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'Me and the Mosque' - A Documentary by Zarqa Nawaz

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'Me and the Mosque' - A Documentary by Zarqa Nawaz
Mujahideen
11/06/05 at 04:29:50
[slm]

This sister ought to be seen by others as a shining example of the sort of proactive measures other Sisters ought to do in order to take back their rights from those cultural and ignorant Muslims who deny them what Allah Aza' wa Jal affords them.

VisionTV presents the national television premiere of Me and the Mosque  on Wednesday, Nov. 23 at 10 p.m. ET. The broadcast repeats on Thursday, Nov. 24 at 11 p.m. ET.

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http://www.visiontv.ca/Programs/documentaries_mosque.html

Like millions of Muslim women around the world, journalist and filmmaker Zarqa Nawaz cherishes Islam's emphasis on social justice and spiritual equality between the sexes. So it came as a terrible blow when her Regina, Sask. mosque forced women to pray in a separate room, away from the men.

“The mosque was the most important part of my life, and now I didn't feel welcome,” she says. “I felt a strong sense of spiritual loneliness.”

In her National Film Board of Canada (NFB) documentary Me and the Mosque, Nawaz asks why so many Muslim places of worship in 21st century Canada enforce the strict separation of men and women. The search for answers takes her to mosques all over North America, and deep into the history and traditions of Islam.

VisionTV presents the national television premiere of Me and the Mosque on Wednesday, Nov. 23 at 10 p.m. ET. The broadcast repeats on Thursday, Nov. 24 at 11 p.m. ET.

An insightful and often amusing look at the past and present role of women in Islam, Me and the Mosque features both whimsical animation and in-depth interviews with people on all sides of the issue. The film was produced through the NFB's Reel Diversity program, a national, annual competition for emerging filmmakers of colour.

As Islamic scholars reveal to Nawaz, early Muslim society was egalitarian: both sexes prayed together, and women played prominent roles in the community. However, over the last two centuries in particular, women have been increasingly segregated.
     

Today, more than 90 percent of Muslims in Canada come from Muslim countries where men and women never pray together, and mosques here naturally cater to these expectations. Of the approximately 140 mosques in this country, an estimated two-thirds require women to pray behind barriers, partitions or curtains. Frustrated by their exclusion, many young women of Nawaz's generation have turned away from organized worship altogether.

In the course of her odyssey, Nawaz speaks to men with traditional views on the separation of the sexes, and women yearning to play an equal part in worship. She meets the architect of a new mosque in Surrey, B.C., interviews an American writer who fought publicly for the right to pray alongside men at her mosque in West Virginia, and hosts an eye-opening panel discussion on this issue at a gathering in Gimli, Man.

As one female activist tells her: “Every woman who has the courage of her convictions has to get up and say no. You can ignore me as long as you want, but here I am to stay.”

Me and the Mosque was written and directed by Zarqa Nawaz, and produced for the National Film Board of Canada by Joe MacDonald. The executive producers are Graydon McCrea and Michael Scott.

Re: 'Me and the Mosque' - A Documentary by Zarqa N
timbuktu
11/06/05 at 20:15:59
[slm] [quote] This sister ought to be seen by others as a shining example of the sort of proactive measures other Sisters ought to do in order to take back their rights from those cultural and ignorant Muslims who deny them what Allah Aza' wa Jal affords them.[/quote]

Are you being sarcastic? [quote] it came as a terrible blow when her Regina, Sask. mosque forced women to pray in a separate room, away from the men.[/quote]

She would have a point if the room wasn't properl ventilated, or too small, or there wasn't a proper entrance for females to their section, or if in the design and running of the female section the women had not been allowed to take part, or if she were pleading for females to be allowed to pray behind the men.
11/06/05 at 20:19:55
timbuktu


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