Religious order, women and the prayer debate

Sunday, January 29, 2006

This week Turkey was rocked by the men and women praying side-by-side story. All the big newspapers announced the story from the top of their first page as a scandal, making it the most important news.

  This week Turkey was rocked by the “men and women praying side-by-side” story. All the big newspapers announced the story from the top of their front page as a “scandal,” making it the most important news.

  The problem was a group of women praying at a mosque with their heads uncovered. The fact that the prime minister s advisor Cüneyt Zapsu s wife was among the women praying side by side with men made the matter even more pronounced. There were debates among the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) on the issue. People totally unconnected to the matter believed it was their right to say, “What Zapsu s wife did cannot be accepted.” Some AKP members and supporting journalists displayed a serious patriarchal attitude, calling on Zapsu to protect his wife as a husband. Beyza Zapsu first and foremost is an individual and the media referred to her not as an individual with personal choices and opinions, but as “Zapsu s wife.” It appears we are known through our husband s in this society. When they get angry with us, they blame our husbands. Our husbands our seen as responsible for what we do. “A man should protect and restrict his wife.”

  We then saw almost everyone judging the issue at hand, with some even going as far as trying to issue a fatwa. It seems there were more Ebussuud Efendis waiting to issue fatwas than we though possible.

  The issue: What does a woman praying in a mosque without a headscarf mean?

  The answer: What she is doing is to introduce a new set of rules and trying to change the status quo. It cannot be accepted.

  What I noticed in all this hoopla was something else. Just take a look at how the media reported this affair. All the words, concepts and references seemed to have been taken from the West, or more appropriately, from American movies. When we talk about religious orders, the thing that comes to our mind is the American version of clans. When we talk about praying, we start thinking about the church. When it comes to new ideas, we start comparing it with Calvinism. They talk about a “revolution,” not an “opinion.” There is a cultural elite in Turkey that receives all its concepts from the West and a society that don t understand what they re saying and are very annoyed about it.

  However, if this issue was discussed from our own historical perspective and with local terminology, it could have been very productive. It could have introduced a very important issue to the public arena. Islam in Anatolia and the Balkans has its own particular quality. Do we need a “scandal” just to see Melamis, Mevlevis, Bektaşis, Cerrahis and many other orders?

  What was really interesting was the fact that in all this confusion, the most basic issue was forgotten. These people, these women, went to a mosque and prayed. The media reported about it in such a way that it appeared as if they had uncovered a criminal organization, trying to find the ringleaders. One important fact is that in this country and in many other Muslim countries, women have unfortunately been segregated for a long time. This had a political reason or was based on a misperception or maybe a mistaken opinion. Once we leave all this aside, if a group of women want to return to mosques to pray, I approve anyway they may want to perform their prayers. What I need to do is to understand, not judge.