Paper short abstract:

This paper is an account of a field study which was based on a two-month long participant observation in Friday Prayers at the Kocatepe Mosque in Ankara. It aims to analyze how religious space, the women's section of the mosque, is competitively shared between men and women during Friday Prayers.

Paper long abstract:

This paper is the result of a two month ethnographic field study (April/June 2009), observing Friday Prayers in Ankara's largest mosque, the Kocatepe Mosque. This study aims to analyze how religious space, the women's section of the mosque, is competitively shared between men and women during Friday Prayers.

Despite all the disputes and theological constraints on women's participation in Friday congregational prayers, pious women in Ankara attend the Friday Prayers in the mosque. Women's reclaiming of their right to attend the congregational prayer on Fridays at the mosque is not welcome by male attendants. While men show their disapproval and anger towards women's participation aloud, women, with a silent objection, walk to the second floor of the mosque, and do pray with the congregation. Although the two upper floors of the mosque are allocated to women, during Friday Prayers men occupy a large part of it, and women are squeezed into a small section.

More than a female resistance for ritual rights, this particular fact underlines women's claims for using public space and visibility within the boundaries of gender segregation in Islam and in the society.