Jamida
This is a collection of articles archived for the excellence of their content. |
Contents |
Career
First woman 'Imam' of Jumu'ah in India
M P Prashanth, January 29, 2018: The Times of India
HIGHLIGHTS
• Around 80 people, including women, gathered to attend the prayers, led by the woman 'Imam'
• Jumu'ah, the congregational prayer held every Friday, is usually led by men.
• The rmove has kicked up a wide debate for and against the practise of a woman leading prayers on the social media.
In a first for Kerala and perhaps the country, a Muslim woman led Friday prayers on January 26+ in Malappuram. Jamida, who goes only by her first name, said she wanted to question a custom imposed by the male clergy.
"Nowhere does Islam stipulate that only a man can be an imam (one who leads the prayers)," Jamida, state general secretary of Qur'an Sunnath Society, told TOI.
The society is a revisionist Muslim sect in Kerala which believes that the Quran alone matters and the Hadith (sayings and acts of Prophet Muhammad) are essentially extrapolations. The prayer was held at the organisation's head office at Vengara, where a small group of men joined Jamida though there were no women in the congregation. Her action has predictably provoked an angry reaction from conservative sections of the community who alleged a conspiracy by "anti-Islamic forces". "Women can lead prayers for women but there is no tradition of a woman acting as imam for men. Islam has prohibited such male-female mingling to prevent chances of some wrong happening between them," said Abdul Hameed Faizi Ambalakkadavu, state general secretary of Sunni Yuvajana Sangham (Sunni Youth Front). Quran Sunnath Society was established by Islamic scholar P K Abdul Muhammad Hassan Moulavi alias Chekannur Moulavi, who was known for his unconventional reading of Islam. He was murdered in 1993, allegedly by extremists in the community. Jamida revealed that following Friday's developments, threats against her have increased manifold but she has decided to go ahead and organise such prayers in other parts of the state too. She hails from Thiruvananthapuram but lives at Kappad in Kozhikode. Jamida, who used to be a teacher, has received threats earlier for speaking out against triple talaq and forced conversions. C P Saleem, spokesperson of Wisdom Global Islamic Mission, a Salafi organisation, said: "The purpose of this gimmick is just to insult Islam and become an instant celebrity."
A ‘successor’ of the missing Chekannur Moulavi?
Prashanth MP, Jamida ‘successor’ of missing Moulavi: Scholars, January 29, 2018: The Times of India
After Jamida led Friday prayers on January 26, the first time a woman has done so in Kerala, public interest has been rekindled in Chekannur Moulavi, the controversial Islamic scholar, who the CBI believes was murdered but the body was never found.
Chekannur’s teachings focused on what the Quran said and emphasised gender equality among Muslims. He argued that the purdah is un-Islamic and spoke vehemently against instant triple talaq, and many see Jamida as Chekannur’s “intellectual successor”.
On July 29, 1993, some persons arrived at the Malappuram house of P K Muhammad Abdul Hassan Moulavi alias Chekannur Moulavi to escort him to the venue of a public programme. He was never seen after that. On September 30, 2010, a CBI special court in Ernakulam sentenced V V Hamza to life imprisonment for murdering the Muslim scholar.
Though the court concluded that Chekannur was killed, his body was never recovered. The CBI had conducted a thorough search for his mortal remains using earth movers at Chuvannakunnu in Malappuram where the body was supposedly disposed of.
A powerful Sunni leader from north Kerala was allegedly behind the murder of the Chekannur but he didn’t appear in the final report submitted by CBI. It is believed that one group of persons was assigned the task of murdering the Chekannur and another group disposed of the body.
Chekannur was targeted by major Muslim organizations in Kerala for consistently arguing that majority of Hadiths written in the name of Prophet Muhammad were fabricated and therefore cannot be seen as authentic religious texts. “I once called Jamida ‘Lady Chekannur’ because she is determined to fight patriarchy in Islam like the Moulavi. She might not have met the Moulavi but she is indeed his intellectual successor,” well-known writer and social activist M N Karassery told
