By guest contributor Wood Turtle; a longer version of this post was originally published at her blog.
At what point does religious inclusion become too much for a public school board to handle? Apparently, it’s when the menstrual cycles of 12-year-old girls become the center of public debate.
Every week for the past three years, Valley Park Middle School in Toronto has held official Jumm’ah prayers in the cafeteria. Like many issues in the Muslim community, there’s a wide variety of opinion and practice – but many agree that Friday prayers is vital to the faith and identity of Muslims worldwide.
In previous years, large groups of Valley Park students would sign themselves out, walk to a nearby mosque to attend Jumm’ah prayers, missing hours of instructional time by hanging out with their friends after services instead of returning to school. Some didn’t even bother going to the mosque – Friday prayers were used by some as an excuse to skip. When parents approached the school with worries and safety concerns that their children were missing classes, they all agreed to allow an imam to come into the school and hold prayers on school property, keeping the kids supervised and minimizing lost instructional time.
The solution to provide full religious services for students was agreed upon by parents, stakeholders and the school administration to address the needs of the school’s large Muslim population – which makes up over 80% of the total student population. The program was a success, with about 400 students out of 1,200 (about 30% of the Muslim students) regularly attending prayers. Each week, community volunteers come into the school and help set up the cafeteria as a makeshift mosque. Clean sheets are laid down, tables create a barrier to maintain gender segregation, and an adult community leader acts as an imam to lead the students in a sermon and prayer. For 30-45 minutes, while other students finish their lunch period and start afternoon classes, Muslim students have the option of fulfilling a religious duty.
But last week the Toronto District School Board became embroiled in controversy, when a coalition including the Canadian Hindu Advocacy, Jewish Defense League (Canada) and the Muslim Canadian Congress announced their opposition to the school’s prayer service. Arguments against the program naturally hold firm to the idea that publicly funded schools should not facilitate religious services – not during official class hours, and certainly not by an outside religious leader who provides unsupervised and unmonitored sermons.
But what’s really got everyone’s hijab in a bunch is the menstruating children. Oh, won’t someone please think of the menstruating children?
The media and opponents to the prayer service are using the controversy as a wonderful opportunity to illustrate just how poorly Islam treats women – pointing to perceived gender inequities and arguing that organized Islamic prayer cannot happen in Ontario schools because it’s in violation of the Education Act’s “gender equity” policy. Tarek Fatah of the Muslim Canadian Congress argues that the school board is:
…using tax money to tell girls that they are second-class citizens… Deep inside is a racist view that Muslims are not considered equal human beings, and that they can treat women how they want, and it’s nobody else’s concern.
While Heather Mallick of the Toronto Star is upset that excluding menstruating girls from prayer does nothing to help the schoolboard develop girls’ self-esteem:
As for singling out girls who have their periods — why not just make them wear a hat with a big arrow or a flag? — no one’s discussing that. Except me, in this column. Why should it fall to me? Can some school trustee, male or female, please stand up to defend shy girls of tender age?
Here’s a newsflash: women pray while menstruating. All. Over. The. World. There is at least one girl in the above photo who is praying while menstruating and at least one boy who lost his ritual purity by farting right before prayer started. Some pictured above enjoy feeling like they belong to a larger community and find identity and social cohesiveness in the service. Some become religiously inspired. And some attend prayers to skip out on class or are doing it just because their parents told them to. And really, it shouldn’t be anyone’s business.
Schools make reasonable religious accommodations all the time: providing alternate activities for Muslim girls (who want) to opt-out of co-ed swim classes; kosher, halal, and vegan cafeteria meals; and scheduling tests and exams outside of non-Christian holidays to name a few. Many students already organize prayers at school – it’s how over a decade ago the Muslim Students’ Association was created.
Now, I don’t agree with how the prayers are run. But then again, I say the same thing about the mosque next door. There is no reason whatsoever for girls in grades 7 and 8 to sit behind a barrier in their school cafeteria, when one hour before prayer they’re given the equal opportunity to engage with, learn from and teach their peers.
In a later article, Mallick makes grand assumptions about the segregation issue, describing female students as isolated – suffering humiliation, contempt and maltreatment. Without saying exactly who is subjecting these girls to such horrendous treatment, we’re left to assume that it’s either the male imam or Islam itself slapping the face of “female dignity.” Now, my own opinion also makes great assumptions about the self-worth, esteem and religious preferences held by these students. Perhaps they see no conflict between the school board’s “gender equity policy” and praying with a group of sisters in the back.
The Toronto District School Board claims that the Charter of Rights and Freedoms trumps the Education Act, that student’s participation in the services is voluntary, and that while they do not have the authority to tell faith groups how to pray, they do have a “responsibility and an obligation” to accommodate the faith requirements of students. But to what extent does the school have a responsibility to encourage gender equality and safeguard universalism within a religious tradition – especially when they’ve invited external community members and scheduled full religious services during class time?
Now, if holding the prayers on school grounds was the best solution for this particular school and specific group of students, then perhaps it should have been up to the students themselves to decide how to run and organize Jumm’ah prayers. And who knows, maybe they were consulted. But everyone seems to be too concerned with where the helpless and oppressed girls are sitting to find out how they actually feel about the situation.
It shouldn’t fall to anyone in the media to determine whether or not menstruating girls should participate in the prayer. The very fact that they did attend prayers illustrates their personal desire to be a part of the active community. They certainly don’t have to – but they did, ideally because they find value in the services. The students pictured at the back of the room are sitting there because they want to. No one is forcing all of the Muslim students to pray. No one is forcing the menstruating students to sit out.
Gasping outrageously that all of the girls sit behind the boys and that they’ve erected a barrier to better delineate the gender segregation line (magically protecting students from a raging orgy of hormones while communing with God), only serves to villainize the Muslim community, promote religious misconceptions and further propagates the image of the Muslim woman as voiceless, oppressed and in need of rescuing.
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Tags: Canadian Muslims, Friday prayers, jummah, menstruation, periods, sexism, Valley Park Middle School
my biggest issue about this? The kids NOT going to mosque or not returning is NOT a religious issue but a DISCIPLINE one- as such, both parents and school should be addressing it on THOSE grounds – using it has the catalyst to have in-school prayer sessions is crap. and I don’t believe that in a public school system any school should be using their cafeteria as a substitute religious instituion -sorry, but it belongs internally or outside the school
For the record: Orthodox Judaism also restricts menstruating women. So do some Christian traditions.
If they want to argue about exclusion of religion from schools, fine. but this is just racism.
It’s interesting that no ones pointed out that the reason why accommodations need to made for Muslim students to pray Jummah at school is because our school/working week is designed with a Christian religious obligations in mind. If we didn’t have to go to school or work on a Friday this wouldn’t be a problem. The religious obligations of the Christian kids don’t infringe on school because school doesn’t clash with the time they need to go to church (keeping in mind that most people use Sunday to sleep in rather than go the church).
Considering the rats nest involved in this nontroversy it beggars belief that this has become a story in the Canadian press. For starters there is hardly anything “Muslim” about the Muslim Canadian Congress. They are a bunch of Pakistani communist exiles who specialize in providing “Muslim” cover for every crackpot Islamophobic initiative that crops up. (“See, even the liberal Muslim Canadian Congress thinks that we should oppose the ‘Ground Zero Mosque’/ban the burqa/ etc,etc.”)
Thats not all; Canadian Hindu Advocacy is a far right Hindutva organization which while absurdly claiming to be the “sole media and political advocacy voice for Canadian Hindus” is pretty much a one man outfit run by a man called Ron Bannerjee. Bannerjee and his organization is both virulently Islamophobic and heavily Anti-Sikh as well. Predictably, his outfit is also closely allied to the Jewish Defence League.
The JDL is the Canadian branch of the far right Kahanist organization originally formed in the United States. While it’s American and Israeli branches have been labelled terrorist organizations, the Canadian one has apparently managed to avoid the label. They are of course part of the pro settlement movement in Israel and rabidly Islampohobic, having allied themselves with the English Defense League among other similar groups.
Their bad faith concern trolling is to be expected, but that the media would rely on such a motley crew to base this entire manufactured controversy on, is incredibly telling. Islam-bashing takes such priority that the Canadian media cannot event bother attempting a desultory check of the orgs pushing the story. They either don’t know or don’t care as long there is a chance to splatter the mooozlims with crap.
This is complicated any way you look at it.
The school board and the media don’t seem to realize that these Friday prayers aren’t a straightforward issue of “accommodating Muslim students’ religious obligations.” It is clear that they don’t know much about Islam, and haven’t seen fit to do their homework either.
In traditional Sunni legal interpretations, boys are only required to attend Friday prayers once they have reached puberty–and these are 12 and 13 year olds, for goodness’ sake. Many of the attendees likely aren’t technically obligated.
And girls aren’t required to attend Friday prayers at all, and a number of traditional scholars even today strongly discourage it as supposedly causing fitna, etc.
As for the idea that menstruating girls should come to Friday prayers and sit at the back… where on earth does this come from? Perhaps as an analogical extension of some hadiths about menstruating women sitting apart from other women at the Eid prayers? But the rules governing Eid prayers differ from those of Friday prayers, so a Sharia scholar would likely regard this as a faulty analogy.
So, someone (religious leaders? the mosque? parents? ??) is really stretching the truth as they mislead the school board into believing that they have a legal duty to accommodate these students’ “religious obligations,” when many of the students aren’t actually obligated to attend Friday prayers. And the media is lazily reinforcing this claim rather than questioning it.
But the media is also missing the subversive element in the story. The praying girls–and particularly, the menstruating ones who attend–are in fact bucking tradition in some ways. Many of their parents come from parts of the world where women don’t attend the mosque at all, where women are barred from Friday prayers, where girls aren’t really encouraged to take a serious interest in religious learning, and where menstruating women are expected to keep far away from religious activities of almost any sort.
To be fair to the media, though, there is a conflict between the obligation of schools to uphold gender equality, and accommodating religious practices such as these Friday prayers, which (all the apologetics aside) DO treat females in a discriminatory fashion. The barrier, the segregation, the hijabs (even for prepubscent girls, it would seem), and barring of menstruating girls from prayer… none of this is equality.
I don’t take my daughters to most mosques because I don’t want to subject them to this sort of thing. A number of these practices are increasingly becoming contested in the Muslim community. The idea that public schools would be seemingly endorsing some highly conservative practices (such as barriers), and using our tax dollars to normalize things we fight against in our own communities… I don’t think the school board should allow themselves to be put in such a position. It’s not their job to weigh in on debates within religious groups.
Although the media discussion has been marred by (predicable) Muslim-bashing, there has been a similar debate in Ontario media recently about state-funded Catholic schools barring GSAs (Gay-Straight Alliances). The Catholic hierarchy claims that since the teachings of the church forbid same-sex sexual acts, Catholic schools can’t be required to allow students to form GSAs. The typical media response is that if they are going to take tax-payers’ money, they can’t impose discriminatory practices on their students. I would say same here.
@ Humayra: I see what you’re saying, but I think that part of Wood Turtle’s point here is that the hype is detracting from more useful reflections and discussions on how to have these prayers in a way that would seem less at odds with the school’s gender equality principles. Barriers and seating the girls behind boys aren’t religiously *required*, and I would be interested in seeing more conversations about how to make this work in a way that the school/school board/participants/etc. are more comfortable with, rather than just throwing out the prayer altogether.
Hype and Trype! You think Islam discriminates against women? HA. Some Muslim societies, sure, but that’s not Islam, it’s culture. Take a look at Jewish ‘rules’ on menstruating women, and your jaw will DROP. Christian traditions are even worse. On the whole, Islam is the best choice for a woman, at least we are recognized as full people.
Hear Hear to the person that pointed out that we wouldn’t be having this discussion if it were not for the fact that our society is strictly JudeoChristian based. What horrors would there be to report if there were classes on Sunday? oh my!
Tec15 nails it. This whole thing is a non-issue. The Feminuts need to grow up and get a life…we’re not going to change Islam to fit your agenda. Separation of men and women in salah is based on the Sunnah of the Prophet(saw)and has nothing to do with perceived gender inequality, stop injecting your divisive politics into our religious practices.
@ M: Feminists, like Muslims, are a diverse group, and many Muslims identify as feminists. There’s no reason to use this issue to lump all feminists into one group and assume that all feminists are “nuts” or out to get Muslims.
Thanks everyone for your comments. I was of two minds when I wrote this post. On one hand, I’m chuffed and excited that a school administration was open to allowing prayers – on the other hand, I know that giving Muslims the freedom of practicing or proclaiming their religion in the public school system only comes about because of the separation of “church and state”. And that of course, seems contradictory.
Three years ago it was a disciplinary issue and almost everyone involved came up with a solution that they felt would benefit everyone. Now it’s complicated and the result may end up disadvantaging students who have come to rely on communal worship in their school – as well as providing ample fodder for journos who want to stir the pot.
@M: I came across an interesting quote today, from a woman who was able to experience Jummah prayers in her high school and how that has contributed to her feminism:
I remember that Ramadan as an important step toward my commitment to feminist politics. During those short weeks of communal prayer, I interacted with Muslim students who I wouldn’t otherwise have met. I saw that I was a member of a diverse community of intelligent, stubborn and brave women who were sensitive to the complexities and contradictions of their lives…I wonder now how I and the school might have grown had we all along had the chance to share openly in a process, without fear or paranoia, whereby students could decide for themselves how their prayers should be arranged. God knows, teenagers hate being told what to do. Trust that Muslim women hate it no less.
@Krista,
Where did I say ALL of them are like that? Please don’t put words in my mouth. Regardless of whether “many” Muslims identify as feminists or not doesn’t erase the fact that the majority of feminists are anti-religion, especially Islam. Add to it the colonial orientalist lens which westerners often use and the racist narrative of “backward societies of darkie male dominance” is set. They have the right to believe that, just as I have the right to respond and call many of of them “nuts.”
My original point being that this whole topic on praying is a non-issue. If anything this reflects how religiously illiterate many westerners and some Muslims are to try and hijack the issue for their political agenda. As for menses, salah is obligatory for Muslims beginning at the age of puberty, but women are EXEMPT from salah during menstruation and postpartum bleeding.
I repeat : keep your divisive politics out of our religious practices.
@wood turtle,
Thanks for that anecdote but I don’t think you or the person you cited get it. Islam (roughly) means surrendering to the will of the Creator, not cherry-picking. This is one reason I find atheists and agnostics more honest then religious hypocrites.
Islamic worship is strangely enough set according to the rules of the Islamic faith.
In Islam, the example of the Prophet (a.k.a. “walking Quran”) is the rule, one cannot overturn his guidance.
This comment has been modified according to MMW’s Comment Moderation Policy.
In the media coverage being critiqued here, nobody is saying that Muslims aren’t free to worship in accordance with their beliefs in their own spaces (homes, mosques, etc). The issue is that these are Friday prayers being held in a public school, during the school day.
If conservative Muslims wish to twist themselves into pretzels arguing that inequality is actually equality (or “respect for women”, or what-have-you) they obviously have the right to do that too. In Muslim space, on their own time. As does every religious group.
But when a public, secular school, supported by tax-payers’ money, is being put in the position where they could be construed as somehow supporting treating girls unequally, then this IS problematic. Why should we not admit this?
As for the “orientalist” scrutiny of Others, well–if Friday prayers are held in public spaces such as public schools, isn’t outside scrutiny pretty much inevitable? Shouldn’t everything going on in a public school be discussed and debated by the tax-paying public? And won’t it be, eventually?
Perhaps the issue is that we are not accustomed to having our prayer practices splashed across the newspapers and dissected by commenters who clearly know nothing about Islam. We are used to telling ourselves that men and women in Islam have the same responsibilities to carry out acts of worship, and that this means that they are spiritually equal–and congratulating ourselves that this makes us “better” than other religious groups (even though in reality, few religious groups in Canada nowadays segregate men and women at prayer, or bar menstruating women from any ritual). But this media coverage has punctured our self-image.
For that matter, we ourselves don’t usually “see” the multiple exclusions in our congregations portrayed as graphically as that notorious photo of the girls behind the tables, followed by the menstruating girls at the very back does. Menstruating women don’t come to Juma. Out of sight, out of mind. And nobody asks how they feel about it. This is hardly raised as an issue, even.
[...] Fathima Cader! Last week, Cader spoke to Al-Jazeera about the Toronto District School Board Muslim prayer controversy. She kicked some serious ass, and is the only woman I know who could pull off wearing a Superman [...]
I wrote to Heather Mallick myself today, and reproduced the letter on my blog:
http://www.muslimmouse.blogspot.com
There were so many insulting comments made by Ms. Mallick that I was actually dumbfounded for a few moments after reading her article. Like, seriously – she was implying that Muslim girls don’t know how to use tampons?!
In any case, I find it extremely distasteful that such ignorance remains commonplace and acceptable by the wider media.