When Women Demand Prayer Space: Women in Mosques Campaign in Turkey

On March 12, 2018, four women gathered in Istanbul's iconic Fatih Mosque. Known today as members of the "Women in Mosques" (Kadınlar Camilerde) campaign, these women, many of them young and university educated, have been gathering in various mosques in Istanbul since October 2017 to address concerns pertaining to women's use of prayer spaces in Turkey. Some of these concerns include lack of ablution rooms for women and their maintenance; lack of prayer space—especially in smaller mosques—for women to attend Friday prayers, when "women's spaces" are allocated entirely to male members of the congregation; and women's overall sense of belonging to, and spiritual experience in, mosques.

While women's socialization in mosques is encouraged in the Quran and also mentioned in various hadiths, in Turkey it is the private home, not the mosque, that is considered the space of ethical cultivation for women.¹ Contrary to Saba Mahmood's seminal work on women's mosque movements, women's mobilization and activism in Turkey seldom finds expression in mosques. Whereas men gather in mosques to attend conversation circles (sohbets) with the imams, women usually gather in one another's houses to participate in sohbets led by female religious leaders.

Within this context, the Women in Mosques campaign can be seen as an attempt to challenge the gendered use of religious spaces in Turkey. One of the rights they advocate is "spatial equality," that is, equal access to prayer spaces by men and women (Kadınlar Camilerde 2018b). In November 2017 the women of the campaign debuted a website (www.kadinlarcamilerde.com) to share their experiences in various mosques around Turkey. The material for this article comes primarily from the blog entries shared on this website by members of the Women in Mosques campaign.

"Haddini Bilmek" (Knowing Your Place)

Turkish mosques generally allocate some areas, termed loges (kadınlar mahfili), for women congregants; these spaces, however, are often appropriated on Fridays by the large numbers of men who attend services. During the afternoon prayer (salat) on Monday, March 12, 2018, Women in Mosques activists drew sufficient ire over this issue to raise their campaign to public attention. After praying in their designated loge, two of the women decided to cross into the "male space" while men were praying.² They did not obstruct the prayer or move too close to the front of the mosque, where a group of men were praying, for they knew that would be considered a transgressive act. "Haddimizi biliyoruz yani" (We know our place after all), Arife Hanım wrote in her blog entry published on the campaign's website (Kadınlar Camilerde 2018a). She rested her shoulder on a column near an exit and glanced at the mosque's tiles and calligraphy. "Soon, other women came to sit by us," she wrote, and continued: "By sit, I mean, they tried to sit, for before they even attempted, the security guard showed up. 'Ladies,' he said, 'there are complaints. Please get up and move to the back. That's the women's space.'"

As Arife Hanım tried to explain to the security guard how she was not transgressing any rules, the imam hastily approached "with a face all red with fury." "I am the imam of this mosque. You cannot sit here. Şeytan (the Devil) flows in one's veins, says our Prophet. You think you know better than him? Men have complaints. Get up," argued the imam. Arife Hanım told him that they were in a space dedicated to the general public, which included tourists. But the imam had little tolerance. "Men are praying behind you," he asserted.

There was one elderly man, indeed, praying in the back row. It was he, and not the women, who seemed out of place, for the rest of the congregation was occupying the front rows. Soon after, other men gathered around the women. In her blog post, Arife Hanım was lost for words to describe her feelings. "If only I were caught stealing something, I would feel this way," she wrote...