Uttar Pradesh: Women offer namaz on Eid at Pilibhit mosque; clerics object

PILIBHIT: For the first time in Pilibhit, which has over 30% Muslim population, as many as 20 women, associated with Jamaat-e-Islami Hind, an Islamic organisation, offered namaz on Eid in a mosque on Saturday.
But the move has drawn the ire of several clerics in the area.
Raza Khan, the kazi-e-shahar, termed it as "open defiance of Islamic doctrines." He further said that he would "expect from the district authorities to stop the practice."
Meanwhile, a divisional coordinator of Jamaat-e-Islami Hind, Arifa Khatoon, said, that "Islam nowhere restricts women from offering namaz at mosques. It is unfortunate that this practice is prohibited in countries of the Indian sub-continent, else women have the freedom of visiting mosques for namaz in every gulf country."
From now, women linked with 'jamaat' would regularly offer namaz at mosques to defy the hypocrisy of some clerics who intended to establish their religious supremacy, Khatoon said.
Notably, people linked with Jamaat-e-Islami-Hind have been prohibited by the followers of 'Ala Hazrat Barelvi' from entering the majority of mosques terming them as 'Wahabi', the adherent of the Islamic reform movement founded by Muhammad Ibn in the 18th century in central Arabia. They, therefore, offer namaz in their own mosques in the entire Bareilly division.