Seyran Ateş is a German Muslim lawyer who is challenging traditional ideas about how mosques run. She is behind the controversial Ibn Rushd-Goethe mosque in Berlin which rejects traditional gender roles and is open to both the Sunni and Shiite branches of Islam.
Seyran grew up in Turkey until the age of 6, when her family moved to Germany.
I had grown up in a family which was traditional. Men and women were separated in the mosque. And later on, I ran away from home because I decided I didn't want to live as conservatively as my family. I don't accept that people treat me different just because of my gender. It was something that I couldn't accept in my childhood and not as a young woman. So finally I said 'why do they separate us in the mosque? Why do women have to go in such an ugly hot or cold room and the men are in these huge wonderful nice rooms and hold the religion in their hands?' We are living in patriarchal systems in the world and our religion is the same.
'We need our own mosque'
When she was 21, she was a victim of an attack against a women's shelter where she worked. Afterwards, she started to think more about God and her religion. She decided that if there wasn't a space for people like her, she would have to create one.
I had grown up in a family which was traditional. Men and women were separated in the mosque. And later on, I ran away from home because I decided I didn't want to live as conservatively as my family. I don't accept that people treat me different just because of my gender. It was something that I couldn't accept in my childhood and not as a young woman. So finally I said 'why do they separate us in the mosque? Why do women have to go in such an ugly hot or cold room and the men are in these huge wonderful nice rooms and hold the religion in their hands?' We are living in patriarchal systems in the world and our religion is the same.
'We need our own mosque'
When she was 21, she was a victim of an attack against a women's shelter where she worked. Afterwards, she started to think more about God and her religion. She decided that if there wasn't a space for people like her, she would have to create one[1].
17-11-2017