Bangladesh Opens First Mosque For Transgender Community (representational image @Pixabay)
Bangladesh’s transgender hijra community have been welcomed at a new Mosque with a promise of worship without discrimination. The transgenders of the Muslim-majority nation were not allowed to attend prayer services earlier. The new mosque, Dakshin Char Kalibari Masjid for the Third Gender, is a single-room shed with walls and tin roof, which now acts as a new community of the minority group.
Though the group have enjoyed greater legal and political recognition in the recent years, they still faced huge prejudices. The new mosque is built near Mymensingh, north of capital city Dhaka, and on the banks of the river Brahmaputra. It is built on a land donated to them by the government after the hijra community was expelled from an established congregation.
Since 2013, the hijras (as the transgender community commonly known in South Asia) received growing legal recognition in Bangladesh. In the year, the members of the community was allowed to identify as a third gender. One transgender woman from the country was elected as a mayor in 2021, and several others also joined politics.
However, the community still face struggle for basic recognition, and lacks property and marriage rights. They also face discrimination in employment and are prey to violent crimes. They face poverty more than an average Bangladeshi. Hardline Islamist groups of the country were furious at the government against the recognition of the transgender in the school textbooks. Rallies were held demanding government to call off its push to include the community in curriculum.
The founder of the hijra community, Mufti Abdur Rahman Azad, told Al Jazeera that the new mosque was the first of its kind in Dhaka. Though it was planned to build similar mosque in another city, locals protested against it and was forced to stop the process. The new mosque was built as dozens of the hijra community member donated time and their money. The mosque also has a graveyard, after a local Muslim cemetery refused to bury one of the community members.
The imam at the mosque, the 65-year-old Abdul Motaleb, said that the persecution against the hijra community is against the teachings of his faith Islam. He said, “they are like any other people created by Allah…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”, as quoted by Al Jazeera.
