A day in Madinah is a blissful escape from everyday life plus the chance of a spiritual battery charge. That is what people feel when they go there, and in Ramadan the feeling intensifies and forges a common bond between all visitors to the city. Of course, however, as is the way in so many areas of our Saudi lives, some people get in the way and, through ignorant and abusive attitudes, deprive others of the total enjoyment of the time spent there.
And as has become common practice in the holy places these days, women get the hardest part of the bargain. First, the areas for women to pray in are totally cordoned off from men’s areas. From the outside and a long way from the entrance, there is a small army of men yelling at other men who stray too near the women’s area. I use the word “yelling” because that is exactly what I mean. I saw a young man who was walking nonchalantly and probably obliviously near the women’s area and, just to make matters worse, he was also using a mobile phone. Very soon, an angry guard jumped in front of him and began to berate him, ending with. “You couldn’t hear me because of that devil you are talking into.” The man of course walked silently and sheepishly away without saying a word.
What I have just described is of course outside the women’s area. Inside it, there are women from all over the world who have come to pray and visit the Prophet (pbuh). The area is guarded by a second rank of guards — women, this time who stand at the entrances to the women’s area. Normally the female guards deal with security and with the large number of visitors, I must say they have a difficult and demanding job. But it is a job meant to protect the people inside and outside the mosque. In many cases the female guards are less polite with the people than they should be; in some cases, they are abusive. At the gate where I waited to be inspected, I saw an old woman who could hardly walk being denied entrance because she had a mobile phone with a camera. I can accept that there are restrictions on the use of mobile phones in any mosque and I totally agree with them — but here in Madinah, the restrictions were selective and — you guessed it — applied only to women. Men of course went into the mosque with their phones and, over the microphones, you could hear the ringtones and SMS alerts along with the prayers. While hearing the imam reciting Qur’an, we can also hear a wide range of interesting and unusual ringtones.
Having been warned earlier not to try to take my phone inside, I had removed it from my bag. Unfortunately, I had forgotten to clear the bag of other offensive items that I had no idea were offensive. The guard was quick to notice a newspaper in my bag and said, “Newspapers are not allowed inside.” To say the least, I was surprised and asked why. She answered very dismissively, “Those are the rules — no newspapers allowed.” I told her the paper was in fact a Saudi one and expressed my opinion that there was no reason for newspapers to be banned in the mosque and even less of one if the paper were hidden inside a bag. She said nothing and simply snatched the paper; at this point, I reacted, took the paper back and walked in, despite her threats to have her supervisor deal with me. I told her to send him in if he wanted to be the only man in a large congregation of women.
Another verbal battle was in progress at the entrance where a woman was carrying an empty bottle she intended to fill with Zamzam water from inside the mosque. For some reason I could not fathom, she was not allowed in though others with full bottles entered freely. Does this make sense? Not to me certainly.
The day ended with another altercation with a man who seemed to work in security. My group was enjoying a stroll around the markets beside the mosque and one woman wanted her picture taken to keep as a souvenir of the visit. As her daughter was lifting the phone to take the picture, an angry man yelled — yes, yelled — at her: “Photos are haram.” He did not stop with words; he waved his hand threateningly at her to make her lower the phone and at this point, my friend who felt the man had overstepped the bounds of good behavior simply told him, “I am going to take a picture if I want to. You have no business talking to my daughter or anyone else so rudely.” Realizing that he might have bitten off more than he could chew, he retreated, leaving all of us feeling that we had been systematically abused and violated throughout the day.
The hostile treatment of visitors — and especially women — was a great disappointment and an equally great frustration. There was no justification for any of it. We went for spiritual refreshment and because of the way we were treated, it was very hard to feel either spiritual or refreshed. Women were treated with hostility; they were isolated and discriminated against. Even inside the mosque, they had to pray behind high wooden partitions. In the past, the wooden partitions were low but apparently, the low ones were felt to be inadequate. New ones have now been put up which prevent women from seeing even the shadow of a man. The partitions are so high they feel suffocating; women cannot even see the windows and all in all, the wood all around makes them feel as if they are in a wooden cage.
Comparing today’s restrictions placed on women in the holy places to those of 30 years ago, one realizes that the present is not always an improvement over the past. Women’s rights to pray in and visit the Prophet’s Mosque are certainly being greatly — and sometimes violently — abused today.
