The Mosque in Marbella

This is Day 10 of Hindtrospectives’ #MyMosqueMyStory series for Ramadan 2015

By Fazeela Selberg Zaib

My family and I are spending Ramadan in Spain this year. As there is no mosque in Ronda, where we are staying, and we wished to pray our Friday prayer in congregation, my friend, her mother and our three children headed to Marbella, home to a beautifully situated mosque with an ocean backdrop.

I wonder if people in Marbella realise the amount of spiritual tourism it renders due to the existence of its rather large and very beautiful Mosque?

We enter through a beautiful main gate and see the Mosque in its white grandeur. The men have a huge space inside with very high ceilings as well as a space outside with a tarp ceiling for shade surrounded by a lovely garden.

And as usual we make our way to the women’s entrance on a narrow pathway on the side of the mosque with a bit of grass on it and some flowers hanging down. The men however use this pathway too to access the main entrance from behind the mosque and not even that one square meter of grass could be left alone to us women to sit outside with our kids and have a breather.

The first thing we see when we enter the women’s entrance is a large collection of rolled up carpets stored under the staircase leading up to the women’s section. And why not indeed? Along with carpets and brooms, why not some women too? The bathrooms are nice and clean and even smell like mango and we walk upstairs to the women’s section. A narrow room with very low ceilings. Nice and clean but not anywhere close to the men’s prayer space.

It’s a hot day and the room slowly fills up with women and the air gets thicker. A wooden partition with geometrical cut outs covers the side of the room facing the main prayer hall below.

I sit there trying to get into the Ramadan “I’m in a mosque” spirit but as nearly always when I enter a mosque, I am distracted by the space women are given in spiritual life and it soon consumes me and my whole being. I look around at these women and think to myself: is everyone in here ok with this?? Is no one asking the question why in the world we are going up the stairs to a small stuffy space when there is no evidence in the Sunna of our Prophet Muhammad PBUH other than that he allowed women to pray in the same room as men, behind them, with no physical partition?

Old women walked up those stairs. I helped a mother of three carry down her pram on all those stairs. Why, why, why?

And then my thoughts went to Sweden and the many women I met there who see no problem with the situation. I find myself feeling disconnected. On an island with the water closing in. Wake up! I want to shout out. This is injustice! This is not our Sunna that we are happy to follow in all other instances except for allowing women equality.

I have to fight with myself and call for a more balanced view, to remind myself of the decades of brainwashing women (and indeed men) to accept a form of cultural interpretation of Islam that actually has them not only accepting being second class but seeing piety connected to how subjugated they will allow themselves to be.

The imam of the Mosque, an old man of Moroccan descent gave a beautiful talk during the Friday sermon. He didn’t yell like so many do, but spoke gently with strong intonation when needed. And to my great delight, started the sermon by acknowledging that there are indeed men AND women listening when he said “ya ayyuhal mu’min wa ayyatohal mu’mina” (dearly beloved believer in masculine form and then feminine form). He spoke of not being able to be at peace unless you know God. Of Ramadan being a school whose purpose is your betterment. To believe good about others.

And then came the dua. I always get tense at this point.  Because I keep secretly hoping to hear the words that will make my heart feel at home and so often they are never uttered. He prayed for the Muslims and prayed for the Prophets PBUH and the regular supplication we all know about. And then he prayed for peace for all mankind and went on saying: “And may You (God) place mercy between all the humans (insaan) in this world for verily they are all Your creation oh Allah.”

I shed a few tears after this sermon and thanked God for giving me what I needed and making me feel more at peace and at home in His house.

My daughter is sitting on a chair looking down at the men. She doesn’t say anything. She doesn’t ask me anything. She just observes the big space for men and the women in a smaller space. What this does to her mind and feeling for her faith only time will tell.

My friend’s son did comment: “Mommy, why do men have a bigger space than the women?” He is 6. And I pray to God he is the future.

Fazeela Selberg Zaib is a former Aid Worker turned Social Entrepreneur, Debater and Writer. She is forever bound to 5 countries and counting: Sweden, Pakistan, Canada, Syria and Bosnia. You may follow her on Twitter at @SelbergZaib