Menstruation, Ramadhan, and the Muslim Woman: beyond the whole “it’s a break from prayer/fasting!”

This post was inspired in part by a vibrant discussion on Facebook at this FITNA group. (FITNA = Feminist Islamic Troublemakers of North America). Both the  discussion and the group are public intentionally, and we invite readers and participants in the group from all over the world.

If it were mere exemption, if it were a mercy, if it were a break, you would still have that option to OPT OUT of the exemption if you wanted; you’d have the option to say, “Aww, I really appreciate this! But, hey, since it’s Ramadhan, and Ramadhan comes only once a year, I’m going to go ahead and continue praying and fasting and everything. But I’ll take you up on the exemption thingie when it’s not Ramadhan, especially during the first couple of days of my period. Those days are the worst, ugh. I’m totally willing to just chill in my bed, wrapping my body around myself while I’m suffering from pain, thanking God that I don’t have to get up and do wudhu and pray. Although, come to think of it, the more merciful thing to do here would be to NOT declare my prayer invalid while I’m menstruating.”

Menstruation, Ramadhan, and Patriarchal Ideas about Piety, God, and Purity

Ramadhan mubarak, everyone! I hope everyone’s been having a beautiful month of spiritual rejuvenation and reflection, connecting with their Creator (for any and all to whom this may apply), and I hope we’re all making the best of these last ten days as we approach the end. May we all continue to be blessed with another and another and many, many more Ramadhans, aameen.

The following post’s purpose is to remind ourselves about how destructive patriarchy is to a woman’s spiritual health – and to her very existence! It is about menstruation, about being a Muslim woman, and about our male-centric notions of piety and religiosity that hinder (Muslim) women from fully embracing our religion; it’s about how disconnected we feel from God, from our religion, even from the community when we menstruate — entirely because of misogynistic (not just male-centric or patriarchal) views about women, (im)purity, piety, and God.

Speaking of Period …

This poem is beautiful. It’s brilliant. It’s love. A perfect companion to a recent piece of mine on patriarchy’s efforts at devaluing women’s bodies by viewing their menstruation as something disgusting, ugly, and impure.

I could listen to this for eternity. Love to all menstruating girls and women out there. Solidarity to you all. May we all come to love ourselves, our bodies, our period as a blessing and not as an impure, disgusting, ugly source of discomfort and pain. Aameen.

Hypocritical Expectations of Women: how patriarchy devalues women’s private parts – menstruation and public breastfeeding

Pre-script: I actually had no intentions of writing about menstruation any time soon on my blog, although I’ve thought about doing so, as I discussed here. But being disgusted with the way that Instagram responded to Rupi Kaur’s photo of a menstruating woman, I decided to do this. If anyone’s disgusted by it, shame on them.