Jalsa Salana, a huge men only festival in the UK.

[Imdunfer]

This huge Muslim Festival, 50,000 attendees from 100 countries, happened over the weekend in Hampshire. If previous years are anything to go by you will be hard put to find a single woman in any of the photographs. That's because the men and the women meet separately. The women and men are segregated. The women are excluded from taking part with the men, they have a separate conference, they aren't even sat at the back of the men's one.

I honestly never thought I'd be living in a country where women were so excluded from a public gathering of 50,000 people.

I never thought I'd be living in a country where this event will go without criticism and probably actually be praised and celebrated. "MPs, bishops and other public figures are expected to attend." and not one of them, and probably no other prominent public figure either, will comment on this segregation.

It's 2026, how on earth is this country going backwards so far in the treatment of women that this is now perceived to be mainstream and acceptable?

www.theguardian.com/world/2026/jul/25/uk-largest-muslim-event-jalsa-salana-security-anti-muslim-hate-crime#:~:text=Now%20in%20its%2060th%20year,site%20in%20Hampshire%20this%20weekend.

Organisations run by one sex for one sex. Not relevant.

I was district commissioner for GG in the area previously and met the head man there a few times as they always sent a contingent for the remembrance ceremony at the memorial for Nov 11, and my DD went to infant school in Tilford. Because I always said ‘Salam Alaikam’ to him in the playground (C of E school), he invited me to the Tilford centre to meet the ladies. He was kind and gentle and very much about community ties and educating people about their version of Islam.

Culturally I am conflicted, as I rejected islam growing up: my adopted family were Iranian sunni muslims and purportedly very liberal, having rejected Iran after the fall of the Shah and taken asylum in the UK at the time. Despite their ‘liberalism’ there were still very distinct expectations predicated on ones sex and, growing up here, I struggled to navigate that. Of my family, they have either: entirely rejected islamic culture [including not wearing hijab unless attending a family wedding], married Brits and consider themselves ‘British citizens with Iranian muslim parents’; or have gone the other way and are deeply devout, actively involved in their mosques and the wife/auntie wears the Niqab. I sit outside that as an adoptee/step child.

So as much as I welcomed engagement with a community who seem kind and quiet and keen to engage - I do still feel some level of discomfort with a festival of this size and the very structured sex segregation. The tenets of islam is that it is the one true religion [quoting my dad] and this ‘sect’ embraces that too within its ethos. I am perturbed by any faith that perceives itself as the ‘one true’ way - including sects within judaism and christianity.

Even growing up and going through my rebellious Christian evangelical phase (absolutely the most effective way to piss off a muslim dad), there were no ‘revivals’ of this scale, with or without segregation. This makes me feel uneasy and I don’t know whether that is a rational or irrational response tbh.

I've definitely seen poor little 5 or 6 year olds in hijabs. Usually from what seemed like Somalian families.

it is based on what I read and hear from Moslem women from fundamentalist communities

Ahmadis are not fundamentalists, that is why they are treated as heretics. I stand firmly beside all women escaping fundamentalist Islam and moderate Muslims.patrticularly those who draw the wrath of fundamentalists.

Ahmadiyya Community Stance on Apostasy
Freedom of Conscience: The Ahmadiyya Muslim Community officially teaches that the Quran prescribes no earthly or physical punishment for apostasy.
Accountability: Ahmadis maintain that matters of faith are between an individual and God, and that renouncing Islam carries spiritual consequences in the afterlife rather than legal penalties enforced by people or states.

see British Raj where this religion started

But ... this festival in your OP is, according to your posts, run by one sex for one sex.

I have thanks. I do not agree with what you're saying.

Do you believe in single sex spaces, but just not for Muslims @Imdunfer?

We don't demand that men can;t form their own teams of said sports though.

Several female Muslim friends of mine have told me that the men's areas of mosques are sunlit and comfortable with lovely refreshments in side rooms, and the women's are small and cramped often with no natural daylight and no refreshments.

In general I'm not a fan of large religious gatherings in the UK. Especially when they appear to be segregated.

But this is also deemed acceptable so, here we are.

Britain 2026 sighs... 🙄

I didn't write that. It's run by one sex to control both sexes, that's the whole point.

Yes and their women are required to cover their hair too, only they do it with wigs so people don't realise.

I don't believe in women being forced out of single sex spaces when issues about how they are allowed to live their lives are under discussion.

I think the problem with threads like this is that most of the comments or assertions are made by those who have read about, or heard about or whatever. And aren't based on lived experience, nor started by someone who is part of this situation.

And 99.9% of the time on FWR this apparently taking a pro women's rights stance is only when it is a Muslim event.

But in fact other religions, or sects within them, also have practices like this.

So really looking forward to the sentiment that this is all about women's equal rights, by the OP starting similar threads about other religions or cults where this is the practice.

Let alone our "state" religion that in many instances has rules and regulations that treat women as second class citizens.

Have you looked at the programme of events?

For the men or for the women? Mens is listed as 3 days, women's as half a day. Includes topics of direct relevance to women but they can't be there. And the intro to the full thing says (my bold):

You are attending the Annual Convention
For the acquisition of knowledge, mutual consultation to spread Islam and to
have the opportunity of meeting and getting to know brothers.

You can find the whole thing here:

https://jalsasalana.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/8-Page.pdf

I don't think this is a public gathering though, presumably this is taking place on private land, which they are paying to use.

This is very different to the mass prayer events in places like Trafalgar Square, where men and women have been segregated, or the muslim fun run for men only in a public park. Neither of those events should have taken place.

This is my feeling - it’s effectively a pop-up, mass Mosque. I may hate the segregation, but they have the right to practice their faith on private premises as they deem fit.

There will be women who are oppressed and may not wish to be there - but this needs to be tackled at community level. As a society we need to make sure that women in the muslim community who are there under duress, victims of domestic abuse or subjugated by imposition of sharia law within their community, are protected and offered routes out. We need communities, the police, the law and refuges to connect with these women and let them now there are alternatives. But, from experience, most of them are there willingly because it is what they have been socialised into [some may call in brainwashed, if they like].

This festival is really not the thing to get irate about. We need to be angry about the permissiveness and tolerance of our culture, a culture that has welcomed such a sexist and oppressive religious culture without provisos or regulation.

We need to be angry about the permissiveness and tolerance of our culture, a culture that has welcomed such a sexist and oppressive religious culture without provisos or regulation

Hence this thread.

Common to see under 11s where I live. My children's primary school had the rule that headscarves had to be in school colours, headscarves were only worn by the Muslim girls.

I know, I read it. What specific event/s are you worried about?

Ah, understood.

Is this a joke? Please refresh yourself with my first post.

No culture should be considered above reproach. Culture is not shorthand for 'do not challenge'

I’m not the OP but I agree with her.

I absolutely am complaining about Catholicism and its role for women, but I’m more appalled by women’s rights in Afghanistan than in Europe.

I’m also CofE not Catholic, and I can dig out my school English essay on why women should be ordained if you’d like to check my credentials that I was “similarly outraged” at other religions.

Let’s celebrate the great strides made for women’s rights that have seen a female Archbishop of Canterbury in my lifetime, and let’s hold Islam to similarly high standards.