After intense litigation undertaken by a Muslim non-government organisation and effective interventions by the Bombay High Court and the Supreme Court, a group of nearly 80 women on Tuesday re-entered the sanctum sanctorum of the iconic Haji Ali dargah at Worli in south Mumbai and offered prayers, after a gap of four years.

The significant development that came after the Haji Ali Dargah Trust told the Supreme Court on October 24 that it would take a month to implement the Bombay High Court’s order of lifting the ban on entry of women to the inner worship area of the famous Sufi shrine.

The women, owing affiliation to the Bharitiya Muslim Mahila Andolan (BMMA) came in a bus, walked to the shrine, located 500 meters off the Worli coast line of Arabian Sea, and offered at ‘chadar’ and the tomb of Sayyed Pir Haji Ali Shah Bukhari, the 15th century Sufi saint.

In line with the assurance it had given to the Supreme Court, the Haji Ali trust had made special arrangements for the women to enter the shrine and offer prayers at the sanctum sanctorum of the shrine. 

Expressing her happiness over the development, Bharatiya Muslim Mahila Andolan co-founder Noorjehan S Niaz said, “Women would be able to pay respects to the saint now.”

It is the legal battle undertaken by Niaz and Zakia Soman that forced the Haji Ali Dargah Trust to lift the four-year-old ban on the entry women to the sanctum sanctorum of the Sufi shrine, which was immoralised by AR Rehman with his memorable song “Piya Haji Ali” in Khalid Mohammed’s film, Fiza, in the year 2000.

Niaz and Soman of BMMA had moved the Bombay High Court challenging the ban imposed by the Haji Ali dargah trust in 2012 on the entry of women into the sanctum sanctorum of the shrine. The

In a related development, Bhumata Ranragini Brigade founder-President Trupti Desai, who has been spearheading women’s right-to-worship campaign, welcomed the trust’s decision to allow women to enter Haji Ali dargah and said, “The Supreme Court’s ruling upholding the High Court’s verdict to treat women at par with men at Haji Ali should act as an inspiration for the nation and to all temples where women are dishonored and not treated at par with their male counterparts”.

On August 26 this year, a division bench of the Bombay High Court had–in a landmark verdict-ordered that women be permitted to enter the sanctum sanctorum of the Haji Ali dargah “at par with men”, after holding that the ban imposed by the shrine’s managing trust on entry of women into the inner place of worship contravened the Articles 14, 15 and 25 of the Constitution.

Ordering the restoration of status quo ante on the women’s entry inside the sanctum sanctorum of  Haji Ali dargah, a HC division of Justices V M Kanade and Revati Mohite Dere  had ruled:  “We hold that the ban imposed by the Haji Ali Dargah Trust prohibiting women from entering the sanctum sanctorum of the Haji Ali Dargah contravenes Articles 14, 15 and 25 of the Constitution, and as such restore status-quo ante i.e. women be permitted to enter the sanctum sanctorum at par with men”.

While disposing of a petition filed by the Haji Ali Dargah Trust challenging the Bombay High Court’s order of August 26, 2016 permitting women to enter the sanctum sanctorum of the shrine, a SC bench comprising Chief Justice TS Thakur and Justices DY Chandrachud and l Nageswara Rao had on October 24 accepted an additional affidavit by Dargah trust expressing its readiness to allow women inside the inner precincts of the shrine. The SC bench granted time to the Dargah trust implement the High Court’s order.  

It may be recalled that the management of Haji Ali Dargah trust had in November 2012 stoked a fierce controversy over its decision to ban women from entering the Mazar housing the tomb of a 15th century Sufi saint, located inside the religious shrine.

While lifting the ban on the entry of women to the sanctorum sanctorum of Haji Ali, the HC Judges stated in their August 26, 2016 verdict : “It is thus apparent that women were being permitted to enter the sanctum sanctorum of the Dargah and only after the Trustees were made to realise through some Muslim clergies, that the act of allowing women in the Dargah was a sin, that the Trustees of Haji Ali Dargah Trust decided to prevent women from entering the sanctum sanctorum and made parallel arrangements, from where women could offer prayers before the Dargah and would not be disturbed. Once, the dargah trust, on oath, has set out the above position, then it becomes very clear that women were being permitted to enter the sanctum sanctorum of the Dargah”.

During the course of the arguments in the case, the trustees of the Haji Ali Dargah had told the court that entry of women in close proximity to the grave of a male Muslim saint was considered as a grievous sin in Islam.

Among things, the trustees had also justified the move to ban the entry of women into Haji Ali’s sanctum sanctorum, saying the ban was to protect women from “uncomfortable situations”.

However, the petitioners have claimed that gender justice was inherent in Quran and the norm at the Dargah contravened the Hadiths, which said that women were not prohibited from visiting tombs. “The restriction comes from a very conservative and extremist Salafi ideology and in future there may be an order banning the entry of women in the Dargah complex and banning the non—Muslims wholly,” the petitioners had argued.