That’s why Farzana is the exception. She may have broken away from what she calls the “compulsion of wearing long black robes in Mumbai’s muggy weather,” but the choice isn’t so easy for many others.

If you want to know why, speak to most Muslim clerics, and you are sharply rebuked for “not understanding” Islam. Take Maulana Tauhid Akhtar, the imam of Bandra’s Station Masjid for over 12 years: “The Prophet was many years ahead of his times. He gave women rights, and came down heavily against female foeticide, a common practice those days.” But has Islam in the subcontinent especially failed to adapt that spirit to changing realities?

“No,” says Akhtar. “You all did emerge from the rib, women aren’t equal to men. If we handed over the nizam (management) of the world to women, all would be topsy-turvy” he laughs. “The hijaab, women covering their hair, their arms, legs etc, are all dictated by Islam. We cannot allow otherwise with our women.”

Ayesha, a 35-year-old resident of Vashi, was subjected to all these rules once but again, like Farzana, after a marriage at the age of 13 has now managed to break out and now works for Awaaz- e- Niswaan, (an NGO working with women). She says, “All this talk of the model nikaah nama, very few people are getting married under that, only the very enlightened ones and that, too, over just the past one and a half years. The rest continue to interpret Islam at its narrowest.”

... contd.