Women's Mosque of America
United States · built 2015
The Women's Mosque of America is a women's mosque based in Los Angeles, California. It is the first women-led Muslim house of worship in the United States, and it was founded by WGA comedy writer/director M. Hasna Maznavi 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. Maznavi had a childhood dream 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 before she decided to establish her dream mosque with rotating women khateebahs (preachers), which sets a precedent for women's leadership in American Islam. The Women's Mosque of America had its first public town hall meeting on August 23, 2014. At the inaugural Jumu'ah on January 30, 2015, the khutbah was delivered by Edina Lekovic. The Women's Mosque of America had precedents in other countries in Muslim-majority nations and elsewhere, 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. Housed in rented interfaith spaces in downto
Mosque data from Wikidata (CC0). Summary from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA).