Abstract
Female accessibility to the mosque as a social institution invokes gendered subject positions and power dynamics. In the holy month of Ramadan in 2018, a group of Muslim women in Johannesburg resisted their exclusion from a mosque space, which led to diverse reactions expressed on social media. Facebook posts between May 16 and June 14, 2018 were analysed using Foucauldian discourse analysis to map discursive constructions of the Muslim women's resistance. Subject positions, ranging from women as sexual temptation to women as holistic, spiritual beings, emerged from the analysis. Different action orientations were promoted, ranging from submission to the mosque leadership to equating the women's activism to the struggle against apartheid in South Africa. Implications for reformative theological scholarship and positionalities of resistance are discussed.
The freedom and status of women in Muslim communities is a controversial subject, specifically since the turn of the century, when colonialist and Islamophobic discourses of difference increased (Ali & Sonn, 2019). Muslim women find their autonomy and respect undermined in their relationships with both Muslim men and non-Muslim communities (Chapman, 2018). Heteropatriarchy dominates in Western and Islamist discourses regarding Muslim women, constraining expressions of identity and spirituality within narrow and limiting boundaries (Ali, 2019). The passivity and victimhood embedded in Western ideas of Muslim women are in stark contrast to how Muslim women negotiate and implement social transformation in their lived realities (Ali & Sonn, 2019). Exploring local expressions of patriarchal relations, and the corresponding resistance of Muslim women, assists understandings of intersectionality in feminist research (Okuyan & Curtin, 2018).
The mosque in Islamic communities occupies a powerful physical and psychological space for belonging, educational exploration, activism, and religious expression (Vahed, 2021). During significant times, such as the month of Ramadan, the mosque becomes a space of communal festivity. However, mosques can also be contested gendered spaces where women's embodiment, patriarchy, and the sexualisation and othering of women intersect (Woodlock, 2010). In contrast to this, women had full access to the first mosque in Islam, known as the Prophet's Mosque, where they functioned as active role models within political, military, professional, and personal spheres (Davids, 2018).
In ethnic immigrant and culturally diverse communities, gender inclusivity in the mosque may be influenced by conservative and patriarchal ideologies (Ghafournia, 2020). These ideologies make women feel excluded and unwanted, and often include discourses of fitna (literally translated as social disorder) and sexual temptation to justify the exclusion of women. Hoel (2013) argues that the politics of gender-based power differentials within mosque spaces need to shift from a dominant focus on discourses of women's sexuality towards the acknowledgement of women's humanity.
Muslim women experience multiple levels of discrimination influenced by the overlapping of cultural identities, racism, and patriarchy (Ali & Sonn, 2019). Creating discursive spaces where Muslim women can express their pluralities is an integral act towards their de-silencing (Ali, 2019). However, critical psychological literature on Muslim women tends to neglect the plurality that exists within communities of Muslim women. Muslim women's identities intersect with their race, sexuality, sociopolitical circumstances, ethnicity, religion, and gender, as well as with the Islamophobic discourses that have emerged strongly since 9/11 (Ali & Sonn, 2019).
Conservative ideologies regarding women's role in society are linked to biological narratives where the female role in reproduction is linked to caregiving and domestic duties, while the man becomes the provider and leader (Kavoura et al., 2015). Such grand narratives are produced through discursive practices interweaved with power relations that construct and maintain hierarchical positions (Foucault, 1972) and are often resistant to change (Lee, 2017). However, Muslim women critically and reflexively negotiate such narrow and constrained roles, and are agentic in shifting their subject positions (Hussain et al., 2017). A further patriarchal grand narrative is that a woman's place is at home, and this isolated domesticity is enforced by men who may be threatened by women accessing public institutions such as mosques. This is contrary to women's rights established in the Quran, such as the right to inherit, to own property, and to decide whom to marry (Davids, 2018).
Muslim women's resistance to exclusivist mosque spaces
Excluding women from the mosque is often justified by the alleged possibility of men being distracted by women's sexuality (Woodlock, 2010). Therefore, this exclusion is for and by men, privileging the male gaze. The term often used by male religious leaders is of women creating fitna through sexual temptation (Davids, 2018). Female Muslim scholars advocate that God sees men and women as equal, therefore egalitarian access to institutions, such as the mosque and religious leadership, is necessary (Hoel, 2013). Nevertheless, as Foucault (1978) discussed, subtle and omnipresent regimes of truth, where men are given ultimate privilege, attempt to limit women's public expressions of power.
The gender segregation that exists in some mosques makes women feel sexualised, discriminated against, and inferior (Ghafournia, 2020), and manifests in the mosque space ideologically as well as physically. Women are allocated peripheral spaces in mosques with facilities that are lacking in quality, cleanliness, physical space, and access to where the priest lectures and leads prayers (Woodlock, 2010). The Muslim women involved in a study in Australia by Ghafournia (2020) expressed that they will feel unwelcome in mosques until mosques become inclusive and spiritually inspiring spaces for women. There is a similar dynamic in the United Kingdom, where men's facilities have lush carpets, underfloor heating, and expensive chandeliers, while women are allocated a small section resembling a basement (Javed, 2022).
Male institutional structures in religious centres advocate for conservative interpretations of the Quran from male scholars that lack historical contextualisation (Vahed, 2021). Despite the decentralisation of religious knowledge and the status afforded to women in Islam (Davids, 2018), mosque structures are often used to preserve male authority.
Internationally, women have started to lead prayers in mosques to reverse male hegemony. In 1994, a progressive mosque in Cape Town invited a woman to deliver the Friday sermon, which traditionally has been perceived as the domain of male imams (Hoel, 2013). In most mosques in South Africa, strict gender segregation is enforced. Therefore, this act of a female standing in front of a mixed-gender audience disrupted hierarchies within this institution. This was met with opposition by male-dominated Islamic institutions who perceived the presence of female religious authority as a threat to male privilege. Similarly, in 1996, gender activists distributed pamphlets encouraging women to attend Eid prayers at mosques in Johannesburg, and many male-dominated religious organisations denounced this call (Ismail, 2002).
Despite the male resistance to equality illustrated in the examples above, female-led prayers have become more common internationally (Nyhagen, 2019). In a study of 20 European Muslim women, attending the mosque allowed them to experience critical reflexive engagement within their community (Nyhagen, 2019). These women demonstrated self-reflexive processes when interpreting religious information and did not always agree with the interpretations of the mosque leadership, which was overwhelmingly male (Nyhagen, 2019). There are many influential women in leadership positions in mosques in Europe, and their presence is legitimised by the active presence of Muslim women leaders in Islamic history (Mateo, 2019). This is contrary to dominant Western and Orientalist discourses of Muslim women as submissive and lacking religious authority (Ali & Sonn, 2019). Agency towards religiosity is often overlooked by intersectional feminism, but it is important to appreciate as part of the negotiation of identity for religious women (Chapman, 2018).
Contextualisation of the current case study
Muslims came to South Africa during heterogenous historical phases from diverse locations—such as Indonesia, Malaysia, Zanzibar, India, Pakistan, and North Africa—as slaves, traders, and political exiles. Therefore, the Muslim community in South Africa encompasses diversity in relation to ethnicity, language, culture, social class, as well as regarding religious practices (Günther, 2018). However, the diversity within Islam, and even within the practices of African Muslims, has often been overlooked by Muslims of Indian origin in favour of culturally sanctioned Indian practices. With the end of apartheid in 1994, Islam became an important source of identity among South African Muslims (Vahed, 2021). South African Muslims enjoy relative freedom of religion and accessibility to educational resources, which increases the social capital Muslim women may enjoy in South African society. However, there are also certain sectors and communities of South African Muslim society that privilege more cultural and traditional roles for women (Ismail, 2002).
In the special month of Ramadan, fasting from sunrise to sunset is meant to build a sense of togetherness. Muslims often break their fast together and gather in public spaces, such as the mosque, for the evening prayers (Masweneng, 2018; Schatz, 2018). This is a common practice for Muslim women, even in Makkah, which is considered Islam's holiest site. However, some mosques in South Africa encourage only men to enjoy this sense of communal connectedness (Patel, 2018).
The Women of Waqf (WOW) Facebook page describes their mission as advocating for the presence of Muslim women to mirror that of the Muslim women in Medinah during the time of the Prophet Muhammad Peace be Upon Him (PBUH) and at the height of the Ottoman empire (WOW, 2018). At the beginning of the Ramadan of 2018, WOW invited women in Johannesburg to join them at a mosque to break their fast and pray together. The mosque's institutional board reacted negatively to this call and banned the women from breaking their fast at the mosque (Desai, 2018). However, the women decided to carry on with the event, and approximately 30 women attended the breaking of the fast and communal prayer. This is a type of active subjectivity where marginalised groups use indirect means to destabilise the status quo and transform existing structures and institutions (Butler, 2004).
After a few evenings of the women enjoying breaking fast together and praying, the men from the mosque's institutional board proceeded to lock all the rooms in the vicinity, a signal that the women were unwanted (Masweneng, 2018). The women's section of this mosque had no audio speaker, which meant the women would not have had access to the recital of the Quran (Masweneng, 2018). When the women moved into the courtyard of the mosque to hear the prayers, they were subject to verbal abuse by some of the men present. Many men who passed the women by stared at them, making them feel like animals in a zoo (WOW, 2018). At one point, men started shouting at the women and one physically assaulted a woman to prevent her from accessing the praying space (Dadi Patel, 2018).
Some Muslim organisations, such as the Muslim Judicial Council, condemned the abuse (Schatz, 2018), whereas the right-wing organisation The Majlis labelled the women “lesbians and prostitutes” (The Majlis, 2018). However, the women returned to pray every night in increasing numbers. Due to the public support for the women, the mosque's institutional board had to compromise on their position and allow women to pray at the mosque in a comfortable and accessible space (Dadi Patel, 2018).
Methods
Research design
This article utilises Foucauldian discourse analysis (FDA) to analyse posts during the Ramadan of 2018 on the WOW Facebook page. Resistance in spaces of oppression often takes different forms (Ali & Sonn, 2019), and the internet has become a space where Muslim women can collectively mobilise to resist heteropatriarchal ideologies (Kaya, 2011). Posts on the WOW Facebook page documented how the women were subject to physical and verbal abuse due to their presence in the mosque.
In FDA, problematisation occurs when two contrasting discourses intersect, resulting in the exposure of relationships between power and knowledge (Arribas-Allyon & Walkerdine, 2008). FDA was chosen as a methodological lens due to its analysis of how discursive power is produced, exercised, and resisted (Foucault, 1983). The analysis aimed to explore discourses that either undermined or supported the struggle for legitimate spaces of religious expression for Muslim women. An explicit focus on understanding how Muslim women's resistance behaviours enabled or disrupted patriarchal patterns was used. FDA was further used to explore how dominant societal discourses, and the resulting panoptic gaze, constructed subject positions for Muslim women.
The research question focused on how users of the WOW Facebook page socially positioned Muslim women to understand these acts of resistance. The aim of the analysis therefore was to understand the discursive constructions and subject positions of those who engaged in the debate on Muslim women's access to the mosque, and the implications of these constructions for Muslim women's positionings and practices of Islam. A further aim was an attempt to make visible how these Facebook users reinforced and/or reconfigured dominant and alternative gender-based discourses. FDA was selected as an appropriate methodological lens as mosques are institutional structures and FDA explores the interrelationships of discourses and social structures (Sutherland et al., 2016).
Discourses contribute to both socially constructed realities as well as subject positions and perceived identities (Lee, 2017). Through discourse, certain narratives are privileged and legitimised over others, usually based on power dynamics. Discursive power has a strong influence on reproducing and reinforcing societal norms and disciplinary practices through its omnipresence, pervasiveness, and subtlety (Foucault, 1995).
Data collection
FDA is well suited for the analysis of social media posts to explore discourses through the lens of public opinion, as discourse is inextricably linked to larger social contexts (Sam, 2019). Further, social media is a platform that allows for localised narratives to be easily shared and accessible to the public. Through social media, people engage in “truth games” (Foucault, 1995, p. 297), where different versions of the truth are advocated as pure and objective.
Facebook was used as the platform for data collection as it is a rich source of discursive resources (Gentile & Salerno, 2019). The data for the analysis were collected from posts and comments on the WOW Facebook page in the period on the lunar calendar of Ramadan 1439, which coincided with the Gregorian calendar dates May 16 to June 14, 2018. All posts within this period were relevant to the research question and were included in the analysis. In total, 10 posts and 156 comments were analysed.
The ethics of utilising social media data is an oft-debated topic in social research, and, in this study, the researcher was cognisant of the ethical implications of utilising Facebook posts as data for the FDA. An important principle in this regard is to preserve the Facebook users’ rights to anonymity and privacy (Townsend & Wallace, 2016). Tentative guidelines on using publicly accessible social media data, such as data in open Facebook groups, recommend that researchers explore to what extent the social media users are aware of the unrestricted availability of their comments. Facebook posts in open groups are in the public domain, and all posters are aware that their posts are not private or protected. Nevertheless, it is still necessary for researchers to ensure anonymity (Orrù, 2015). To protect anonymity in this study, the names of the Facebook posters were replaced with post numbers. All identifying information was removed from excerpts and replaced by ellipses to further ensure the posters’ right to privacy.
Data analysis
Willig's (2013) six stages of Foucauldian discourse analysis were followed, as this method systematically analyses discursive resources and subject positions within a text. Further, this method assists the researcher to relate the discourses in the text to dominant societal discourses, and to explore how these enable or constrain particular practices.
In Stage 1,
In Stage 2,
In Stage 3,
In Stage 4,
In Stage 5,
Lastly, in Stage 6,
Researcher positionings
I, as the researcher, also reflected on my own subjectivities and social situatedness in relation to the data throughout the analysis. Since FDA is essentially iterative and interpretive, it was important for me to reflect on my own positionality regarding the research question (Sam, 2019). As a Muslim woman who has led women-only prayers in a mosque, I watched the unfolding events and tended to identify with the women resisting male hegemony. My subjectivity was invoked as a progressive Muslim woman who wants to be understood as a spiritually aware and reflexive human being. My own epistemological situatedness as a critical psychologist was also involved in my interpretations and intersected with my other positionings. Researcher reflexivity was ensured through a continuous cycle of reading the data, reflecting on Foucault's theories, and engaging with the emerging analysis (Mills, 2014).
Findings
Multiple and contradictory constructions emerged from the analysis, involving a range of subject positions and action orientations, which are discussed below. A distinction emerged between discourses encouraging the women to be submissive to the mosque’s institutional board and, conversely, discourses that encouraged the women to resist and be agentic in their freedom of spiritual expression. The former will be discussed first.
Discourses that functioned to limit women's access to the mosque
This subset of discourses maintained the exclusivity of the mosque for men and promoted narratives of fitna and sexual temptation, condemning the actions of WOW and their supporters as disruptive or immodest.
The posts below equate women's presence at the mosque to worst-case scenarios such as sexual temptation and intimacy between men and women, which is prohibited outside of marriage in Islam. One poster anecdotally discusses that illicit relationships have been initiated before in mosques and, based on this appeal to history, may happen again. Imagine if an extra marital relationship or illicit relationship started because a boy and girl saw each other first at the masjid? [mosque] (Post 12; May 17, 2018)
There have been several incidents at masjids [mosques] … where fitna [social disorder] has taken place between the opposite sexes. (Post 72; June 1, 2018)
In some mosques … women and men dress like they are attending some sort of a fashion show, with the women dressed up in all their make up. (Post 54; May 31, 2018)
The solution to maintain social harmony, according to these posts, is for women to retreat to domesticated seclusion and limit their access to social institutions and mobility. This is congruent with the assumption from the mosque's institutional board that the mosque space is by default for men, and women must justify their presence there. These conceptions may be related to the apartheid era in South Africa, where certain ethnic elites had preferential access to certain mosques. In the 1980s in South Africa, violence broke out among male members of different ethnic groups due to conflicting power dynamics within mosques (Vahed, 2021). The discourse of women as sexual temptation places the responsibility for modesty and sexual restraint solely onto women, and allows men to evade accountability for their actions (Okuyan & Curtin, 2018).
Some posts accused the women of being attention-seekers and not having valid reasons for wanting access to the mosque, therefore preserving patriarchal interpretations of WOW supporters as being immodest and disruptive. Unfortunately for you nobody is falling for your attention-seeking dramatics … the women involved are not known to be religious in the least. (Post 36; May 24, 2018)
Or is this just a once off publicity stunt. (Post 57; May 31, 2018)
These girls do this everywhere for attention … and then post it on social media to play victim. (Post 46; May 24, 2018)
Referring to the women as “girls” and questioning their religiosity promote the discourse that women are inferior beings that cannot be inherently spiritual (Hoel, 2013), and invokes the trope that women are hysterical. These posters question the morality and modesty of WOW members and their supporters as a distraction from questions of agency and spirituality.
European Muslim women in a study by Chapman (2018) expressed that sexuality is natural in Islam, and therefore veiling allows women to interact freely in public. Modesty was also perceived by the women in this study as a nongendered virtue, related more to humility than sexuality (Chapman, 2018).
The extracts below discuss how, according to the posters, women need to prove themselves worthy or fulfil certain conditions to be deserving of mosque access. You are NOT of the calibre of the women around the messenger so grow the **** up … What is this need to feel like you are equal to men?! (Post 38; May 24, 2018) Sisters should also be wary … going to the Mosque should not lead to the non-fulfilment of their other household duties. (Post 21; May 17, 2018) Women … sort out your dress … *before* you step into your saf [row] in the musjid [mosque]. Our masjids [mosques] are not the place for incomplete Muslim women trying to better themselves. (Post 28; May 17, 2018) Dear Women of Waqf why is it that most of you don’t observe the hijab [head covering]? (Post 123; June 5, 2018)
These discourses reinforce the idea that women must prioritise household duties and are inherently linked to caregiving and domestic tasks (Kavoura et al., 2015). This is similar to dominant Western ideas of Muslim women that characterise them as oppressed, submissive, and of lower status than men (Ali & Sonn, 2019). Further, there is no mention in the extracts of how men fulfil certain conditions to justify their presence in the mosque. The comments above mirror the experiences of pious Muslim women in studies in Turkey and Denmark, where women's religiosity was linked to increased social scrutiny and judgement (Chapman, 2018; Okuyan & Curtin, 2018). Religious Muslim men do not have their morals questioned as often and are allowed more liberty in transgressing the bounds of socially accepted behaviour than religious Muslim women. In the extracts above, the women supporting WOW are criticised as not being religious enough. A woman who does not conform to rigid boundaries of submissiveness to male power may be erroneously accused of being promiscuous. One right-wing publication labelled the actions of the WOW supporters as akin to those of “lesbians and prostitutes” (The Majlis, 2018).
Some representations framed the women's actions as disrespectful to the mosque's institutional structure, reinforcing the positionality of women as needing validation from the male institutional structure for their presence in the mosque. The personal characters of the women supporting WOW were attacked once again. The ladies did not seek permission … really mischievous and trouble seeking and not in the spirit of Ramadan. (Post 15; May 17, 2018)
A masjid [mosque] is a house of Allah but run by a executive committee … this group is run by an unethical, unprincipled group of attention seekers. (Post 126; June 5, 2018)
Other posts encouraged the women to be silent about their exclusion, as the contrary causes disunity within the community and fuels sensationalist and Islamophobic sentiment. This is congruent with the subject positions advocated by the mosque's institutional board, where they expected the women to be unquestioningly submissive. Whoever posted this has opened up a can of worms … non Muslims who will say that we are a religion that oppresses women. (Post 8; May 17, 2018)
My argument firstly was not to air on social media … and gives ammo to non Muslims that Islam is a religion that subjugates women. (Post 33; May 24, 2018)
No wonder the non muslims is laughing at the muslims … It ppl like that, that causes the split in the ummah [Muslim community]. (Post 129; June 5, 2018)
The action orientations contained within these posts ask the women to be silent despite their experiences of discrimination. There is validity in the idea that Western Islamophobic discourses emphasise misogynistic ideas of men oppressing women, associated with cultural backwardness (Ali & Sonn, 2019). Islamophobia has been steadily increasing in Western societies (Javed, 2022). However, the encouragement of Muslim women's passivity, as illustrated in the extracts above, further reinforces Islamophobic ideologies of Muslim women as lacking agency (Okuyan & Curtin, 2018). Therefore, by silencing Muslim women's resistance, a secondary oppression is perpetuated, where Western tropes of Muslim women as oppressed become a self-fulfilling prophecy.
The action orientations espoused above are congruent with those experienced by Muslim activist women in Turkey in a study by Okuyan and Curtin (2018). Traditional religious factions in this study wanted women to silence their critiques, as the critiques might increase Islamophobia. Muslim women in Australia similarly expressed how in a context of Islamophobia, the silencing of important discussions around gendered oppression is justified based on the need to defend Islam (Ali & Sonn, 2019).
The following section will explore discourses that encouraged the women's resistance and supported the actions of WOW and their followers.
Discourses encouraging women's resistance and their mosque access
The discourses discussed in this subsection frame women's exclusion and marginalisation from mosques as an injustice, and therefore encourage the women to resist oppressive subject positions and transform hegemonic structures.
One discursive construction of the mosque space was related to challenging exclusivity and male hegemony. These posters raised questions of ownership of the physical property of the mosque that should theologically belong to Allah. In this case study, the men appear to colonise this space and discriminate against women, which goes directly against the authority of the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH), who said women cannot be prevented from going to the mosque. Absolutely appalling … the mosque is not the property of the Moulana [priest], it is the house of Allah. (Post 18; May 17, 2018)
Being a trustee of a mosque does not give you ownership … Trustees generally promote their own “brand” of Islam. (Post 43; May 24, 2018)
In the Prophet's days the masjid [mosque] was not exclusively for men … War strategy was even planned and women were a huge part of that. (Post 128; June 5, 2018)
The Messenger of Allah … said that women should not be prevented from entering the Mosques. (Post 22; May 17, 2018)
The comments above problematise the practice of exclusivity in a mosque as contrary to the teachings of Islam. Other posts discussed how the physical mosque space reinforces such exclusion, where women's facilities are of lesser quality and thus discourage them from enjoying the mosque as a spiritual sanctuary. These sentiments were echoed by Muslim women in an Australian study (Ghafournia, 2020). The ladies facilities are often scary and secluded with no sound. (Post 19; May 17, 2018)
We are surrounded by five mosques in our area … none of them cater to women which goes against our very right to be there. (Post 10; May 17, 2018)
Some posts deconstructed the trope of women causing fitna, emphasising that women's subject positions should not be based on sexualisation and othering. Perverted men that think a women in their space is something immediately sexual … why don’t we ban them from the mosque. (Post 16; May 17, 2018) The often used arguments around fitnah [social disorder] are … baseless … the Quran is clear about the journey of the ungendered soul towards its creator. (Post 11; May 17, 2018) Interesting how only women's Imaan [faith] is always in question. (Post 115; June 4, 2018) The fact that Muslim men actually put forward “temptation” as a reason to violate the rights of Muslim women is, for me, as indication of whatz [sic] wrong with our world … The day men stop justifying their inability to control themselves … will be the day the world will be a better place for women. (Post 45; May 24, 2018) The intentions of each and every women … has been questioned in the most foul manner. (Post 106; June 3, 2018)
The above posts question the assumptions of the fitna discourse and invert the stigmatising gaze away from women to the men's perversions and inability to control themselves.
Some extracts discussed the men's abuse of power as being antithetical to the spirit of Islam, and that men should rather focus their efforts on protecting the vulnerable in society. The deep roots of male privilege in Islam in South Africa is appalling … How can you privilege the right to prayer. (Post 25; May 17, 2018)
May Allah guide the men in power the wisdom to realise their power is not ABSOLUTE … and comes with great responsibility to ensure the women in their care in their musjids [mosques] are protected in every respect. (Post 13; May 17, 2018)
Historically, Muslim men have enjoyed access to greater material and social resources than Muslim women, and the poster above illustrates how this privilege extends to mosque accessibility. If the mosque should ideally be an egalitarian space, the men's actions in this situation were perceived as an abuse of their privilege. A group of men have decided that we are a fitna [social disorder] and therefore … we certainly miss out on being able to pray shoulder to shoulder with our sisters of faith. (Post 7; May 17, 2018)
By all means, create unity between the sisters … I cannot see why that would be frowned upon or even questioned instead of supported. (Post 27; May 17, 2018)
The posters above discussed the irony of associating WOW's supporters with social discord (fitna) when their intentions centre on the unity and solidarity of praying shoulder to shoulder with other women. Communal connectedness in spaces of worship is interpreted in some extracts as a legitimate request. The mosque space was emphasised by many of the women as an important space for community and belonging, similar to the sentiments expressed by Muslim women in studies in Europe (Nyhagen, 2019) and Australia (Ghafournia, 2020). In contrast to the social discord narrative, these posts emphasise the importance of mosque access for social harmony. Firstly and foremost a masjid [mosque] is … A place of security and a place of community, where all should be welcome. (Post 102; June 3, 2018)
For me, mosques are deeply symbolic and spiritual spaces … Mosques bring life to community, they are a space for gathering, learning and socializing. (Post 41; May 24, 2018)
The two holy Mosques of Makkah and Madinah … have iftar [meals for breaking the fast] for thousands of women every evening of Ramadan. (Post 66; May 31, 2018)
Where should we go for our spiritual guidance … Masjids [mosques] should be dealing with pertinent issues in a community. (Post 47; May 24, 2018)
The comments above describe how some posters would ideally envision the discursive object of the mosque space as a space of harmony and inclusion, which is in distinct opposition to the exclusion advocated by the mosque's leadership. Previous research (Sirin & Katsiaficas, 2011) has found that experiences of discrimination have encouraged Muslim women to engage and find spaces of belonging in the broader Muslim community. In this case study, the increasing numbers of women who attended the prayers demonstrated solidarity in a time of oppression and exclusion (Masweneng, 2018).
Some posts disagreed with patriarchal discourses of secluded domesticity for Muslim women, as discussed by Davids (2018) and Hoel (2013), based on examples from the time of the first mosque in Medinah, where families were welcome and the Prophet (PBUH) prayed with his daughters and grandchildren (Mateo, 2019). Women during the time of the Prophet visited their relatives, attended lessons … and went to the market … how is it possible to ban them from mosques? (Post 122; June 5, 2018)
Islam is a religion that praises women, that has raised their status. (Post 77; June 1, 2018)
The comments above emphasise the status of women in Islam, where their spirituality and identities are independent from men. In pre-Islamic Arabia, women were viewed as objects who could be traded or inherited. Islam revolutionised the rights of women to inherit property, to be entrepreneurs and work, and to have an active role in society (Nyhagen, 2019).
Other posts focused on women in relation to their roles as mothers. If patriarchal discourses reinforce that women should focus on motherhood and caregiving, it is contradictory that mothers are not spiritual beings themselves (Hussain et al., 2017). Worldwide women have made the mosques an extension of their homes … developing a love for Islam within their kids and families minds and hearts. (Post 29; May 17, 2018)
Brothers a reminder … it is often the mother in the home who educates your child on the deen [religion]. (Post 75; June 1, 2018)
Opening the masjid [mosque] to women, opens it up to children. (Post 135; June 9, 2018)
In the posts above, a woman's powerful role as a mother is positioned as incongruent with reductionist subject positions of women.
Some posts encouraged the women to resist the rules of the mosque's institutional board, as revolutionary action is needed for change. This view is diametrically opposed to the action orientations espoused in the previous subsection of silence and submissiveness; here, the mosque's institutional structure is conceptualised as oppressive and in need of reformation. It is important however to note that once dialogue is exhausted … women must take action. (Post 9; May 17, 2018) If we don’t want to be called a religion that oppresses women than we should not be oppressing women … Islam instructs us to act when we see oppression and so letting it be would be unislamic. (Post 121; June 5, 2018) Palestinian women are at the front of the struggle for justice and freedom … But we here in SA are saying put the females in the back, on the side, in the dark, and stifle their voices. (Post 31; May 24, 2018) If nobody ever “opened up a can of worms” we would probably still be living in apartheid … nothing in history would actually have changed for the better. (Post 125; June 5, 2018) Take courage from South African and Palestinian women … Fatima Meer and Leila Khaled who strive for what is right, and just. (Post 40; May 24, 2018)
The posts above equate the struggle for gender justice in patriarchal communities to the struggle for social rights during apartheid in South Africa. The reference to Palestinian women implies that in macrosystems of oppression, such as racism and patriarchy, those who are oppressed need to resist. In both cases, silence is seen as collaboration with the oppressor and as reinforcing hegemonic discourses and practices that allow injustices to occur (Hoel, 2013). The action orientations discussed above encourage social activism and justice against oppressive behaviours.
Complementary to the discourses supporting WOW, there was a further discursive object identified: scholarship that is not transformative and is based on patriarchal ideologies. Many posts expressed how the lack of critical and socially reformative scholarship within Muslim communities results in exclusionary and patriarchal practices. Generally, the major Fatawa religious law books of the Indian Subcontinent … discourage (quite vehemently at times) women from attending and praying at Mosques. (Post 20; May 17, 2018)
In the old days the Ulama [religious scholars] were intellectuals … and enlightened people … we have bigots who would read the extract and literally read male in the word brotherhood. (Post 5; May 17, 2018)
We’ve all read the story of the Prophet Ibrahim … He teaches us to think critically. (Post 103; June 3, 2018)
Islam is not a religion of following blindly. (Post 46; May 24, 2018)
The extracts above discuss how broader male privilege reflects a lack of representative and inclusive scholarship in the 21st-century Muslim community. Patriarchal religious authorities impose restrictions on Muslim women based on invalid and reductionistic religious arguments (Kaya, 2011). Any interpretation of a religious text is inherently subjective and is therefore susceptible to abuse by those in power, who would use such interpretations in a self-serving manner (Vahed, 2021). Such discourses are linked to the grand narratives of male scholars who come from a specific ontological tradition, and that emphasise male hegemony in public spaces (Jeenah, 2001).
The subversion of sacred texts by male religious authorities to position women as of inferior status in Islam is unfortunately a common practice (Ismail, 2002). However, when women go directly to the texts themselves, they realise the status they should be awarded and resist oppressive subject positions (Ali & Sonn, 2019). The action orientations advocated in the posts above echo those supported by pious women in Turkey who feel that religious laws should be reinterpreted contextually. However, this is often a complex endeavour as, even though Muslim female theologians find sufficient evidence to contest and resist unequal gendered practices, there are societal barriers to implementing reformation (Okuyan & Curtin, 2018). Islam is perceived to be a set of values that needs to evolve with contextual developments and be subject to constant reform; however, male scholars preserve male hegemony (Vahed, 2021). Davids (2018) labels how men in powerful positions use the sacred texts for their own convenience as “deliberate misinterpretations.”
Concluding discussion
This article explored how the intersecting power dynamics of an institutional board and their embedded patriarchy attempted to dislocate a community of Muslim women from the spatio-temporal space of a mosque in Johannesburg. The women's resistance to this dislocation is an example of how Muslim women navigate complex and intersectional levels of oppression in their everyday lives. Foucauldian discourse analysis revealed different levels of resistance on the part of WOW and their supporters, as well as various discursive constructions and interpretations by commentators on Facebook.
Different subject positions and action orientations emerged from the analysis, some of which reinforced patriarchal and exclusivist constructions of the mosque space, whereas others advocated agency and inclusion. Often, the women's actions were interpreted based on their relationships to men, which is contrary to the religious autonomy experienced and advocated by Muslim women. This analysis therefore underscores the necessity of allowing Muslim women the ideological freedom not to be overshadowed by men that claim to speak and act on their behalf.
Further, the women's modesty was questioned and their choice to pray in the mosque was framed as responsible for causing sexual temptation and fitna. Muslim women often contest that the responsibility for modesty fall only on women; rather, many Muslim women see modesty as a nongendered virtue for which women and men are equally responsible (Chapman, 2018). The supporters of WOW asserted that the mosque's institutional structure does not have jurisdiction over Muslim women's embodiment and sexualities, and therefore cannot impose its interpretations of WOW supporters’ actions as immodest.
The characters of the resisting women were attacked by those opposing WOW, with the women being labelled “attention seekers” and “mischievous.” These negative experiences are mirrored by female Muslim activists in different contexts where resistance to dominant heteropatriarchal norms has resulted in their integrity being attacked (Ghafournia, 2020; Okuyan & Curtin, 2018). Further research is needed on the dynamics of oppression and how social scrutiny of Muslim women is used as a distraction from overt and implicit hegemonic structures and behaviours.
An important perspective that also emanated from the analysis was the need for Muslim communities to evolve and transform contextually, and for scholars to be involved in constant processes of reinterpretation and reform (Vahed, 2021). Female scholars’ involvement may assist in reducing bias and hegemony in interpretations of religious texts (Okuyan & Curtin, 2018). The transformative actions of the women in the current case study may encourage more Muslim women to challenge such interpretations on a discursive and societal level.
Another significant contribution from this analysis relates to the importance placed on communal connectedness for Muslim women, and on Muslim women's advocacy of their own spaces of belonging and agency.
Due to the multiple realities observed within this research design, there are possibly discursive constructions that were not discussed within this analysis. Further, as a sole researcher with my own subjectivities, there are perhaps subject positions and discourses that I am not aware of or did not understand through the analysis. Also, due to the nature of the data collected, it was not possible to explore or analyse the subjectivities of the women involved in the case study. Further research should focus on the phenomenology of exclusion and resistance from Muslim women's perspectives to better understand the hegemonic dynamics that operate in these contexts.
Footnotes
Acknowledgements
The author would like to thank the anonymous reviewers for their constructive input that helped to strengthen the analytical and academic depth of this work.
Declaration of conflicting interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
