In the mosques I have been in, women can gather to pray behind a partition (high or low), in the last rows behind the men, on a second floor overlooking where men worship, in a side room, on a family level in a multiple-story building, even in a smaller “women’s mosque” next to the main (male) mosque. But none of these spaces come close to the case study in leadership and community that is the subject of Tazeen M. Ali’s book The Women’s Mosque of America: Authority and Community in US Islam. The Women’s Mosque of America is a free standing, women-led, donation supported, interracial, interfaith, monthly worship community in Los Angeles, California, for women and girls (and boys under the age of 12). Women lead the call to prayer, preach the sermons, and lead congregational discussions. At one such congregational discussion after a Friday service (Jummah) in 2015, the preacher (khateebah), Gail Kennard, sat in a circle with the worshipers to discuss Muhammad’s wives as disciples who God spoke to directly as evidence to the gathered that women “can do more than we think is possible” (3).
Ali’s title, The Women’s Mosque of America, may catch the reader’s eye, and rightfully so, but it is her compelling exploration of the subtitle, Authority & Community in US Islam, that is most impressive for its far-ranging implications and memorable analysis of the workings of authority, community-building, and evolving leadership in a time of global networks and religious fragmentation. Ali examines the Women’s Mosque of America (WMA) through an analysis of ritual authority, interpretative authority, embodied authority, authority through activism, and community building for intra- and interfaith efforts, concluding with a compelling case for WMA as more than just a worship space for women; instead, the WMA is a “discursive project” that encourages religious authority in women (231).
The WMA makes space for various interpretations and finds itself the subject of broader controversies, but instead of glossing over these disagreements, Ali’ engages these as prime sites for the investigation of the production of religious authority. She details the WMA leadership practices of respectful flexibility for alternative views on a variety of issues—the legal validity of women-led Jummah prayers and sermons (or the pre-sermon in Hanafi fiqh/jurisprudence), menstruation (limiting or not, either way not policed), whether sex-segregated space is empowering or divisive (including plans for co-ed classes, which WMA’s founder Maznavi sees as not competitive with other mosques, but as complementary and inspirational), and prayer practices that recognize various forms of Islam (Shi’a specific materials such as small round clay tablets are provided, for example).
Ali’s analysis places the WMA within the larger networks of North American Islam and historical, global interpretative traditions, including disagreements between prominent US Muslim women. For example, Ingrid Mattson may not support woman-led prayer in mixed-gender Friday worship, but amina wadud leads such prayers and Laury Silvers calls on Islamic jurisprudence to identity a permission structure for woman-led mixed-gender prayer (46-47). Ali writes that “rethinking women’s religious authority in more substantial ways” means being “committed to encouraging as many women as possible to participate in interpreting scripture and engaging social issues in their communities” (66). Ali includes the broader context of issues and voices without losing focus on the ongoing production of authority.
Although Ali deftly highlights the parallels between authority in the WMA and reinterpretations of authority in Jewish and Christian women’s history in the US, it is the differences that make a distinction. The WMA and Protestant-inflected US religiosity both share an increasing openness to believers’ lived experiences that qualify them to interpret religious texts. At the WMA, this includes experiences of motherhood but also resistance to male violence, social justice critiques of racism and Islamophobia, an openness about sexism in other mosques, and claims to bodily dignity (ahsan at-taqween) and God-consciousness (taqwa) for all, not limited by class, race, or gender (131, 176). Ali’s interviewees’ praise WMA for prioritizing Black Lives Matter (181), for the enlisting of preachers from different ethnic and racial backgrounds (190), and for the “steady presence” of interfaith members, which “sets it apart from other American religious congregations, Muslim or otherwise” (191).
By creating space for women’s lay (or secularly trained) authority with local readings of religious texts in English as an alternative to men with Arabic expertise and formal credentials, Ali delivers on her claim that the WMA “redefines mosque community” (17). Whether drawn to her title or her subtitle, and for either specialist or curious non-specialist readers, The Women’s Mosque of America offers a compelling look at women’s religious authority, critical reflection on the racialization of Americanness, and the rising profile of women in civic leadership, even while those very same women are experiencing marginalization in religious organizations. This seems very American indeed.
Rita Lester is professor of religion and director of gender and sexuality studies at Nebraska Wesleyan University.
Rita Lester
Date Of Review:
March 19, 2024