Islamist propagandist Arfa Khanum Sherwani has inadvertently triggered a significant debate surrounding the position of women in Islam. Last week Sherwani posted a picture of herself that showcased her sitting on a raised platform overlooking the Jama Masjid from the outside. Crowds of Muslim men were seen inside the Mosque’s premises gathered for the ongoing Ramzan celebrations.
A feminist, who has slandered Hindu Dharma using the fictitious Brahminical patriarchy on several occasions, Sherwani could only take her feminism outside the gates of the Mughal-era mosque. Instead of stepping inside and ‘admiring’ its architecture, she had to settle for a picture in the same frame with the Jama Masjid from a nearby building.
This self-imposed exclusion by the feminist Sherwani who had questioned the “364 days of patriarchy” on International Women’s Day prompted many netizens to ask why was the abiding Muslima sitting outside the Mosque. Several netizens also requested her to share a picture of hers inside the mosque complex. Many called out the patriarchy in Islam that forbids women from entering a Mosque and praying alongside the men.
Triggered by the questions posed by netizens, the Sherwani returned to Twitter a couple of days later and posted some pictures and visuals. She called out the “Sanghis” for having a “low IQ” and claimed that Muslim women are indeed allowed to perform namaz inside. Claiming that the video posted on Twitter was from Jama Masjid, she argued that Muslim women can go inside the Mosque and “break their fast and offer namaz there.”
She also posted some more videos in which women in Hijab could be seen sitting at the outer compound of Jama Masjid, where even non-Muslims are allowed. These visuals failed to show Muslim women offering namaz at the popular masjid.
Also, her video showed men and women washing their hands and faces together, which raises doubt about her claims as it is a known fact that Islam is very conservative when it comes to the mingling of both genders without any purdah.
However, it didn’t take too long for Sherwani’s false claim to be destroyed by none other than Muslim men.
As a prompt rebuttal to her airy claims, netizens took to the social media platform to share videos of Islamic scholars. In one of these videos, an Islamic expert explains the “rationale” behind banning women from entering a mosque, stating that their makeup and perfume may distract the men while performing namaz. Hence, asserts the cleric, the women must stay at home and pray from behind the purdah.
Another Islamic cleric explained that a Muslim man’s namaz would not be accepted if a woman crossed him while offering namaz. The cleric also stated, “If a black dog crosses while offering namaz, the namaz will not be accepted.”
Sherwani’s fallacies about Islam had offended many Muslims who grilled her over her claims of women being allowed inside the masjid.
One Muslim Twitter user dubbed her an “illiterate in Deen celebrity,” trying to fix Islam. Some also debunked the “Wudu videos” shared by Sherwani, commenting that it was not the right way of doing Wudu.
The religious establishments in Islam practice strict gender segregation. Apart from mosques, Muslim women are not seen even on the public sites where Muslim men line up to offer special namaz. The absence of women from these gatherings exposes the place of women in Islam.
The unapologetically Muslim journalist Sherwani found no courage to rebut the Muslim men who were trolling her for her feminist fallacies about Islam on Twitter. She leaps at the first opportunity she gets to slam the Hindus, whom she craftily calls “Sanghis”, for “patriarchy” which is present only in the minds of left-liberals like Sherwani. A celebrated news personality forced to be silent after being shown down by the men in her community brutally exposes the holes in the culture Arfa Khanum Sherwani had traveled miles to keep covered.
(Featured Image Source: Sherwani’s Twitter Page)
