Side Entrance: Helping Mosques to Improve Muslim Women Facilities

One of the issues mosques in the West face is that many were set up by Muslim immigrant communities where due to a lack of space and funding women's facilities were overlooked or even under-looked. Newly built/extended mosques such as East London Mosque cater for sisters a lot better. It's sad to ponder upon the currnt situation but its great to see Side Entrance raising the awareness to help improve the situation. May Allah reward the sisters involved at Side Entrance, ameen.

A synopsis of Side Entrance:

Photos from mosques around the world, showcasing women's sacred spaces, in relation to men's spaces

Of course its a good thing that they do, as it raises the awareness in the hope that things will improve. However, with the internet being what it is, an Islamophobe latched onto this and used it to wrongly  attack Islam.

It's sad to see an Islamophobe use the work by Side Entrance to attack Islam. It just shows the depravity that Islamophobes sink to in order to further their agenda of attacking Islam. The Islamophobe wrote:

So this woman converted to Islam, but had no clue what Islam teaches about women?

Why are these Islamophobes so deceptive? The woman who converted was surprised as to the facilities in mosques for Muslim women. Muslim women and men have been slowly helping to improve the facilities for sisters for a while - the downsized facilities for women is not due to Islam - practical reasons such as cost, poor planning and decision making on the part of mosque committees are behind this issue. Things are improving, we don't need Islamophobes jumping in and misusing the situation for their hateful agendas!

Mosques Relegate Women's Prayers to the Basement

NEW YORK (WOMENSENEWS)--When Matea converted to Islam in December 2013 she looked forward to joining the life of her local mosques here. Today Matea, like many Muslim women, is disillusioned.

"When I first converted I wanted to be part of the mosque environment. But I went to mosques and what I found was sort of an unwelcome environment for women," she told Women's eNews during a discussion organized last week by Women in Islam, a New York-based organization working to empower Muslim women through knowledge and practice of Islam.

Matea didn't want her full name published.

"The spaces are separated, there are different rooms and sometimes it was even in the basement," Matea continued. "And as a convert, it feels very strange to you. I used to go to church and everybody is part of the same community. You can see the preacher. You can hear the sermon very well."
Momentum is building to improve Muslim women's prayer spaces inside mosques. Last year, Hind Makki, a resident of Chicago who describes herself as an interfaith educator and community activist, launched the Side Entrance project on Tumblr and Facebook, inviting people from around the world to share photos of the mosques they attend and show the differences between male and female prayer areas.
From: http://womensenews.org/story/religion/140402/mosques-relegate-womens-prayers-the-basement#.U0Caq6Vi99m

Christians having dreams and converting to Islam:
http://thefactsaboutislam.blogspot.co.uk/2014/03/christians-are-having-dreams-and.html


Learn about Islam:http://www.thedeenshow.com

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