About 25 mosques
preachers and scholars took part in a two-day training course on
reproductive health and gender from an
Islamic perspective, which was held last week in Sana?a. The participants, who wrote their expectations about the course in points on the blackboard, hope that this course will help them understand about families? complex issues from the religious view of point. ?This course gives us an understanding about the meaning of unclear idioms such as ?gender? and the difference between ?gender? and ?sex?. It enables us to describe other idioms with Islamic words. That will help us to make a right decision about family issues,? said Amat al-Razaq Abu Talib. She is one of the 5 female preachers along with 20 male preachers who are participating in this course. Another board displayed the goals of the course, which are to let participants know about
reproductive health and gender from Islamic prospective in addition to a scientific prospective; also, how to handle these issues with religious speech, and the role of mosque preachers in raising the awareness of society about these issues are focuses of the course. The
training course was held in the Training and Qualifying Center, which belongs to the Ministry of Endowment and Guidance. It was organized by Women?s National Committee and funded by Japanese International Cooperation Agency (JICA) ?We target mosque scholars and preachers as they have an active role in changing wrong attitudes held by many people, and correcting the misunderstandings of many issues,? Rashida al-Hamadani, Chairwoman of Women?s National Committee, wrote in the introduction of the book titled Reproductive Health and Gender from an Islamic Prospective, which has been distributed to the participants. The book was written by Dr Najeeba Abdulghani, along with Zaeed Gaber, and talks about reproductive health in Yemen and other issues of concern, such as female genital mutilation, early marriage, family planning and contraceptive methods, and discusses the relationship between Islam and these issues. ?In the fact, the holy Quran never discriminates in speech between men and women except in the biological situation which cannot be changed or exchanged,? said Zaeed Gaber, who presented his section of the book. ?The Quran?s speech deals with both men and women with word such as ?people, and believers?, and no one can say it addresses men and not women. That reflects on the practical life of Muslims in the early Islamic period, which ensured women?s liberty under Islam. But when people start to write the Islamic sciences, the attempts to cover the pre-Islamic attitudes and behaviors with Islamic ideas began. Since then the situation toward women in Islam is disfigured, and a new ideas and theories that discriminate between men and women have emerged. Because of various economic, social, political and sometimes religious circumstances, these theories have a priority over the actual Islamic text,? Zaeed added. Noria Shuja al-Deen, head of the health section in the Women?s National Committee, said that the project aimed to gain preachers? and scholars? support for reproductive health issues. ?We are in society that returns every issue to the Islamic religion. Mosques gather many people from different social classes, more than we could collect in any lecture or forum,? Noria said. ?Holding a training course for preachers ensures that awareness about family issues will spread to widest possible audience.? The project is aimed at 150 preachers in six governorates, including Sana?a, Taiz, Dhamar, al-Mahweet and Hajja. The project team moves to Hodeidah next week to hold a training course for 25 more preachers and scholars.