Members of Bangladesh’s transgender hijra community, who have been disallowed from attending different prayer providers, have been welcomed at a brand new mosque within the Muslim-majority nation with the promise of worship with out discrimination.
The humble construction, a single-room shed with partitions and a tin roof, is a brand new community hub for the minority, who’ve loved higher authorized and political recognition lately however nonetheless undergo from entrenched prejudice.
The mosque close to Mymensingh, north of the capital Dhaka, on the banks of the Brahmaputra river, was constructed on land donated by the federal government after the town’s hijra community was expelled from a longtime congregation.
“I never dreamt I could pray at a mosque again in my lifetime,” stated Sonia, 42, who as a baby liked to recite the Quran and studied at an Islamic seminary.
But when she got here out as hijra, as transgender individuals in South Asia are generally identified, she was blocked from praying in a mosque.
“People would tell us: ‘Why are you hijra people here at the mosques? You should pray at home. Don’t come to the mosques’,” stated Sonia, who makes use of just one title.
“It was shameful for us, so we didn’t go,” she added. “Now, this is our mosque. Now, no one can say no.”
Hijras have acquired rising authorized recognition in Bangladesh, which since 2013 has formally allowed members of the community to establish as a 3rd gender. Several have entered Bangladeshi politics, with one transgender lady elected mayor of a rural city in 2021.
But they nonetheless wrestle for fundamental recognition and acceptance and lack property and marriage rights. They are additionally typically discriminated in opposition to in employment and are more likely to be victims of violent crime and poverty than the typical Bangladeshi.
Hardline Islamist teams have lashed out on the recognition of transgender Bangladeshis at school textbooks, main rallies to demand the federal government abandon its push to incorporate them within the curriculum.
Mufti Abdur Rahman Azad, the founding father of a hijra charity, stated the brand new mosque was the primary of its form within the nation.
The same endeavour deliberate in one other metropolis was stopped final month after a protest by locals, he added.
Dozens of native hijras donated money and time to construct the Dakshin Char Kalibari Masjid for the Third Gender, which opened this month.
It additionally has a graveyard, after an area Muslim cemetery final yr refused to bury a community member.
The mosque’s imam, Abdul Motaleb, 65, stated the persecution of the hijra community was in opposition to the teachings of his religion. “They are like any other people created by Allah,” he stated.
“We all are human beings. Maybe some are men, some are women, but all are human. Allah revealed the holy Quran for all, so everyone has the right to pray, no one can be denied.”
The new mosque is already tackling prejudice. Local Tofazzal Hossain, 53, has supplied Friday prayers there for a second week in a row.
He stated dwelling and praying with the hijra community has modified his “misconceptions” about them. They dwell righteously like different Muslims,” he stated.
