Women's Mosque of America opens in Los Angeles

Once a month, Muslim women gather at this mosque for a unique prayer meeting. There is no other such place in the USA.

“I came here two months ago. There is a unique atmosphere here - women of the most diverse races and nationalities are praying with me, ”says Tanzila Ahmed.

In most traditional mosques, men and women pray separately, and Friday prayers are led by men. However, at the Women's Mosque of America, women lead the prayers. Edina Lekovic led the meeting on the opening day of the mosque.

“When I got this opportunity, I felt a renewed connection with the women in the audience. They are near me because we want a reconnection with our faith or a new development. We are striving for something new,” explains Edina Lekovic, public relations officer at the Muslim Council.

Some Muslim women say that in traditional mosques feel strangers. Tanzila Ahmed: “In the mosque where I went as a child, women were always led somewhere to the back room. We were not allowed to attend the main prayer. Now I can not think about it, and it gives me strength. I do not think about the problems of the patriarchal structure of the times when I grew up. ”

The Women's Mosque of America does not require a specific "dress code." Muslim women pray in a building where Jews and Christians also gather. The founder of the project, Hasna Maznavi, notes that this is the reason she chose this place: “I am inspired by the golden age of Islam, when Muslims, Jews and Christians all coexisted peacefully.”