Comments on: Spark: Female Imams in China

By: John

John — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 18:38:55 +0000

Wren, Muslims have a long and respected history in China. The world has many such unexpected historical treasures: for example, there is a line of Indian Catholics that claim spiritual roots back to the apostolic era (ironically, Buddhism all but disappeared from its land of origin for most of the same period).

Quakers emphasized gender equality from its earliest days (one reason why Quaker Mary Dyer was hanged in Massachusetts in 1660). I’ll try to explore this history (and its present manifestations) in future posts.

xJane, I’d love to hear more about this syncretistic funeral–sounds fascinating!

By: xJane

xJane — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 14:32:03 +0000

There are a lot of progressive Muslims, too, who see some of the early rights given to, for example, Fatima (the daughter of Mohammed) as their own right. I went to a (Buddhist) funeral officiated by a (Sufi) female imam. It was beautiful.

I, too, would like to know what kind of esteem these women (and mosques) are held before weighing in. It partially seems like just more of the same sex segregation that happens anyway in mosques (which is bizarre to me, btw). But it may indeed be a way that these women empower themselves.

By: wren

wren — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 10:56:10 +0000

Huh. I didn’t even know there were Muslims in China. Mixed feelings here as well. It depends a bit on how the men view these mosques and the women in them.

From what I’ve read of early Mormon history, the women had some empowering roles within their rights. That has tempered over time to the point where RS is defined an auxiliary group. It exists to support the priesthood.

John, if you do some more Quaker posts in the future I’d be curious to hear about the gender dynamics. I assume they are progressive.