Just inside Rabat's walled medina - with its market stalls selling fake Gucci sunglasses and bzeghir, traditional Moroccan pancakes - stands the Dar al-Hadith al-Hassania, an octagonal building resplendent with bougainvillaea and a fountain. This is the seminary where a revolution is under way. Two hundred student imams sit in long rows in disciplined silence as their tutor, Hussein Ait Said, addresses them. All the students are wearing robes and have a copy of the Koran on their desk, but 50 of them also have handbags and, more surprising still, a pair of white slingbacks is just visible in the fifth row. These are the women who are training to be mourchidat - female priests - the second intake at the seminary.
The mourchidat (meaning 'female guide') first made news in April 2006 when the Moroccan government announced with great fanfare that the first 50 had graduated. Funded by the government, the initiative is part of a wave of liberal reform begun by King Mohammed VI in 2004. 'This is a rare experiment in the Muslim world,' Muhammad Mahfudh, the centre's director, says. The mourchidat will help women with religious questions, with their education and give support in schools and prisons. The long-term hope is that by working face-to-face with the community, they will help foster a more moderate Islam.
In the Dar al-Hadith al-Hassania, the female student priests are taking a morning break. More than 400 women applied for the 50 places. The prerequisites are an exam, an interview and a BA. Candidates are also required to have a life grounded in the Koran, by which is meant memorising it, and an understanding of tajwid, the art of Koranic recital. Men have to know the entire text by heart; women, half of it. Once accepted on the course, students are given a grant of 4,000 dirhams (£360) a month. To rent a room in a shared house, as many students do, costs about a quarter of that. The youngest woman on the course is 22 - 'baby mourchidat!' - the oldest nearly 40. Lessons include Islamic studies, psychology, sociology, computer skills, economy, law and business management, plus three hours of homework a day.
The seminary where the mourchidat are taught is inside Rabat's walled medina Men and women learn side by side, but only men will be able to lead prayers. Does she mind? 'No, because it is from our religion,' Haddad replies. 'We are not shocked or belittled by this.' How do the men treat you? 'There is distance, manners in our relationship.' Any criticism? 'If there is, they don't say it to our face…' She pauses and smiles, 'so perhaps…'
Women have come a long way since pre-independence days, but Morocco is still a divided society: one where some women are modern, educated and forging ahead in high positions in politics, business, medicine, law - about 25 per cent of professionals are women; yet nearly 70 per cent of women are illiterate (89 per cent in rural areas) compared with 41 per cent of men, according to 1999 government figures.
In some rural areas, a woman who is beaten or abandoned by her husband with no means of livelihood has only one course of action: words 'of spiritual impact' to her husband are written on a piece of paper by the local imam. The woman then keeps the piece of paper, hoping it will somehow change her husband's behaviour.
The idea for the mourchidat was first discussed in 2003, but its roots go back to 1999, when Mohammed VI came to the throne. He promised a new era of openness and democracy after the 38-year repressive dictatorship of his father, Hassan II. First to go was the palace harem - some 40 women. Next was the interior minister, Driss Basri, who had run Hassan's security system for 20 years, and was feared and detested like no other. The king also remodelled himself as a champion of women's rights, approving modifications to the Moudawana, the family code, in 2004, including raising the age of marriage from 15 to 17.
But the landmark event that paved the way for the mourchidat took place in 2003. In a radical break with tradition, the king invited a woman - el Mekkaoui - to give the Ramadan lecture at the royal palace in Rabat, attended by members of the government, high-ranking military officials and foreign ambassadors. It was the first time a woman had even been allowed to enter the room, let alone permitted to speak.
But in Morocco the monarchy has all the power, and the parliament plays a marginal role. The true power is in the hands of the people close to Mohammed VI. And the two other people instrumental in the formation of the mourchidat are senior advisers to the king: Professor Abdelhadi Boutaleb, a well-known Islamic authority; and Ahmed Toufiq, the minister of Islamic affairs. Boutaleb publicly stated his support of women's rights soon after Mohammed VI came to power in late 1999. Islam, he noted at a public meeting of the Woman's Network, a coalition of some 200 volunteer organisations, was a 'message of renewal and reform', and he cited verses that demonstrated that Islam advocated the equality of men and women - 'It is true that a bird needs two wings to fly.'
On graduation, each mourchidat is assigned a mosque, which can be anywhere in Morocco, although the ministry in charge aims to find somewhere close to their families. The mourchidat offer spiritual advice and teach women the Koran, but also discuss more contentious gender-related issues - about sex, women's health, what to do if your husband beats you - issues that women would not dream of asking an imam. They are paid 5,000 dirhams (£420) a month, and work long hours, both in and outside the mosque.
Since the introduction of the mourchidat, Turkey has also challenged traditional Islamic gender roles with the appointment of 450 women as preachers - or vaize. The Diyanet, or Directorate of Religious Affairs, which controls the Islamic faith in Turkey but also tries to improve women's rights, sees the appointment of female vaize as a crucial step forward.
But many Moroccans see the mourchidat as 'government propaganda', particularly those from one Islamic movement, the Justice and Charity Association. There are two main political Islamic organisations in Morocco: the Justice and Development Party (PJD), which takes part in elections; and the Justice and Charity Association, which is tolerated by the government but banned from mainstream politics because of its open hostility to the monarchy. (Both these groups have publicly condemned violence and castigated terrorists who attacked the World Trade Centre. But just as forcibly, the two organisations condemn 'American terrorism'.) Marvine Howe, the author of Morocco: The Islamist Awakening and Other Conflicts, points out that the Justice and Charity Association, 'is of overwhelming importance. It's the strongest party in the country, even though it isn't actually a party.'
Justice and Charity supports feminist ideals (its spokesman is the charismatic activist Nadia Yassine), seeing Muslim women as being liberated through the original teachings of the Prophet, and not by imitating a Western model of emancipation.
'We've been carrying out a programme of education and training for women in Morocco for more than 20 years in mosques,' argues Maryem Yafont, 37, the head of Justice and Charity's women's section, who says that her party has long had women acting as informal mourchidat.
To the great embarrassment of the government, several mourchidat from the first intake to graduate turned out to be supporters of Justice and Charity. 'Now the ministry carries out inquiries to find out if they [students] belong to our movement or not,' Yafont says, 'so they have to keep it secret.'
Back in the Dar al-Hadith al-Hassania, Zakia Haddad is about to resume morning lessons. Haddad is to be tested on three verses from the Koran, in front of a large group of male students. But she is not nervous. 'There is a big difference between an imam and a mourchidat,' she says. 'Women have more patience,' she laughs, 'they are more generous, and because women are mothers they are more nurturing, more giving - like a mother among people, that is what our role is from God.'
— One in every ten voters in America believes Barack Obama to be a Muslim, a survey has revealed. White evangelical Protestants and Americans from the Southern, mid-Western and rural states are the most likely to hold this view, according to the poll commissioned by the Pew Research Centre.
— A hotel in Nashville is removing the Bible from its bedrooms and offering guests a “spiritual” reading menu instead. Reports in the Tennessee press say the Hotel Preston will invite guests to call room service to ask for the religious book of their choice. The selection offered will include the Koran, Book of Mormon, the Torah, the Bhagavad Gita, and the Four Noble Truths of Buddhism as well as the King James Bible. “Our guests come from different places and they definitely come from different cultures, backgrounds, ethnicities, so we want everyone to feel welcomed and comfortable,” said Dina Nishioka, public relations director for Hotel Preston.
— A German security agency has published a teenage comic illustrated with Manga cartoon sketches as an attempt to combat the appeal of Islamic extremists. One hundred thousand copies of Andi, a comic relating the adventures of a schoolboy with a Muslim girlfriend who is influenced by a radical preacher, have been published and distributed to every secondary school in Germany. They have been produced by the intelligence and security department of the interior ministry of North-Rhine Westphalia. Spokesperson Hartwig Moller explained: “We had to make clear we weren't aiming against Muslims, but only those people who want to misuse Islam for political aims." The magazine is intended for use in citizenship and religion lessons for 12-16 year olds.
— Yale University is running a course on the theology of Harry Potter. Danielle Tumminio, a graduate from Yale Divinity School has devised a study programme that examines Christian themes of sin, evil and resurrection in JK Rowling's seven Harry Potter books. She described the course as “a critical endeavour” adding that she did not wish to “indoctrinate students.”
— A church magazine in Canada has become the first sponsor in North America of a travelling exhibition devoted to the life and work of Charles Darwin. David Wilson, editor of The United Church Observer, decided after learning the exhibition had attracted no corporate funding that the magazine should sponsor the exhibition. “There is nothing in the exhibit that threatens or diminishes religion. If anything, it shines a light on the inherent beauty and wonder of a creation that is constantly and eternally evolving,” he explained. Darwin: The Evolution Revolution is on display at the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto until until August 4 and will later come to the Natural History Museum in London.
— The governing body of the Church of Wales is to vote on whether women should be ordained as bishops. The Archbishop of Wales, Dr Barry Morgan said: "I do not personally see how, having agreed to ordaining women to both the diaconate and priesthood, the church can logically exclude women from the episcopate.” The vote will take place on Wednesday when the governing body is due to meet.
Wazhma Frogh, an Afghan, uses her religion to press for women's rights – and development agencies take note.
By Jill Carroll from the March 5, 2008 edition
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Just hours after Wazhma Frogh arrived in an isolated, conservative district in northeastern Afghanistan in 2002, the local mullah was preaching to his congregation to kill her. Ms. Frogh was meddling with their women with her plan to start a literacy program, he told the assembly.
As she walked past the mosque during noon prayers, his words caught her ear. Shocked, she marched straight into the mosque. In a flowing black chador that left her face uncovered, she strode past the male worshipers and faced the mullah. Trembling inside, she challenged him.
"Mullah, give me five minutes," she recalls saying. "I will tell you something, and after that if you want to say I am an infidel and I am a threat to you, just kill me."
She then rattled off five Koranic verses – in both Arabic and the local Dari language – that extol the virtues of education, tolerance, and not harming others. She criticized local practices of allowing men to use Islam to justify beating their wives, betrothing young girls, and denying women an education.
The room was silent. All eyes were on Frogh and the mullah. Then the mullah rested his hand on her head.
"God bless you, my daughter," he said.
With that, Frogh won permission to start the literacy program that later helped women from Badakhshan Province participate in local government and run for the national assembly.
Where rigid interpretations of Islam relegate women to second-class status, Frogh uses rhetorical jujitsu to turn religious arguments on their heads and win women's rights. Her steely determination has earned her attention in Washington.
"In a country where religion is so important to people, we need to understand the religion," she says. Arguments based on principles of universal human rights or on what international conventions say don't persuade many Afghans to support reforms, she says. "[M]y experience in the last 10 years is this does not matter to the people in Afghanistan," she says. Only religious arguments hold sway.
The international development field has lately seen more of that approach, says Rachel McCleary, a fellow at the Center for International Development at Harvard. In the 1960s and '70s, foreign aid became more secularized, but now religious groups are a growing presence in international development work, says Ms. McCleary.
Frogh is like a number of Islamic scholars – from the United States to Yemen – who are using religious jurisprudence to argue that women have greater rights under Islam, convince leaders in Muslim communities to make reforms, or even turn around extremists who use Islam to justify violence. As an Afghan Muslim, Frogh is in the best position to persuade other Afghan Muslims to support her various projects, experts say.
"The fact [that] this woman is from within, and from the culture and society is much more powerful and salient than if a woman from outside said the same thing," says Eileen Babbitt, professor of International Conflict Management Practice at Tufts University's Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy.
"As young moms we admired the mature spirituality we saw in the older women, especially since many of us were in those early seasons of motherhood, with all the challenges of parenting coupled with taking care of our husbands," Reid said.
"We wanted an experienced, Godly perspective on how they had raised their children to adulthood and survived," Reid smiles. "They had wisdom to share and it was encouraging to hear their stories.
"It was 2003, and Betty Brown had the vision to begin a mentoring ministry. She has since moved, but she left behind the program she started from a ladies' tea and a survey to determine interest. We ended up with enough older and younger women to do a test run," Reid explains.
The test run has turned into a continuous, five-year blessing for all who've participated in the ministry. The model is designed for a mentor and mentee to share concerns, Biblical counsel, prayers and fun throughout a six-month commitment.
Many needs met
Lisa Nelsen, who recently became a mentee, confirms the needs this ministry meets. "My mother lives in California, and my husband has to travel some with his work. We have a son who's 4 and an adopted 2-year old daughter from Guatemala. I have a wonderful family, but I felt the Lord pushing me to become involved because I was feeling alone at times and very busy with the children and needed someone close-by to talk to."
When the decision is made to participate in this ministry, a profile card is completed. Information about hobbies, interests, and essential beliefs are listed, as well as the desire to be either a mentor, a mentee, either, or both.
Martha Roach, who heads the prayer warriors, describes the matching process. "We cover the entire ministry in prayer, from beginning to end. Once we have the profile cards, we sit down and pray for the Lord's guidance in matching mentors with mentees and the prayer warrior who will be assigned to them. We believe if the Lord doesn't build the house, it doesn't stand. We are sensitive to his leading, his nudging, and we give him all the credit for the success of the matches."
Relationships continue
"Sometimes, however, the mentoring situation doesn't seem to work out," Funk says, "for whatever reason. More often though, the mentors and mentees want to continue their relationship beyond the 6 months because their interactions have been so beneficial."
"I've definitely been given a God-match," Nelsen says, "because my mentor, Penny (Oesterling), has been in similar situations, and her advice and spiritual beliefs have been such a help. I want to be where she is. I've started reading the Bible more to gain that close relationship with the Lord that shines in Penny.
Penny Oesterling began a mentoring ministry at her church in Rochester, N.Y., and after moving to Hendersonville several years ago, has continued her commitment to helping younger women by joining the mentoring program at First Baptist. "The Lord instilled this desire because of an experience I had with a friend who was 12 years older. While that's not a lot of difference, she shared parenting advice; helpful because I didn't have any relatives living nearby.
"We became close, even as couples," Oesterling said. "They mentored the Christian life to my husband and me. My friend never realized the extent of her impact until years later when I started the mentoring ministry, inspired by our relationship.
"We're always influencing others, either positively or negatively," Oesterling says. "It's important we train women to love God, to help them understand how to love their husbands and children."
Woman to Woman Mentoring at First Baptist is called "A Titus 2 Ministry," based on Titus 2:3-5, "Likewise, teach the older women to be reverent in the way they live, not to be slanderers or addicted to much wine, but to teach what is good. Then they can train the younger women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled and pure, to be busy at home, to be kind, and to be subject to their husbands, so that no one will malign the word of God."
On her profile card, Oesterling wrote that she wanted a mentoring relationship "led by the Lord in which he can use me to be a Titus 2 woman." He has done that through her relationship with Lisa.
It is easy to see why women suffer less anxiety when they are active in religious organizations. Women most often make up the backbones of their churches/temples/mosques, even though most major religions exclude them from leadership. Clearly women derive much from their participation or they would not take part. What is harder to understand is why men do not enjoy similar benefits from these affiliations or why there's such a marked gender difference on this issue.
A new study produced by Temple University's Joanna Maselko, Sc.D., and published in Science Daily magazine and sciencedaily.com, revealed the following results. Women who were active in organized religious communities (churches, synagogues, mosques, etc.) and who later became disengaged were more than three times more likely to suffer generalized anxiety and alcohol abuse/dependence than women who reported "always having been active."
"Conversely, men who stopped being religiously active were less likely to suffer major depression when compared to men who had always been religiously active."
Gender differences in medicine are now widely proven. Women get certain diseases more or less frequently than men, have different reactions to drugs, fare better with certain types of surgery and (of course) have different hormones than do men. It's no mystery that a whole field of medicine has arisen during the past two decades to study and treat men and women differently.
It's less apparent why religious affiliation would impact men and women so differently. I'm a big believer in mind over matter. We've all heard about cancer patients who outlived doctors' expectations by a matter of years. We all know terrific "fighters" who braved the odds and took on their illnesses, while others succumbed quickly to them. But victors and the vanquished are represented in both genders.
What makes religion so much more of an antidepressant and anti-anxiety agent for women? Are women better, more fervent believers than men? According to legendary stereotype, men are more practical, less emotional and more realistic than women. (I'm not saying I buy into these stereotypes -- I merely raise them as common assumptions.) Do these putative attributes make women less susceptible to religion, less religious than men?
It was after all a man (Karl Marx) who, however discredited he may have been on other fronts, wrote, "Religion is the opium of the people."
The study's author offers an entirely different potential explanation for these gender differences. Dr. Maselko is quoted as saying, "Women are simply more integrated into the social networks of their religious communities. When they stop attending religious services, they lose access to that network and all its potential benefits. Men may not be as integrated into the religious community in the first place and so may not suffer the negative consequences of leaving."
While she may be right, her explanation makes two assumptions, one of which may be wrong and the other of which is controversial. The first, that when women stop going to church they lose touch with the social networks they formed while going, may be wrong. The second, more controversial, is that the "social networking" women take part in at church, rather than their actual belief in God, that decreases their anxiety and depression levels and improves their health. It would be far less controversial to presume most religious women would attribute their improved mental health to their belief system and to their faith, rather than to their church-based support networks.
It is also counterintuitive on at least one level to believe that men derive less from church-going than do women. Men occupy the loftiest positions in church hierarchy, decide church doctrine and interpret religious law. More importantly most believers see God as a male form.
Wouldn't men then also get more out of church-going than women?
And yet experts say no. Clearly we're from different planets.
(Bonnie Erbe is a TV host and writes this column for Scripps Howard News Service. E-mail bonnieerbe(at)CompuServe.com.)
UF study: Men more traditional than women about marriage, children
October 24, 2007. GAINESVILLE, Fla.
Women view childlessness much more favorably than men do, likely because parenting places greater demands on mothers, especially those juggling work and family responsibilities, a new University of Florida study finds.
Parenthood has very different consequences for women compared with men, said Tanya Koropeckyj-Cox, a UF sociologist whose study is published in the November issue of the Journal of Marriage and Family.
The study also found women to be less optimistic about the benefits and permanence of marriage. Women were more likely than men to disagree or give neutral responses to such statements as “it is better to marry than to remain single” and “marriage is for life.”
“The results suggest that women regard both childbearing and marriage as being less central and more optional in women’s lives,” Koropeckyj-Cox said. “Because opportunities for women have changed more rapidly than they have for men over the last 30 years, and with it women’s lives, their attitudes may have also changed in ways that reflect new options and challenges. Women may be asking more questions about whether everyone needs to follow the same path.”
The study of 11,043 adults 25 and older uses data from the 1980s and mid-1990s that were part of two large-scale surveys, the National Survey of Families and Households and the General Social Survey. It assessed attitudes about childlessness by asking such questions as whether “it is better to have a child than to remain childless” and whether “the main purpose of marriage these days is to have children.”
The study found that white women were most accepting of childlessness, followed by black women. Men, regardless of race, were least accepting. Among whites, women were twice as likely as men to have favorable impressions.
The gap in attitudes was particularly wide between college-educated men and women of childbearing age, Koropeckyj-Cox said. Men in this group were the least accepting of childlessness of any group in the study, she said.
Positive attitudes toward childlessness also were greater among young and middle-aged adults. Within this age group, women were nearly 80 percent more likely than men to report favorable attitudes toward childlessness, the study found.
Among religious groups, the study found that Baptists and Jews were least likely to support childlessness, while fundamentalist Protestants and Catholics were not significantly different from other Protestants or those reporting no religion.
Receptiveness to childlessness has increased since the 1970s, with Americans waiting longer to become parents, Koropeckyj-Cox said. The average age of first-time mothers is now over 25, and more than a quarter of adults remain childless into their 30s, she said.
Kathleen Gerson, a sociology professor at New York University and author of the book “Hard Choices: How Women Decide About Work, Career and Motherhood,” said Koropeckyj-Cox’s “important findings make it clear that changes in women’s lives are here to stay. While it may seem surprising that women view childlessness more favorably than men, her study should prompt us to jettison our lingering stereotypes and focus instead on helping contemporary women — and men — blend work with parenting.”
Iraqis divided by constitution's treatment of women
Supporters say Article 41 will keep the state out of civil affairs. Critics say it will usher in Sharia.
By Tina Susman, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer October 9, 2007
BAGHDAD -- It has been nearly 30 years since she got married, but Iraqi legislator Samira Musawi still bristles at what she considers the ultimate indignity: a law requiring witnesses to certify the rite.
She and her husband-to-be grabbed a couple of strangers, gave them each about $10 and were legally wed.
That memory is one reason Musawi, who heads parliament's Women, Family and Childhood Committee, supports Article 41, a clause in Iraq's interim constitution that supporters say will prevent state meddling in civil affairs by allowing Iraqis to marry, divorce, decide inheritances and settle other personal issues according to their religious sect. For example, under Shiite law, no witnesses are required for a marriage, but Sunnis require two.
Article 41 is just one line in the 16-page document, but to critics, it is the worst.
Opponents, including women's rights activists and legal scholars, say the one poorly worded sentence opens the door to rule by draconian interpretations of Islamic law that could sanction the stoning of adulterous women, allow underage girls to be forced into marriage and permit men to abandon their wives by declaring, "I divorce you," three times.
In the southern city of Basra, there are already signs of religious extremism being used to rein in women. Police say gangs enforcing their idea of Islamic law have killed 15 women in the last month. "There are gangs roaming through the streets . . . pursuing women and carrying out threats and killing because of what the women wear or because they are using makeup," the Basra police commander, Maj. Gen. Abdul Jaleel Khalaf, said this month.
Sometimes notes are left on the women's bodies saying they were killed for violating religious law or social traditions.
The controversy highlights the broader debate here over how large a role religion should play in Iraqis' lives. It also underscores shortfalls of the original constitution, which was drafted in 2005 by newly elected Iraqi legislators facing a U.S.-imposed deadline. Redrafting the document is one of the benchmarks sought by the Bush administration to set the stage for an eventual U.S. troop withdrawal. But it has been delayed three times as lawmakers haggle over issues such as provincial powers, religious and cultural freedoms, and distribution of oil revenue.
There are only two women on the 25-member committee in charge of rewriting the constitution. They face formidable opposition from the Shiite Muslim lawmakers who dominate Iraq's parliament, including Humam Hamoodi, who heads the panel.
Hamoodi, whose robes and turban attest to religious devotion, scoffs at opposition to Article 41. "You're considering it a big deal!" he said, laughing. "This is a kind of liberty and freedom. This is the age of democracy."
Musawi agreed. A Shiite who wears a prim black tunic and a leopard-print head scarf, Musawi says she does not want non-Muslims to be governed by her beliefs. Article 41 ensures this cannot happen, she said.
But, she said, it also recognizes the reality in post-Saddam Hussein Iraq, where most lawmakers, including many of the 75 women in the 275-seat parliament, represent Shiite religious parties.
For many Iraqi women, the reminder of what is at stake became clear in May when a video circulated of a 17-year-old girl being dragged through a mob of braying men, who pelted her to death with rocks and paving stones. The girl, whose gruesome death was captured on several cellphone cameras, had violated the rules of her minority Yazidi sect by having a relationship with a Muslim man.Her killing and the reprisal attacks on Yazidis that ensued illustrate the problems inherent in not having a single law covering all Iraqis' domestic affairs, critics of Article 41 say.
"I am sure we will be hearing stories like this over and over again," said Luma Ali, a 23-year-old engineering student who opposes any role for religion in government. "I cannot believe this is still happening to us women."
"It is really an insecure world for women in Iraq," said a female friend, who was afraid to give her name. "Everything is subject to development in Iraq -- everything except the way women should live, marry and die."
Aug. 20 - Decades after the ordination of women in most Protestant churches, women still find it difficult to get senior positions in big congregations. (Producer: Brent McDonald)
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