Cairo: Inside a mosque in south Cairo, a group of women wearing the headscarf listen attentively to a sermon.
The topic is about morals in Islam. The speaker is Wafaa Abdul Salam, one of more than 140 Muslim female preachers recently licensed by the government to offer religious lessons to women in the mostly Muslim country.
The move is the latest step by state authorities to tighten their grip on mosques and deny the now-outlawed Muslim Brotherhood and its loyalists a key platform to influence worshippers.
“Preaching was for years confined to men while women were forced to sit on the sidelines,” Abdul Salam says during a break in the lesson.
“This situation has been exploited by extremist groups to spread their ideas among simple people, including women,” she told Gulf News.
Dream come true
Abdul Salam regards appointing female preachers as a “dream come true”.
“This is a courageous decision inspired by the Holy Quran and the Sunna [traditions and sayings] of the Prophet Mohammad (PBUH), that enjoin everyone, not specifically men, to promote virtue and prevent vice,” she adds, citing Islam’s two main sources of jurisprudence.”
Abdul Salam also hosts religious programmes on local radio and television stations.
“Our role is to acquaint Muslim women with teachings of moderate Islam. Without properly grooming women, society will not move in the right direction.”
Tests
Before allowed to take the pulpit, Abdul Salam and her colleagues passed tests in Quran, the Sunna and Islamic jurisprudence to ensure they are qualified enough to answer their female audience’s questions.
“It is easy for the woman to ask questions to a female preacher without feeling embarrassed. This is not the case if the preacher is a man. Our main mission is to correct wrong concepts prevalent among women and answer their questions in a simple way.”
Abdul Salam is quick to point out that their duty is not to issue fatwas (binding religious edicts).
“Our role is just to teach women about matters of their religion at gatherings arranged in mosques and workplaces. If we get questions about fatwas on specific issues, we submit them to Dar Al Iftaa,” she says, referring to Egypt’s top Islamic body in charge of issuing fatwas.
Around 70 per cent of mosques in Egypt have separate prayer areas for women, according to official figures.
The country’s Ministry of Awqaf (religious affairs) has recently said it plans to licence more women preachers to reach more than 2,000 nationwide by the end of this year.
“Ignoring this issue in the past helped in the dissemination of radical ideas by women followers of the Brotherhood, who sought to spread its poison among women and children,” Jaber Taya, an official in the ministry, said.
In 2013, the army, then led by incumbent President Abdul Fattah Al Sissi, removed the Brotherhood from power following massive protests against its one-year rule.
The Islamist group has since been the target of a draconian clampdown.
“We are determined to promote moderation among women in Egypt,” Taya added in press remarks.
“Therefore, we’ll depend more on female leaders in modernising religious discourse because they are more capable than men in addressing women. In this regard, we rely on female graduates of Al Azhar,” he added, referring to Egypt’s main seat of Islamic learning.
In recent months, Al Sissi has repeatedly called on Muslim scholars to reform religious teachings in order to fight violent militancy.
Some women have expressed happiness about communicating with female cleric at first-hand.
“I used to come to the mosque to listen to men preachers, but I was not able to direct questions to them on issues related to women because I felt embarrassed and also because there was a barrier between men and women,” said Hala Sultan, a Muslim housewife.
“The situation is different now. I can ask any question to the female preacher regarding my religion without feeling shy. She is a woman like me,” Hala told Gulf News.
“I have also encouraged my two daughters, who are being prepared to get married, to attend these lessons, which are beneficial to them.”
Important move
To Amna Nuseir, a professor of Islamic studies at Al Azhar University, recruiting female preachers is an “important move in empowering women” in Egypt.
“This field has for long been a monopoly of extremist groups that exploit religion for political gains,” Nuseir, who is a member of parliament, told Gulf News.
“The decision of the Ministry of Awqaf to appoint qualified female preachers has come to end this exploitation and boost confidence in the institutions responsible for dawa [Islamic preaching] in the country.”
(Inas Hamdy, a freelancer, contributed to this report)
