Women Out of the Kaaba's 'sahn'

Who said we are in the 21st century?
I have always assumed a negative stance from feminism and thought that just because my right of being is well protected by Islam, and since I haven't fought against any repression, I thought I was well. How wrong of me!

I have forgotten that at the base of all our problems as women is MAN!
Yes Man. At the beginning he degraded women and limited her life, then made her believe she was nothing. Her thoughts were worth nothing because according to them her brain is either too small to function or non existent. She is to bring shame to home and poverty.

I'm not going to declare all of a sudden that I am feminist (although a dear friend of mine tells me I represent what feminism in its heart wanted to achieve, perhaps) but I will also not take a non-active stance to what might be happening.

The report on the Emirates Today report calling for the segregation of women and men in the Holy Place, the Kaabah caught my attention and gripped my heart.

"Plans by the all-male committee overseeing the holy sites would place women in a distant section of the mosque while men would still be able to pray in the key space."
"The area is so small and so crowded. So we decided to get women out of the 'sahn' [Kaaba area] to a better place where they can see the Kaaba and have more space," said Osama Al Bar, head of the Institute for Hajj Research.

I think this committee has done mostly commendable work and their work pays off every Hajj where we hear less and less of "preventable accidents". But this move might revoke all of their past achievements. Is it discriminatory? Yes, yes it is. As a Muslim woman I will fight against this discrimination. I will fight for my right to be as near as possible to my beloved Kaaba.

Couldn’t there be any other more convenient solutions to this? I would suggest that they put fair timings for both men and women to pray there, given the severity of the problem. And if that is so, again I hope that the timings will not discriminate against women by allocating “down times” to them, like they have done in the alrawdah alsharifa in the almadinah almunawarah.

It does say that if such thing was to be approved, it will be the FIRST in history! A first in history, I'll let you ponder on that...

Source: www.emiratestodayonline.com
Emirates Today, August 29, 2006, p.37
Plans to restrict women praying at Makkah

Responses to the decision:
http://www.alarabiya.net/Articles/2006/08/28/26995.htm
http://www.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/3C4AF8A6-5B68-4140-9722-72624B945741.htm