I went to Eid prayer this week with my mother. As expected, we were politely guided past the main doors of the rented Ramada Inn ballroom, down a hallway cluttered with excess furniture and scattered shoes, to the women's entrance at the back of the room. At the front was the imam, reciting the traditional blessings. Facing him, rows of men and boys. Behind them a stretch of vacant space, and after that the women. The women did not sit in neat rows, the women sat in groups, facing their relatives and friends. The women chatted, and greeted each other. Kids ran about the space seemingly oblivious to ritual worship underway. When it came time for prayer, the imam suggested that we wait until after the prayer to say our salaams, and reminded us that the prayer wasn't complete until the end of his sermon. Odd, I thought, but figured he just must have something really important to sermonize about.
The women sort of lined up, in crooked waves. There was a giant abandoned projector screen in the middle of the room. I stood in the row behind it. The woman in front of me seemed torn -- she couldn't decide to heed the call to stand shoulder to shoulder in line with the woman next to her, or break the line and move to the other side of the giant obstruction. She did neither. She stood where she was right in front of the screen, right in the place I should have had to rest my forehead to the floor. She left me no room, she didn't see me behind her. The prayer had started, and I was trapped.
I got through the prayer, trying to focus my thoughts and make my prostrations as small as possible, and not bump the woman's ass in front of me. As soon as the second salam was said and the prayer was finished, the women's lines relaxed, and loosened. Women began to shift, and take up gentle whispers. The whispers grew to a mild murmers, and to louder chatter. The imam was still giving his sermon. Half way through the Imam's oblivious yawping about goodness and charity, one woman urged her sisters around her to quiet down and show some respect. Another women, didn't like the suggestion and cursed her behind her back. cursed her and spit.
Shame. Shame. Shame. I'm ashamed of us all who continue to conduct our spiritual practices in this chaotic and disrespectful manner. Is this what it comes to? That we can't even remember our basic human decency and respect twice a year? That women and children, left excluded and neglected, feel a need to revolt in this chaos?! Blame it on culture, blame it on whatever. I know this much -- that as long as women are disrespected and relegated to the back of the room (or worse, the basement) during prayers, women are not going to respect the ceremony. If women are not made equal partners in ritual worship, women will continue to feel disenfranchised and shy away from full participation, much less leadership. And as long as children are let to run wild during prayer, and not taught to recognize and value these practices at a young age they won't value it or claim it in the future.
