By Rajan Mahan - NDTV
Wednesday, June 14, 2006
The Khadims, traditional servers, of the Sufi shrine in Ajmer have decided to ban women from the dargah at the time of prayers as they purportedly distract men.
Several Islamic saints including Moinuddin Chishti, the Sufi saint of the Ajmer dargah, may have advised complete equality for women, but their present day religious heirs seem reluctant to follow them.
The dargah in Ajmer symbolises tolerance and spiritual solace for millions. However, in a letter to the Dargah Committee, the Khadims claim that under Islam if a man sees a woman while performing namaaz, it becomes a futile exercise.
"We have a lot of rush at the time of namaaz, and we hardly have any space left particularly during the Friday prayers."
"But if a woman sits in front, then the man's prayer becomes unacceptable. That is why we have raised this demand," says Zahoor Chishti, Joint Secretary, Khadim Association, Ajmer Dargah.
In order to discuss this sensitive issue, the Dargah Committee, which manages the shrine, has held a series of meetings, but refused to give any statement.
Women devotees, however, are angry and say that the demand to banish them from prayers is unacceptable.
"They should not try to stop us. We come from long distances and it is one of our fondest dreams to offer namaaz at this dargah. So they should allow every woman to offer her prayers here," says a female devotee.
However, the Khadims say that in recent months, some men have even manhandled women who disturbed their prayers. Thus, women's entry needs to be banned to avoid such clashes at the annual Urs in the dargah next month.
In the Sufi ideology of Moinuddin Chishti, there was no place for any discrimination on the basis of caste, creed or gender. But ironically his traditional servers the Khadims have now raised a ticklish issue that smacks of gender inequality.
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1 comment:
I have been visiting Khwaja Baba's dargah at Ajmer from when I was an infant. My last visit was two years ago.
From my experience and understanding of his style of preaching Islam in this region, I believe the equality he established keeping aside all boundaries of cast, creed, age, race, religion, and gender, is what attracted so many millions of people to embrace the beauty of Islam.
It is appalling to receive this news of the proposal to ban women there. For more than seven hundred years women have been going to his dargah, who are we do stop this tradition now?
The silly reason of segregating men and women during prayers need to be re-thought. At the Holy Kaabah in Mecca men and women pray together. If situation in Ajmer dargah requires it, then the issue can be dealt with in many different ways. During prayer times, there can be a separate designated area for women (this too should be done only if absolutely necessary). A ban is completely unnecessary, and an insult to the great man who rests there, who himself preached us tolerance and equality.
He was conscious even about the dietary habits of local people. Some eat meat and others don't. In the huge "deg" (cauldron) at his dargah food is prepared in such a manner so that no one is left out. Meat is not cooked so that no pilgrim is excluded from the "tobarak". Do we learn nothing from gestures like this? How can we dare to decide on excluding so many millions of women who come to pay their respect to Khwaja baba, and offer their prayers at his dargah.
We Muslim men should learn to control our lust, rather than shunning women from performing their rights.
I pray that such a ban is never implemented.
Zaid
Dhaka
Bangladesh
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