M. Hasna Maznavi

M. Hasna Maznavi (born circa 1985) founded The Women’s Mosque of America, the first women-led Muslim house of worship in the United States. Hasna is also a WGA comedy writer/director committed to changing the way Islam & Muslims are represented in mainstream American media.^[1] The Women's Mosque of America is her effort to uplift the entire Muslim community by empowering the women within, and to spark the pathway towards a worldwide women-led Islamic Renaissance — one that is shaped by Muslim women’s voices, participation, leadership, and scholarship.^[2] Maznavi had a childhood dream^[3] to build a mosque before she died as her sadaqa jariyah (ongoing charity), and she was further inspired by reading the Qur'an in English in entirety and her own study of Islamic history which revealed a rich history of female Muslim religious leadership^[4] before she decided to establish her dream mosque with rotating women khateebahs (preachers), which sets a precedent for women's leadership in American Islam.

Background[]

Maznavi is currently the president of the women's mosque she founded. She is a filmmaker and comedy writer, and she received an MFA in Film and TV Production from University of Southern California's School of Cinematic Arts and her BAs in Art and Mass Communications from UC Berkeley.^[5] Maznavi was 28 years old when she established the first-ever women's mosque in the United States.

The Women's Mosque of America[]

The Women's Mosque of America was founded by M. Hasna Maznavi at the first public town hall meeting on August 23, 2014.^[6] The Women's Mosque of America had precedents in other countries in Muslim-majority nations and elsewhere,^[7] but this is the first such space in the United States. Southern California Muslim women meet for Friday prayers on a monthly basis, with some programming during the week.^[8] Housed in rented interfaith spaces in downtown Los Angeles, the mosque is led by women.^[9] The call to prayer, speeches on Islamic scholarship, Quran classes, and Friday sermon all come from women. The mosque permits men at some activities but is led by women and has discussions and classes dedicated to their concerns. The women's mosque represents the development of the Muslim community in America both internally and externally. American mosques established by new immigrant Muslims were sometimes ill-equipped to accommodate the needs of Muslim women in America, due to cultural interpretations of Islam which were limiting for women and not true to Qur'anic teachings.

After the mosque was founded, Maznavi published an article in the Huffington Post to explain the motivation for her work with The Women's Mosque of America. She tried to counter the image that the women's mosque represented a rebellion against both Muslim men and Islamic history. She wrote to clarify that The Women's Mosque of America was a revival of Islamic tradition as taught by Muhammad, and that Muslim men were involved and supportive of her work.^[10]

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