This is a guest post by Ahmed Rushdie.
Perspective I
FOSIS is currently running a promotional event called ‘The Heroine Rises‘. The website features a rather bizarre trailer with the tag-line ‘Will you rise above your fears?’. The event is a collaboration with a separate organisation called ‘I am Alima’, according to its website, the organisation is:
a non profit organisation and the first provider of Islamic education in a fun and vibrant manner for solely women in the West. For women – by women.
All very discrete and modest. It’s very unlike FOSIS. They’re usually quite open in their anti-feminist and misogynistic offerings to students, especially in respect to the different hate preachers who visit FOSIS-affiliated tasked with ‘empowering women‘.
FOSIS’ ‘The Heroine Rises’ seems to be a half-baked attempt at the beleaguered organisation’s attempts to garner a shred of credibility since a number of influential organisations have, rightly, kept their distance from FOSIS.
If ‘The Heroine Rises’ is a genuine attempt at empowerment of Muslim women, then I welcome it. But, I doubt it. See perspective II.
Perspective II
Friday prayers are a staple for any Muslim student. At FOSIS Queen Mary’s, London the arrangements for prayer are starkly different if you’re a male or female:
***Jumu’ah Announcement***
Jumu’ah will be taking place in the Great Hall tomorrow (19/10/2012) @ 1.15pm InshAllah
Brothers will be using the stage area – please enter through the normal entrance and convene ON the stage area.
Sisters will be using the floor area of the hall – please enter through the last set of double-door entrance round the back, from the car park.
Ahh, that’s the FOSIS readers have come to know. Perhaps ‘rising above your fears’ is a challenge to the brothers at Queen Mary to treat their female members equally.
FOSIS – empowering women, round the back, from the car park.
This article was syndicated from Stand for Peace.
