BBC Woman’s Hour’s White Feminism Lets Down Female Imams Like Me

Having a community that supports our feminist mosque and enables us to work with male, genderqueer, nonbinary and female imams. We’re proud of the work we do to develop a feminist approach to Islam. However, we know our approach to spiritual leadership won’t be useful for all Muslim communities. There is other great work being done by feminists that will impact how we all understand and celebrate diverse spiritual leadership.

When White feminists focus on female imams alone, they are missing all the other vital work being done in our communities. Our Director, Naima Khan, wrote this article in response to BBC Woman’s Hour’s unnecessarily hostile interview of Zara Mohammed. Zara was recently voted in as the new Secretary General of Muslim Council of Britain (MCB). She was asked some deeply unfair and irrelevant questions by host Emma Barnett about the number of female imams in the UK. But there is no registry of imams where this statistic would be. Zara was then unfairly shamed for not knowing about work that isn’t even part of her job.

Her appointment is a huge development for the Muslim Council of Britain. We hope she prioritises the needs of the communities she’s working with. We’d love to see more inclusion of women and young people like her. Especially folks who represent Shia Muslim orgs, Black-led orgs, disabled-led orgs and LGBT+ orgs. Here’s the full article: Female Imams Aren’t The Only Feminist Solution. I Know Because I Am One

• Activism
• Prayers
• Spirituality