i was inspired when i did my thesis in syria and sufism and islamic activism and back then was my admission to a mosque with female sleeting the prayer actually for both men and women because i always prayed together men and women so it's very natural to me i was always. i was always working against the segregation within different spheres so when i started the mosque we recruited it. other people for our team for the group and like any group like any community you have to vote and it's a democracy and the majority of the committee they voted for a women's mosque only so i had to accept that and i think now when i look back on the really happy about the decision because i realize that having a mosque with women or female sleet the prayer for only women it's not controversial at all so we're actually able to do other revolutions that i consider

more important but do you feel like when you pray it's about but do you feel like your vision of having a mixed mixed mosque could ever come true is this something would want to see in the future it is already happening because we have the first mosque in scandinavia with female moms but there there are mosques all over the world in china since the eighteen twenty in the u.s. and canada and germany and especially in germany and canada and us there are mosques with mixed prayer so it's already happening many places in the world i do hope that in the future we could have a mosque with both male and female you moms and and i hope that in the future we could have makes prayer also because we have so many young men who tells us that we would also like to come to the money a mosque and to pray with you and we would like to come as a family without children and so i think it will. have been may be in the future

but right now i'm quite happy about a women's mosque so islamic states extreme take on islam still attracted a lot of women to go and volunteer and join its costs you as a female spiritual leader how do you explain that why would people why would women volunteer to be so horribly oppressed. by isis i mean i think that people tend to become radicalized or attracted to read to collide communities because they don't feel a part of the existing communities that they live in often if you don't feel a part of the existing community i mean you have nothing to lose and you try to seek other communities where you feel at home and where you feel that you are validated so unfortunately these communities that are very extreme and a try to i mean they sometimes you know they they focus on all these political issues of today and they use all these political tensions in order to recruit very

vulnerable young people who maybe do not feel at home in their existing european communities or where they might live and that's why it's so crucial that that we try to include our minorities in the existing countries in order for everybody to feel at home and to feel a part of the community that you believe that the koran at its basics considers man and woman equal so all they have to arkell oppressive parts of traditional islamic societies were do they come from if not religion i mean in the koran there are one hundred fourteen chapters and more than six thousand six hundred verses and there are six verses that could be interpreted as discriminatory against women but they could also be interpreted over differently with a focus on women's rights and gender equality and that's actually what we're trying

to do in the area mosque we try to read these verses in order to create gender equality so and this is actually happening all over the world we have a male and the and male and female scholars who try to rewrite the koran in our times in our society. yes within islam we have a patriarchal structure within religious institutions and that patriarchal structure of course it has affected the interpretation of the koran so this is also what we would like to challenge these pay trickle structures patriarchal readings of the koran and and i think that female you moms has something to contribute in that context because we have a specific focus on gender equality and we are in need of that so you're not wearing job shoot i had or face cover be a choice and this is a sign of oppression what do you think of course if i mean we are born free

we are born free so of course every single human should choose for themselves how they want to live their life and muslim women have different interpretation of what it means to be a modest woman this is my interpretation of modesty to me the scarf is a metaphor for sincerity towards god and sincerity in the relationships that you find yourself in it could be a friendship or a marriage or whatever so but i also respect women who choose the way that he jav and see it as a part of the islamic identity we have to accept and respect that women have these different interpretation of what it means to be a modest woman in the koran there are two verses come searching the scarf and concerning the covering one of the verses is specifically. related to the wife of the prophet and the other verse is more universal. like you said he jap to burka

it's all based in their requirements to be modest for women in islam and she is the that as another the of the pattern arche that you are resisting like a woman has to sing about how a man sees her and worry whether she's just modest or not by a man. that's not my interpretation of modesty i use the term more in the sense of the. in the sense that you choose how you want to present yourself in the sense of a more spiritual sincerity so i have the same respect for a woman who was wearing a ministers and a woman who is fully covered i mean it's up to any woman to choose how she wants to dress and how she feels comfortable and i mean it's stated clearly in that they can ration of human rights that any human being has the right to practice his or her religion in the private sphere and in the public sphere so i mean we

cannot we can decide that women should not wear the hijab i mean it's a human right it's a freedom of religion and freedom of religion is is just as important as freedom of speech so as not of course what happens in iraq what happens in iran where women are forced to wear the scarf of course i condemn that and i fight fight against that and i wouldn't i also condemn anyone we are i condemn whatever is going on in europe right now where were countries are trying to. fool he jobs on women in the streets. i mean if a woman if a woman chooses to wear the he or the board it's her own individual decision and we shouldn't i mean fights against that we have to support the i mean any person's right to practice his or her religion i mean we signed the contract was signed the

declaration of human rights so it's actually stated that very clearly that this is a possibility so i will fight for any woman's right to wear the hijab and not to whether he is your. position you are quite an interesting mix of absolute european democrat and a spiritual leader in islam. when you try to fight islamophobia and open up your religion open up islam from a different angle how do your fellow believers see you i mean do you think you are a true muslim in their eyes in the muslim of the clerics from egypt or iraq or maybe don't even care what they think. actually i do not seek the recognitions of of other people i seek the recognition of. but of course it means something to me what people think. actually we had a visitor it's it was the granny mom from the third largest mosques in the indonesia in jakarta it's called

a mosque the granny mom he has two hundred thousand muslim this it says every friday for his friday prayer he came to the mahdi a mosque in copenhagen he prayed in a mosque and he blessed our mosque and he blessed the concept of female in months and he even quoted the one of my favorite inspirational sources which is it been out of be here from eleven sixty five until twelve forty and he said the perfect man is a woman so we have muslim spiritual great leaders who support the mosque and of course we also met by a position because when you when you change a patriarchal structure you change the power balance and people will become upset it's natural so in your new reality in your everyday reality what is harder dealing with the national islam of right wingers or religious islamist fanatics i think both i mean there are very similar they're similar both sides both sides they tend

to generalize they are manipulating guy caught some nice between them and us between being a muslim and being a secure a list when seen muslims and jews and muslims and and christians and all of these manipulate the dichotomy as you will find it on both sides and this is actually what i try to fight against or what we try to fight against or challenge we try to deconstruct all of these manipulated by cuts and nice showing the world that islam is a religion and it's a peaceful religion and it's possible to be a practicing muslim to believe that the koran is the word of god and at the same time be here a member of secular society. it is possible all right sure and we're going to take a short break right now while we're back or contain a topic what sharon han khan denmark's first female a mom discussing her fight against islam a phobia in europe stay with us. the

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when all truths seem wrong. but old bulls just don't call. me cold yet to shake out disdain comes to catechize and in detroit equals betrayal. when so many find themselves worlds apart we choose to look for common ground. and we're back with the fairway non-contact march first female

a mom talking about the future of islam in europe sure and in iraq the council of islamic scholars is allowing women to officiate marriages in saudi arabia while men have been allowed to drive so there are steps forward in more traditional islamic countries but do you understand that from a western point of view i mean this isn't really impressive this is a very basic sayings that shouldn't have been banned in the first place. yes i agree with you totally. in the marry a mosque we have constructed a new marriage islamic marriage contract that gives women muslim women the right to divorce actually due today in the world muslim women do not have the basic right to divorce it's the right of the husband so and actually it's an islamic principle the right to divorce so we have contracted a new marriage contract giving women the basic islamic right to divorce and if it

means for bitten in our contract if mental of physical violence occur the marriage is the law of the woman has the right over the children in case of a divorce we also conduct into religious marriages in the mara mosque as the first one in scandinavia we believe that any person has the right to choose her partner for life and it should be a very basic thing but unfortunately today one of the biggest dilemma not only in the muslim world but also in europe is it's a faith marriages and the the concept of interfaith marriage is i'm going to accommodate you that limbs leaders yes i'm going to come before was it about that amat arab spring activists woman from yemen and libya and they work on women's rights while looking see a logical foundations ways to interpret in the koran finding their right how does except our can't one's rights ever work outside the religion in islamic communities

where i mean is that for instance feminism in a west isn't tied to religion femen is don't go to st luke or send paul they don't turn to bible and ask them women have rights to so secular feminism even possible in muslim culture of course it's possible it's happening all the time i mean in in many muslim countries you have a population there a secure list and they're not even occupied with religion but i'm occupied with. we form within religion occupied about how we can re read the koran with a focus on gender equality but this secular feminism is i mean it's present all over the world also in the muslim world so when you say down with polygamy down with oppression of women you can be a good muslim and not wear a veil but i'd imagine your religious opponents would say wait well this isn't really slum at all is islam really and all you can eat cafeteria where you get to

pick and choose what you like and discard what you don't like and actually i believe that as a muslim leader as a muslim spiritual leader i mean we shouldn't judge other people it's not our i mean we should listen to people in the mariam us we have female humans within without the scarf and in that sense we are reflecting reality as it is and i'm very confident i'm happy about that now interfaced marriages you conduct them in your mosque people come from all over europe to get married to get married by you saying that it's impossible to find and elsewhere to do it but if other humans don't do it that means that your religion is against that so is this technically cheating actually tunisia is the first muslim country in the world they changed the law in december two thousand and seventeen and now they made it possible for muslim women to marry non muslims and i think that that could create

a domino effect in the rest of the muslim world not now but maybe in the future because someone has to take the first step we are actually not the only mosque that conducts interfaith marriages it is happening different places in the world but it's happening maybe it's not official officially it's not stated that it's happening but i know that it's happening different places so. i don't mean to offend but i need to get down to the core of things right and like i ask you were whether there are double standards in everything that we're talking about here maybe someone who can tell you that clinging to their religion in such a ways really paying lip service for it what i mean is that if one doesn't accept hypothetically interface marriages then if i want to marry a hindu and i'm a muslim well maybe islam is not for me if it calls me to me a sinner for it right and if i'm gay and the catholic church doesn't want me at

prayer will we catholics are missing for me was the point if you simply don't sit i mean i do believe that interfaith marriage is legitimate also according to islam as a religion in the koran it stated clearly that a muslim man can marry a jew or christian but it's not stated clearly that a woman can marry a jew or muslim and it's not stated that she cannot but in the koran it stated clearly that both men and women should seek devoted seekers of the one so we find the legitimacy in the koran and we do believe that the right to choose your partner is a basic right it's a basic human right and if you believe that the koran i mean contains an essence on gender equality i mean what goes for the man goes for the woman so this is actually where we come from and what we believe in now i wonder if you have any

ties with women clerics of other religions like rabbis or female christian priests is there any kind of gender solidarity that is crossing religious lines. i mean we are in the area most we call parade with other i mean communities we have very inspired by the jewish progressive jews in denmark and i also recently met delphine in the front i met the french president recently in the company of the fiend and we're really inspired by what they do because the female rabbis are doing the same thing as we're doing with a new so i think we have a lot to learn from each other you know we hear many top political figures in europe saying that islam doesn't belong to europe you live in a country with a government strongly against islam does it make it hard for you to get your message across or the rhetoric of the politicians level on the politicians level

doesn't really reflect what ordinary people think and how they treat you. i think it's a myth to state that the government in denmark is against islam that's not the case we have a growing islamophobia or a growing and his i mean rhetorical propaganda in denmark but it's in the right right wing parties so the government in general they do accept islam as a religion like any other religion but. so so at a state level it's accepted and no i don't experience this kind of anti islamic retore at the state level but of course in the right wing parties at a daily basis you experience and make retore comparable again and we try to challenge that so there is push from muslims in countries like england canada france to create a separate sharia legality for them since those laws are the way of the face do you

think that muslims in non islamic societies should have a separate legal system for themselves. i do not think so i think that it's that muslims all over the world i mean in european countries they should. they should accept and be a part of the constitution that is existing in the existing countries and it's also stated clearly in the koran that muslims have to. i mean submit themselves to the existing constitutions in the countries that they live in so it's actually very basic. and i do believe that the western educational system is quite good and we also spoke about i mean what would it be like if we had a female in my maid or any my medication and then mike and actually i think that the west and its u.k. show system is quite good and it's quite good fundament for being a female. so the culture clash in secular societies gets violent sometimes i mean.

we remember the danish concur tune of the prophet challis a bill or the american muhammad movie and how many people died as a result of all of that. what should come first here the right of europeans to draw any cartoon they wish or the religious sensibility of muslims i think that there of course freedom of speech is a universal value and it's a fundamental value and it's not a christian westen value it's a universal value which is shared by all people all over the world to me as a muslim freedom of speech. is an essential value at the same time i have another essential value which is. the believe that the koran is the word of god or you know this sensitivity. so i do believe that. it's important as

human beings that when we we have this freedom of speech but it's not a freedom to evaluate other people or to discriminate other people so always with freedom of speech there comes responsibility so we all everybody's responsible for how we talk and how we meet people and we have to ask ourselves what is the purpose of the dialogue what do we want to use a freedom of speech what do we want to use it to if we want to have a dialogue with people who thinks differently or i mean it's not a very good strategy to speak very badly about these people and so we have to ask ourselves what do we want to use the freedom of speech with what we what what is the purpose of freedom of speech so on both sides i mean everybody has to has to you know be aware that. you know we have to be responsible when we

when we have the power to express ourselves i mean with that with that power comes responsibility so as a spiritual muslim leader i know that i have a certain responsibility and i you know when you have a power you have a responsibility and i think we should reflect upon that scene when this cussing and freedom of speech because it's really very important sure in thank you very much for this wonderful interview we wish you luck were talking to. con denmark's first female imaam discussing whether islam and european values can co-exist that is it for this edition of sophie and co i will see you next.

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