Transitions Online: No Girls Allowed.

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Author: Zokirova, Nargis

Transitions Online: No Girls Allowed

Tajikistan

Dateline: DUSHANBE, Tajikistan

8 October 2004

The top Islamic governing body in Tajikistan has declared that women cannot attend mosque. What's behind the sudden announcement?

Long considered the most liberal of the Central Asian nations when it comes to Islamic traditions and rites, Tajikistan may now be heading in a different direction.

A decision prohibiting women from attending mosque has caused consternation in some quarters but has garnered surprisingly little attention from the local or international press or even local nongovernmental associations, leading some experts to charge that the edict is part of a larger plan by the government to weaken the hold of Islam on Tajikistan's believers.

The Tajik Council of Ulems--the supreme religious body of Muslims in Tajikistan--adopted the new measure in August, on the grounds that the presence of women in mosques distracts men from worshiping and makes them uncomfortable.

The prohibition will be valid until "appropriate conditions" can be established for men and women to pray in the same facilities but with separate rooms. The Council of Ulems stated that its decision is compulsory for all mosques in Tajikistan.

Men and women have not been praying "together" in most Tajik mosques until now, but neither do most mosques have the facilities for strict separation of the sexes. It is this lack of separate premises that the religious leaders say does not fit the canons of Islam.

Khudoiberdy Egamberdiyev, a member of the Council of Ulems, told journalists that the issue had aroused much debate, with some council members initially disagreeing with the idea. However, according to Egamberdiyev, the arguments presented were persuasive enough to convince the majority to adopt the prohibition.

According to Egamberdiyev, the new decision in no way violates women's rights. Women can pray at home, he said, and it will be more comfortable for both sexes.

Not all worshipers--especially women--agree with Egamberdiyev's assessment. Mavluda Sultonzoda, a popular journalist working for Ruzi Nav and Nerui Sukhan, calls the decision a violation of her rights and of Islamic law, since men and women are supposed to be equal in a mosque.

"Every Muslim woman has the right to practice religion--to pray and confess in mosque. Nobody can find anything in the holy Koran prohibiting women from attending mosque or praying there. Instead of prohibiting women from attending mosque, it would be better to create appropriate conditions for public worshiping" Sultonzoda says.

Dushanbe Muslim Rukhshona Zoyirova says she also feels indignant at the council's decision.

"Women's rights in Tajikistan are violated everywhere and every day, and the mosques so far have been the only places where we could shield ourselves from various routine problems and open our hearts. Now we are bereft of such a privilege," she laments.

LIBERAL NO MORE?

Representatives of some Tajik political parties have also expressed outrage at the decision. The chairman of the Party of Islamic Renaissance (PIRT), Abdullo Nuri, says, "Every Muslim woman has a right to go to mosque and pray. And nobody--neither from a legal standpoint nor from the point of view of Islam--should be able to deny women this right."

Tajikistan is the only Central Asian nation where an Islamic party openly operates and takes part in the political, social, and economic life of the country. The inclusion stems from the bloody 1992-1997 Tajik civil war, which pitted the secular, post-communist government against the so-called United Tajik Opposition, an Islamist group that still has many members in the current PIRT.

But despite PIRT's history with local Islamic leaders, under the terms of the Tajik constitution it cannot have any influence on the Council of Ulems.

The Tajik government, for its part, has refrained from comment on the issue, citing the constitutional separation between church and state.

According to Shamsiya Ibragimova, an independent Tajik expert, Tajikistan has until recently been considered the most liberal country in Central Asia--especially compared with Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan--with regard to Islam. The status of Muslim Tajik women has also been much better than in Uzbekistan, where believers are often oppressed because of the fear of Islamist movements and the country's history with extremists.

Mukhiddin Kabiri, a Tajik political expert and the head of the Dushanbe analytical center and think tank Dialogue, says the appearance of this issue at a time when many countries, including Islamic ones, are seeking equality between men and women is nothing less than astonishing.

"It is surprising that there hasn't been any reaction from women's human rights [groups] and other agencies addressing gender issues. They behave as [if] nothing's happened and it doesn't concern them. Somehow, many progressive religious scholars are keeping silent," Kabiri says.

CHURCH AND STATE

Tajikistan has many more nongovernmental organizations focused on women's rights than other Central Asian countries do, but their silence suggests to some experts that there is a fear of governmental involvement in the decision.

According to Kabiri, the issue was initially raised by the Committee on Women's Affairs within the Tajik government. Many women had started attending mosque, which was seen as a potentially worrisome development for Tajikistan's ideological future. The issue reportedly caused stormy discussions at one of the meetings of the Public Council under Tajik President Emomali Rakhmonov.

"It [the increased attendance of women] had definitely raised concerns within the Women's Committee, and they started bringing pressure to bear upon certain structures and ... forced the Ulems Council to raise this issue. Having adopted the decision, which contradicts the major canons of Islam, the Council of Ulems, to put it mildly, has found itself in trouble and has lost a certain credibility among common believers," Kabiri charges.

The Committee on Women's Affairs under the Tajik government denies any involvement in the decision. But Rukiya Kurbanova, the head of the committee, says she supports the Council of Ulems' edict that women should not attend mosques.

"I don't mind if women say grace and keep a fast, but I do not see any strong necessity for attending mosque," Kurbanova explains.

The decision comes as another religious trend picks up steam: more Tajik Muslims are embracing Christianity. According to the data provided by the government's Committee on Religious Affairs, more than 13,000 Muslims have converted to Christianity in the last few years; most of the new converts are women. Experts say that the prohibition against attending mosque might spur more Muslim women to explore Christianity.

The opposition journalist Sultonzoda charges that the Ulems' decision may be forcing women down the path of new religions.

"Many Muslim women embrace Christianity, to a large extent, because Christians are always ready to listen and help them, whereas official Islam in Tajikistan is trying to create obstacles for female believers," she says.