are not to discuss there children with male teachers only female teachers and fathers are to address only male teachers. does this pre-historic animal realise that single parents also exist. further after 40 years of apartheid, "leaders" of my faith are wanting to impose segregation in the name of my religion.the more i hear the "bull shit" that comes from this mans lips, i wander how any sane person could have employed him to be the moulana, dishing out his brand of retorogressive advice.

purdah "the veil" has to be strictly observed when it suites his purposes, and he claims it is hadith, but hadith is not gospel, the quraan is gospel, and purdah as he advocates it has never been sanctioned by gospel, and this idiot is the one who studied faith.what does he do at the supermarket when a female cashier tills up his purchases, i suppose he studies his feet, forgetting to check the till, to see if his purchases are being correctly charged. (i think not). i do believe that it is unconscienable to stand behind this man in prayer, a man who denegrates jews from the pulpit, ( another thing not sanctioned by the quraan, religious intolerance against other believers) who calls chinese people ching chongs, the man is a blatant rascist, and he should be barred from fermenting discent amongst his congregants.yet i seem to be the loan voice in this struggle, he is much respected by the illiterates that make up his followers.

islam is a way of life, that life is "God given" and we live it in praise of him, how can it be so if you are austrasizing the women of your community, Leila Ahmed in her book, "women and gender in islam" 1992, when discussing the discourse of the veil from the pre-islamic era, page 18, says, " cultural exchange seems to have led above all to the pooling and reinforcement of such ideas, (control and diminishment of women) ....to the triumphant endorsement throughout the region of a notion of woman in which her humanity was submerged,.... by a view of her as essentially and even exclusively biological...a sexual and reproductive being.... it was the more human ideas about woman, that have been consistently lost.

today this, lopsided view is being espoused in our own religious congregations. where in the 20th century i would imagine we have risen above such attitudes. further more views, that are not condoned within the quraanic text. i defy any moulana to show me text, that prevents my full participation in congregational prayer, or even participation in discusions and desicion making forums that effect the community i belong to.this being said, i hope the "gentlemen" in charge of the running of our community jamaat khanna, will see fit to employ a man with greater vision and understanding of what it really means to be muslim.