I totally agree with u! thats one thing always on my mind; watching from falling into a certain group or section!! u re right just simply following Quran n sunnah with getting help from the great scholars forsure. I personally dont follow a certain math-hab n try as much as i can to take the most true n closest to context of Quran.

Esalaamu Aleikoum,

Practising Islam is not always easier in a MENA country. Sometimes culture seems to overpower religion. And being a Muslim, in other then name only is not always 'hip'! I really do not feel more religious or even spiritual here. Every day is struggle to remember my Creator ... and just cos it is Muslim country does not mean 'haraam' is not lurking around the corner. I still have to make the many of the same choices that I had to make in the US. Still have to read labels ... still have to watch what influences are around my child ... Still have to see drunks and streets littered with beer bottles ... and I still have a drug dealer in my neighbourhood! So in some cases it is not much different for me ...

I do have to agree with you about the athan. But listening to a recorded version is not the same thou as the real live voice. There is a very old man here in my city, who can barely talk normally due to what I think is Parkinson's yet the man with all his energy and might gets up every morning at Fajr for the call of prayer. Just makes my experience more spiritual and meaningful!

A big difference here in Algeria, is that outside of Alger you will not find so many masjids with areas for women to pray in. Culturally women in the past here in Algeria did not leave the home, thus no reason for women's areas for prayer. This is unforunate but slowly changing.

Also the holiday times, are of course more meaningful and exciting here ... then they ever in the US.You have that communal sense of worship and happiness. Something hard to grasp in the US, being the Eids are not holidays of the mainstream. But I do get a kick out of the Christmas decorations they put in the streets during Ramadan!

You find that sometimes in the US too but I have never been turned away from a masjid because of no "ladies room" personally. I have, however, gotten my husband strange looks because I sneak into the back of the men's section when I'm the only woman in the "ladies room" because I want to be part of the actual prayer and not stuck behind a wall LOL. I've also gotten some stares when I lift the curtain so I can see the men from the women's section LOL (to follow the prayer not to stare at the men )

Elhamdullah I have not been turned away either ... in fact most masjids here are extremely happy to find a "foreign Muslim" wanting to pray in the masjid. Usually they allow me to pray in the Imam's office. No where near the men, thou

Just frusrtating during Ramadan, in the Tarawee prayers how all these women get cramped into a little space then most of which only find this is an opportunity to get out of the house to gossip. Elhamdullah I found a masjid with larger women's are and more serious sisters.

Yeah me too, one time for a Saturday prayer or something with not much traffic I was the only woman and probably like 20 men, and I was already at the masjid for a class they held for new Muslims, so when it was time to pray I was going to go upstairs to the women's area but my teacher (the cutest little Egyptian man I've ever known, I wanted to adopt him as my uncle or something) told me that I can pray behind them in the men's hall, and most of the people there are very conservative so I was like okay so I prayed in the corner behind the men and when everyone was done and they all saw me behind them I guess a bunch of men got upset and wanted to say something and my teacher Sarwat told me later when we went back into the classroom that they were grumbling about me praying behind them and he told them that it is halal and Islamic and that the Prophet saws didn't separate the women in another room and he basically told them to go take a hike! I was SO surprised and happy that he defended me like that! Plus the women's section is so far away I mean I could be assaulted or something, it's not the safest place. I HATED it when the women would all talk during the khotba because I wanted to hear what the imam was saying and they were all gossiping in Arabic or Urdu and I wanted to go complain to the mosque director that they let women sit behind the men for any women that choose to and the women that choose to stay in the balcony are free to do that too, but I sort of lost interest altogether and stopped going. I guess I'll take up that fight when we move back insha'Allah because I REALLY hate the separate rooms/balconies. And I seriously believe that if there weren't the balconies but if all the women were behind the men, that they wouldn't be talking because everyone else would hear them so they wouldn't dare. It's like they're treating us like children, so it's no surprise that we're behaving like children. Treat us like mature responsible pious women and we'll live up to that expectation. I myself am of the opinion that the whole separate room with speakers or TV is bid3a and should be avoided. I just don't understand why people need to constantly reinvent the wheel!!!!!

Mach'Allah that he defended you! I too, donnot appreciate the balconies. Here, it is totally seperated. Most times, you donnot even know what part of the prayer the Imam is at. Reason why I donnow bother going to majids much.
Shame on the men for getting upset and gossiping behind your back. Totally islamically within your right to pray there. Urrrrr ... men!

I can kind of understand having a "women's section" separate from the men because of how the women hang out there after the prayer (the Sunnah is for the men to wait a few moments after the prayer and the women to get up immediately and leave) but I don't understand why the imams and shaykhs would rather just cut us off from the prayer than to take the time to explain to the women about the Sunnah and encourage us to act in the same way as the sahabiyyat. I won't pray by myself in the women's section because the hadith says that u should see the imam or someone who is following the imam and if I'm stuck behind the wall by myself, well, I can't see anything! Also, me being a non-Arabic speaking/understanding muslimah, I don't know if they're reciting a verse of prostration when the imam says "Allahu Akbr" and I could easily get away from the prayer with that misunderstanding, no? Also, what if I come in after the prayer has started and I can't see anyone who's praying.... how do I know which raka' they're in??
I used to just pray in the women's section and complain to my hubby about it at home but he agrees with me and asked me why don't I come in the room at the back where the men are praying. I told him because it's taboo here and I didn't want to embarass him.... he said I would never embarass him by doing the right thing and that I should only worry about my prayer and not about bothering him.
I don't mind praying in the women's section if the men's section is full or as long as there are other women praying there with me, I just don't like to be in there alone. I also don't mind the fact that there is a women's section for lectures and classes etc but that's not how things were done in the prophet's (sal allahu alayhi wa salaam) time.... but there is a hadith from 'Aisha where she said if the prophet (sal allahu alayhi wa salaam) saw what the women were doing at the masjid after he died that he would have forbidden them to go to the masjid so I think we need to check ourselves and our own actions. Some older women will go into the men's section to pray (which is fine) but they will make a lot of noise and talk in high voices while on their way there and back and this is distracting to the men who are praying AND it's against the Sunnah so, because of this, I can kind of understand why they make us go in our own room lol.
Also, at one of the masjids I go to, there is a separate room but there's only a curtain that divides the room. When I'm there by myself or the other women with me are like-minded, we lift that curtain so we can see the men praying to keep in accordance with the command to follow the imam or someone who's following the imam BUT there are women who come there from time to time who get mad if u lift that curtain up and they act like they've never seen a man before! So a lot of time it's not necessarily the MEN who got the idea to put those walls/curtains there but was actually thought up by women who want to hide behind them. Then on Fridays they sit behind that curtain talking and playing around instead of paying attn to the khutbah because the khateeb can't see them to tell them to stop
I feel like this, we wear hijab when we go out and the prophet (sal allahu alayhi wa salaam) allowed us to go to the masajid but there are rules that we're supposed to be following when we're there as well. As long as I'm wearing my hijab then I'm properly screened and free to move about as I need.... even in the masjid Some women just need to be reminded that modesty includes outer hijab but doesn't stop there! (I've had to get on niqabis before because some of them also think just because they're covered up with extra clothes means they are modest but they're talking loudly and laughing out loud and the like... some of the loudest sisters at the eid prayer are the niqabis subhanallah)

Main point being, is that we should all being the same as the Muslims of the Prophet Muhammed's time. Women did not have to hide back then. Unfortunately, now culture has invaded religion!

Yeah I understand too about why they do it and why certain women want it, but I don't agree with it nor want it. I especially want to sit behind the men during the khotba because the women talk like they're in the mall. Put them directly in the eyesight of the imam and I don't think they'll be doing that, and the rest of us can tell them to shut up while they're walking to and from the prayer area. What Aisah said about women in the masjid, well, that's a whole nother can of worms but in my biased opinion she wasn't directly quoting the Prophet, she was speaking for him and creating an opinion for him after he died, which I don't think anybody can do for any other human being because it's not them, and second of all, her integrity is shot to hell after the war she waged on the Prophet's family and therefore the Sunni/Shia split among the Believers (and a woman leading an army? she should've known better) So that's the way I look at her opinions. Plus the Prophet saws doesn't seem like a man who would punish all of womankind for the actions of a stupid few right? He was much more wise than that. (FYI I consider myself neither Sunni nor Shia nor anything but a practicing Muslim, a Mu'mina-in-progress, trying to get better little by little)

That's funny about the niqabis, I can see how they would think that all goes because they're totally covered. Hey Henia, do any women in your hubby's family go to Eid prayers? My MIL had never ONCE gone to a masjid EVER in her life until I came along (hehe, corrupting Lala) and now she goes to jumu'ah prayer every Friday because my FIL had too much hechouma for my sake to tell her no she couldn't go with me. He wanted to say no at first and she was furious and said that he lets her go to different cities by herself to go shopping and visiting people all over the place but she can't go to a masjid to pray to Allah swt? I was like "woo-hoo go Lala!" And he was speechless!!! (I guess he's ignoring the hadith that says don't prevent your women from going to masajid, sigh) So now she comes back and tells me about the khotbas if I don't go with her and she totally digs it, and I think it helps with her iman, because sometimes the women guests who come over talk about nothing but crap including haram gossiping so I'm not having that and I'm not having them drag down my MIL with them. The more ignorant and uneducated women become the more distanced they are from deen, that's been my observation only from the women I actually know so please don't take that as a blanket statement. But I know more than a handful of illiterate women and then on the flipside very educated women or at least that have gone through 10th grade, and the difference is visible.

Esalaamu Aleikoum,

AprilandMohamed:

Well, in my husband's family most women do not go outside (and yes, I am weird and actually been told I am comitting haraam) but during Eid many have the option to attend the Tarawee prayers. But I think for some it is just a ploy to get out of cleaning up the iftar dinner and chance t gossip. BTW I hate it also how many women tend to gossip in the masjid.

Older women generally attend all the Tarawee and Jumuaa prayers.