Women's mosques exist around the world, with a particularly rich tradition in China. As Islam has principles of segregating the sexes at times, many places of worship provide a dedicated prayer space for women within the main building, but in a few countries, separate buildings were constructed. In some cases, women were allowed to become imams.
In the 21st century, many countries have seen women-led or women-only mosques created, as part of liberal movements within Islam.
Women's mosques (Chinese :[清真]女寺; pinyin :[Qīngzhēn] nǚsì) have existed in China for several hundred years. [1] [2] They can be found in the provinces of Henan, Shanxi, Shaanxi and Hebei. [3]
In China, separate women-only mosques were built by the Muslim communities. At the end of the Ming dynasty and early Qing dynasty, Hui women had begun to form their own mosques. The oldest surviving women's mosque in China, is Wangjia Hutong Women's Mosque of Kaifeng, which dates to 1820. [4]
For religious reasons, Hui communities had started to cultivate more theological learning among the women. As a result, a portion of the female Muslims who had experienced a religious education, gradually incorporated Islamic observances into their daily religious activities, and this produced the establishment of women's mosques. [5]
By the 20th century, there were separate places of worship as women-only mosques. They are a special form of the sacred building, either as a separate institution or mosque attached to an existing larger mosque. Their managers are women, wives of the imam of a larger mosque. The commonly used title for it is Shiniang (师娘). [6]
Female Islamic clerics are referred to as nü ahong (女阿訇) in Chinese.
In the province of Henan:
Elsewhere:
In the Maldives, there are women's mosques located in many islands and atolls, a tradition which possibly dates back to earlier times due to the influence women have historically wielded in Maldivian society. [10] It was a Maldivian practice to maintain such mosques, known as nisha miskii, which were separate buildings run by female equivalents of mudimu (male mosque caretakers) known as mudahim. [10] The women's mosques are not on every single island, and an example of this is the capital island, where mosques have a separate area for women within larger mosques. [10] In 2005, there was an estimated number of over 250 women's mosques spread out among the 250 inhabited islands. [10]
In late 2009 and 2010, all of the Maldives’ nisha miskii seemed to have closed. [10] The Ministry of Islamic Affairs of the Maldives closed the mosques claiming that they were expensive to maintain and rarely used. [10] As of 2018, available accounts indicate that women's mosques no longer exist in the Maldives. [10]
In the union territory of Lakshadweep, oral traditions suggest the establishment of women's mosques in the area. According to the few mentions of women's mosques in the region, there were reportedly small private buildings that were attended by women with female leadership. [11]
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The Hui people are an East Asian ethnoreligious group predominantly composed of Chinese-speaking adherents of Islam. They are distributed throughout China, mainly in the northwestern provinces and in the Zhongyuan region. According to the 2010 census, China is home to approximately 10.5 million Hui people. Outside China, the 170,000 Dungan people of Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, Panthays in Myanmar and many of the Chin Haws in Thailand are also considered part of the Hui ethnicity.
Kaifeng is a prefecture-level city in east-central Henan province, China. It is one of the Eight Ancient Capitals of China, having been the capital eight times in history, and is most known for having been the Chinese capital during the Northern Song dynasty.
The Id Kah Mosque is a historic mosque and tourist site located in Kashgar, Xinjiang, China.
Islam has been practiced in China since the 7th century CE. There are an estimated 17–25 million Muslims in China, less than 2 percent of the total population. Though Hui Muslims are the most numerous group, the greatest concentration of Muslims reside in northwestern China's Xinjiang autonomous region, which contains a significant Uyghur population. Lesser yet significant populations reside in the regions of Ningxia, Gansu and Qinghai. Of China's 55 officially recognized minority peoples, ten of these groups are predominantly Sunni Muslim.
Islam is the state religion of Maldives. The 2008 Constitution or "Fehi Gānoon" declares the significance of Islamic law in the country. The constitution requires that citizenship status be based on adherence to the state religion, which legally makes the country's citizens 100% Muslim.
There is a difference of opinion among Muslims regarding the circumstances in which women may act as imams, i.e. to lead a mixed gendered congregation in salat (prayer). The orthodox position is that women cannot lead men in prayer, which is justified by various Quranic verses and Hadith about the roles and responsibilities of men and women.
The Islamic Association of China is the official government supervisory organ for Islam in the People's Republic of China. The association is controlled by the United Front Work Department of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) following the State Administration for Religious Affairs' absorption into the United Front Work Department in 2018.
The transition from the Tang to the Song dynasty (960–1279) in China did not greatly interrupt the trends of Chinese Muslims established during the Tang rule.
After the fall of the Qing dynasty following the Xinhai Revolution (1911-1912), Sun Yat-sen, who led the new Republic of China (1912–1949), immediately proclaimed that the country belonged equally to the Han, Hui (Muslim), Meng (Mongol), and Tsang (Tibetan) peoples. When the People's Republic of China was established in 1949, Chinese Muslims suffered political repression along with all other religious groups in China, especially during the Cultural Revolution (1966–1976).
The status of Women in the Maldives was traditionally fairly high, as attested to in part by the existence of four Sultanas.
The 2008 Constitution of Maldives designates Sunni Islam as the state religion. Only Sunni Muslims are allowed to hold citizenship in the country and citizens may practice Sunni Islam only. Non-Muslim citizens of other nations can practice their faith only in private and are barred from evangelizing or propagating their faith. All residents are required to teach their children the Muslim faith. The president, ministers, parliamentarians, and chiefs of the atolls are required to be Sunni Muslims. Government regulations are based on Islamic law. Only certified Muslim scholars can give fatawa.
The Malé Friday Mosque or the Malé Hukuru Miskiy also known as the Old Friday Mosque is one of the oldest and most ornate mosques in the city of Malé, Kaafu Atoll, Maldives. Coral boulders of the genus Porites, found throughout the archipelago, are the basic materials used for construction of this and other mosques in the country because of its suitability. Although the coral is soft and easily cut to size when wet, it makes sturdy building blocks when dry. The mosque was added to the tentative UNESCO World Heritage cultural list in 2008 as unique examples of sea-culture architecture.
The Hundred-word Eulogy is a 100-character praise of Islam and the Islamic prophet Muhammad written by the Hongwu Emperor of the Chinese Ming dynasty. Copies of it are on display in several mosques in Nanjing, China.
Irreligion in the Maldives is a social taboo, and irreligious people are systematically socially and legally discriminated against.
Human rights in the Maldives, an archipelagic nation of 417,000 people off the coast of the Indian Subcontinent, is a contentious issue. In its 2011 Freedom in the World report, Freedom House declared the Maldives "Partly Free", claiming a reform process which had made headway in 2009 and 2010 had stalled. The United States Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor claims in their 2012 report on human rights practices in the country that the most significant problems are corruption, lack of religious freedom, and abuse and unequal treatment of women.
Wang Jingzhai was a well-known Muslim scholar during the Republic of China period. He was the first or possibly second person to translate the entire Qur'an into Chinese, in either 1927 or 1932. He began the translation due to a request from the son of female Chinese Muslim scholar Ding Yunhui. Yunhui had written the Omudai, a partial translation of the Qur'an which omitted any references to Islamic sexual jurisprudence due to the prevailing sensitivities in women's mosques in China at the time.
Ma Zhu (馬注) was a Chinese Hanafi-Maturidi scholar. Ma was noted for his combining of Confucian and Islamic values in his philosophy.
Chinese Islamic architecture, Sino-Islamic architecture, or Islamic architecture of China are terms used to indicate the architectural tradition and cultural heritage of the Muslim populations in China, both of mainland and outer China, which has existed since the 8th century CE to the present. With the acculturation of the Islamic religion within the predominant Han-Chinese culture, a unique architectural style emerged among Chinese Muslims. It became standard for them to incorporate traditional Chinese and Islamic architectural elements together for mosques, prayer halls, mausoleums, and other buildings.
Du Shuzhen, also known as Aminah, is a Chinese imam. With the help of her uncle and a family friend, both of whom were imams based in Shanghai and Henan respectively, she learned to read the Quran in Arabic. Du carried out her first Hajj in 1992, becoming the first woman in Henan to do so.
Qingzhen Zhinan (清真指南), also known as al-Murshid ilā ‘Ulūm al-Islām, is a philosophical treatise on Islam written by Chinese Hanafi-Maturidi scholar Ma Zhu and first published in 1683. It later became part of the Han Kitab, a collection of Chinese Islamic texts written in the late Ming and early Qing dynasties.