Lucknow/Muzaffarnagar, May 6: The All India Muslim Women Personal Law Board (AIMWPLB) on Tuesday demanded the setting up of separate mosques for women.

"Ulemas and influential people in the community should contribute in whichever form they can to set up separate mosques for women so that they too can offer namaz in the mosques which is in keeping with the tenets of Islam," President of the AIMWPLB, Shaista Amber said.

Citing Quran that Islam was not against women offering namaz in mosque, she said that Hazrat Bibi Hafsa, one of the wives of Prophet Mohammad used to act as Imam leading women in offering namaz.

Amber also cited the example of a mosque in Rail Bazar area of Kanpur where namaz is being offered by men and women together five times a day. She said that in Tamil Nadu, another supporter of her Board, Sharifa Khanum has opened a mosque for women recently.

On the dearth of women Maulvis, she said that two years ago about 11 to 13 girls have acquired degree of Maulvi at a madarsa in Meerut.

Amber said that she had been offering namaz at a mosque on Rae Bareli Road since 1999 and claimed that all eminent maulvis and scholars were in the know of it.

She however apprehended that the mosque built by her on her land could be razed to make way for the a road to Kanshi Ram Yojna of the state government.

Meanwhile reacting to the AIMWPLB statement on women leading in offering namaz in separate mosques for women, clerics of the Islamic seminary Darul Uloom, Deoband reacted sharply and said that Muslim women act as Imams in mosques.