Court says women may enter iconic Mumbai shrine

Published August 27, 2016
A general view of the Haji Ali Dargah.—AFP
A general view of the Haji Ali Dargah.—AFP

NEW DELHI: The Bombay High Court on Friday direc­ted that like men, women should be allowed entry into the inner sanctum of the mediaeval Haji Ali shrine.

Liberal Hindu, Muslim and secular groups have been campaigning for women to be allowed into various temples and mosques.

While pronouncing its judgement, the high court also said that safety and security of women had to be taken care of by the state and the trust governing the pre-Mughal shrine built to honour an Uzbek merchant.

Media reports quoted a bench of Justices V.M. Kanade and Revati Mohite Dere as saying that a ban on the entry of women violated articles 14 (equality before law), 15 (which prohibits discrimination based along religious lines), 19 (ensures certain freedoms), and 21 (protection of personal life and liberty).

The high court pronounced the judgement after hearing a public interest litigation filed by several women activists who urged the court to lift restrictions imposed on entry of women into the dargah by the Haji Ali Dargah Trust.

The state government had in February said before the Bombay High Court that unless the Dargah Board was able to prove that the ban was part of their religious practice with reference to the Holy Quran, women should be allowed to enter the inner sanctum of the shrine.

“This is a great step towards justice for Muslim women,” Zakia Soman, a petitioner in the case, told ANI news agency. Trupti Desai, an activist who has led a similar movement for the Shani Shingnapur temple, welcomed the verdict and called it “historic”.

The ban was imposed in 2012 by the Haji Ali Dargah Trust citing religious traditions. Authorities defended the ban by saying that entry of women into the inner sanctum of a male saint’s tomb would be seen as a grievous sin in Islam.

Women are not allowed to enter the sanctum sanctorum at Delhi’s shrine of Hazrat Nizamuddin. It was not clear if the ruling affected that shrine too.

The trust had claimed that arrangements had been made for women to walk up to a certain point from where they could offer prayers.

“The high court should not have interfered but now that they have given a decision against us, we will approach the Supreme Court,” Haji Rafat of the Majlis-i-Ittehad ul Muslimeen told ANI.

Published in Dawn, August 27th, 2016

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