Vjosa Molliqaj stepped into a long skirt, wrapped her head in a scarf, and kneeled to pray. About a dozen women, young and old, sat silently around her reading the Quran or praying in the women’s balcony of the Mosque, located in the neighborhood known as Katër Llulla in the center of Pristina.
Molliqaj did not have a space to pray in a mosque before she moved to Pristina four years ago. The two mosques in her hometown of Decan did not have a woman’s balcony.
In Pristina, she prays every day in her noon lunchbreak at the mosque that is just a few minute walk from her office. She is at peace in the mosque, where she can talk to Allah, thank Allah, and be with other Muslims.
“It was a great feeling for me being able to go to a mosque where women can also go too. There I could meet a lot of Muslim sisters and that made me feel much stronger in feeling and practicing Islam,” Molliqaj said.
Besa Ismaili Ahmeti, senior lecturer at the Faculty of Islamic Studies in Pristina, said women are more bound to houses and private spaces, rather than attending mosques to pray. After so many years of men dominating mosques before the war of 1998-99, men were uncomfortable to see women in those settings, Ismaili Ahmeti said.
“Generations of men get used to nonpresence of women in mosques,” Ismaili Ahmeti said.
But this attitude is changing as younger generations of women and men become educated in Islam and accept women into the spaces of mosques, Ismaili Ahmeti said. Many women come to the mosques on Fridays, the Islamic holy day.
“It is changing. It has to, it is unIslamic,” Ismaili Ahmeti added.
Women are equal in Islamic law, she explained.
Ajni Sinani, an imam and lecturer at the Faculty of Islamic Studies, agreed.
“The participation of men and women in the mosques has no limitations, they are equal,” Sinani said through a translator.
Sinani said that women do not come to the mosque in as great of number as men, partly due to years of Serbian influence, when many Muslims did not feel secure going to the mosque. Women stayed at home to pray, and this tradition kept many women from going to the mosques, but that tradition is changing.
“That tradition started changing after the war, when women flooded the mosques,” Ismaili Ahmeti said.
Another reason that women may not go to the mosque to pray is that men are obligated to go, while women are not. But, Sinani said it is still preferable that women go the mosque to pray,especially for the Jummah prayers.
And even if they don’t go the mosque in as great of number, Sinani said women are always welcome in mosques.
“According to the Muslim religion, there are no impediments in going and doing the prayer inside the mosque,” Sinani said.“Neither the religion neither the imams prevent women from going and doing their prayers in the mosque.”
And many women, such as Molliqaj, pray on the carpet of a mosque.
Molliqaj was done with her prayers. Her lunch break was over, so she had to go back to her work as a computer programmer at 1 p.m. She walked back to the office while more women filed up the stairs.
One woman handed her small child a phone to play with. He perched on a plastic stool and faced the window. Some women sat alone, some in pairs.
At 1 p.m., the women rose together and lined up shoulder to shoulder, enough to form a row-and-a-half. There are more women now than when Molliqaj arrived from her lunch break. The women bent and kneeled, praying in tempo with each other while the imam chanted his sermon.
Nehare Janjeva also attends the Four Lulla mosque. She walked up the mosque’s marble staircase at about 10:30 p.m. on a Wednesday evening. She took off her shoes and went upstairs to the women’s balcony. Some women already had their hair wrapped in hijabs while others stepped into shapeless skirts and long headscarves. She talked quietly with other women before the prayers began.
The women gathered in rows with feet and bodies in line. They prayed to the sound of the imam’s voice, standing and touching their foreheads to the floor. The men downstairs outnumbered the women.
Janjeva said she feels the same peace in the mosque as Molliqaj. She is comfortable in the mosque, and comes almost every Friday for the Jummah prayer. The mosque is just a few minutes from her apartment and her office.
“I feel comfortable here as a woman,” Janjeva said.
She finds peace in being with Allah and in being with other Muslims, and she finds peace in being able to speak to Allah about her life.
Janjeva said there is mutual respect between the sexes, and each treats the other with love. Many women pray at home because they take care of their family. If they left to go to the mosque, they would lose valuable time at home.
“It’s good to be at home, women do things that are important for family,” Janjeva said.
It is a person’s choice whether they pray at home, in their business or at the mosque, Sinani said. However if you pray with other people, you have the support of fellow Muslims.
“You can say good words to someone or help someone and the people you meet might have any problems and you can discuss with them and offer them solutions. You’re an active person in your society,” Sinani added.
But some mosques in Pristina do not have the same space for women as the 4 Lulla mosque.
The Yashar Pasha mosque, built in 1835, sits near Mother Theresa Boulevard. The faithful gathered for mid-afternoon prayers at 4:30 p.m. on a weekday. The women’s balcony in this mosque is much smaller, about half the size of the Four Lulla Mosque. The balcony remained empty while men occupied about half of the downstairs.
Just a few minutes away, the faithful trickled in for prayers around 5 p.m. at a larger mosque. Men filled about half of the lower room. This balcony also remained empty. After the prayer, the men strung up a teal curtain in the courtyard, blocking the view of the entrance.
Ismaili Ahmeti said women should be able to see their imam, without their view being blocked by a curtain.
Yosef Estes, who attended the mosque, said the curtain is to separate the women and the men for that evening’s prayers, a special prayer in the month of Ramadan. Women sat outside in the courtyard, while men took their place inside.
Women are always welcome to pray, he said, but women also have duties at home. They can pray at home if they have to take care of the children.
Ymer Gushlla regularly attends a mosque in Prizren. He said men and women pray separately because praying requires a great amount of focus, and Muslims don’t want any distractions while they are praying.
Gushlla said he does not see many women praying in the mosques, and even less when it is not Ramadan. Women are relegated to the small balcony of a second section at the back of a mosque.
“I’m pretty sure if there was more space women would come to pray,” Gushlla said.
But women are finding peace in the mosque, such as Janjeva and Molliqaj. Here, the women can talk to other Muslims with the same purpose for being there.
“You meet a lot of people there who have the same purpose for being there and that makes all the people there feel like sisters and brothers even if we see them for the first time,” Molliqaj said.
Molliqaj said she can learn from other people in the mosque and from the Imam. Molliqaj said she has an inner happiness because she has a place to thank and pray to Allah.
(Laura Fitzgerald is a reporting intern at KosovaLive this summer, in cooperation with Miami University in the United States.)
