Some imams use derogatory language about women in sermons, videos and social media posts, but the official organisation representing the country’s Muslims seems reluctant to take any action.
At Friday prayers in March this year, Shefqet Krasniqi, imam of Pristina’s main Mehmet Fatih mosque, called women who wear mini-skirts “immoral”.
In a video, Krasniqi also accused any girl or woman who exposes their legs of being deliberately provocative. “It sounds like she goes out to provoke other men, to show them what legs she has,” he remarked.
In an interview with television station RTV Dukagjini, Krasniqi doubled down on his sexist viewpoint, adding that “a woman’s place is in the kitchen”.
Krasniqi is not on obscure figure. He has cultivated a large audience at his mosque and on social networks, where he is asked about and comments on women’s roles, often using the same kind of rhetoric.
He was accused of misogyny earlier this year by women’s rights activists in Kosovo after he described popular 62-year-old folk singer Shkurte Fejza of being unreligious.
Krasniqi declined to comment to BIRN about the language he uses in his sermons, also insisting that he was being addressed in an incorrect, non-Islamic way. “Don’t say ‘hello’ to me, say ‘as-salamu alaykum’ instead,” he told BIRN’s journalist.
Sexist views ‘widespread’ among clergy
Although some imams have attracted criticism for sexist views, Krasniqi is far from alone in his attitudes among Muslim clerics in mainly Muslim Kosovo.
Ernes Goga, an imam at the Kushunli mosque in the western town of Peja/Pec, criticised women who wear the veil but post videos on the internet, calling them bad Muslims.
“A veiled woman who misbehaves on TikTok is anything but a Muslim,” he said in a video posted on YouTube in November 2023. Such a woman, he argued, was “veiled but unveiled”.
In response to criticism, Goga said that all he is doing was preaching Islam. “Don’t expect me to preach secularism,” he said.
In the southern town of Prizren, another imam, Irfan Salihu, said in a sermon that women who don’t dress modestly are “not on God’s path”.
“Women go out in panties, go out with boyfriends, they kiss in the road,” he elaborated.
Salihu was dismissed from his duties in 2020 for violations – but not for ones related to his sermons on women and gender-related issues. He declined to speak to BIRN about his comments on social networks.
Many mosques in Kosovo also remain open to imams from North Macedonia and Albania who make similarly prejudicial judgements about women.
In a sermon posted online from the south-eastern town of Kacanik, Abil Veseli, an imam from Skopje, said that “when you see women undressed [not dressed in a clearly Muslim way], you don’t know if they are Muslim, or [women] at a Serbian wedding” – also using the derogatory word shkije for Serbs.
Women feel alienated – but remain silent
Kosovo’s official Islamic Community, the BIK, the organisation that represents the country’s Muslims, declined to respond when asked about Imam Krasniqi’s sexist views.
Islam Hasani, dean of the Faculty of Islamic Studies in Pristina, where Krasniqi gives lectures, told BIRN: “Individual unofficial statements are not part of our responsibility.”
However, Besa Ismaili, a woman professor at the faculty, agreed that some imams’ sexist language is alienating women. More inclusive language without patriarchal overtones should be used, she argued.
“Many women feel that male-dominated language in the discourse and interpretation of sacred texts distances them from the connection with the text, which makes them feel excluded,” she said.
Ismaili insisted that the current position of women in the community does not derive from Islam itself but from misinterpretations of the sacred texts and “because of a lack of knowledge of the Islamic religion”.
“Feminist discourse has raised the issue of gender inclusion. But the language used to convey the Koran’s meanings is often unfriendly toward women,” Ismaili said.
Florentina Termkolli, another professor at the Faculty of Islamic Studies, agreed that the language some imams use is a misinterpretation of the Koran and of Islamic principles. “There are many misinterpretations. Social networks are making this possible,” Termkolli said.
Along with the Women’s Department of the Islamic Community, Termkolli is leading a Kosovo-wide campaign against violence and discrimination against women.
“We are not staying silent on the violent and discriminatory speech of some imams or others, in mosques or outside them,” she said. “But it is true that we have not spoken out publicly yet.”
Vaxhide Bunjaku, who leads the Women’s Department at the BIK, said they do not agree with sexist comments made by some imams but try to confine their responses to internal channels.
“It does not mean that we agree or remain silent, but we address it within the institution,” Bunjaku said. She hesitated to say if any objections to such sexist sermons had ever been addressed, however. “We do what we need to do internally. We do not confront and do not react in public,” she said.
The BIK has not spoken out about any cases in which they have sought accountability from imams who promote gender inequality. BIRN looked at a number of BIK decisions in which imams had been fired or given warnings. None of them was about offensive or sexist vocabulary used towards women.
The head of the Peja/Pec branch of the Islamic Community, Musli Arifaj, said it was impossible to monitor all the prayers and preachers in Kosovo’s mosques. “Neither sexist nor discriminatory language is a policy of the BIK but we cannot observe every lecture,” Arifaj said.
Besim Berisha, head of the Islamic Community in Prizren, said that they are trying to counter sexist and oppressive language against women. “We are trying to strengthen the role of women,” Berisha said. He said one problem was that women themselves were reluctant to speak out.
“Women hesitate to speak out and react, even though we have constantly urged them to be more vocal about things related to their position,” he said.
Culture of male centrality hard to shift
Summeye Pakdil-Kesgin, a professor in the Religion Department at Elon University in North Carolina in the US, says religion is a field that has been dominated for centuries by the idea of androcentrism – male centrality.
“It is not only patriarchy that is the issue but also the male-centred understanding of every subject. This is not about religion; it is about power and how power is represented and practiced in controlling different areas of life,” she told BIRN by email.
But Pakdil-Kesgin added that the growing education of women and their integration into the labour force was having an impact on religious interpretations and practices.
“Women have been fighting to create new spaces, like by reinterpreting sacred scriptures,” she said. “Women, by being visible in public, have been bargaining with patriarchy to find ways to create more space and rights.”
Mirishahe Syla, a women’s rights activist in Kosovo, said that the sermons delivered by some imams clearly contribute to a climate of sexism.
“They impact on the context in which discrimination happens,” Syla said. “In their sermons, when they speak of gender roles, the organisation of the family and society, they use religion more to strengthen patriarchal norms than to preach about the faith,” she maintained.
Some imams’ sermons reinforce a culture of discrimination that manifests itself in various ways in Kosovo’s patriarchal society, such as the practice of sons inheriting their parents’ property after their deaths, leaving daughters with nothing.
“Sermons are used as a means of control,” Syla argued. “[And] some [women’s] rights, such as the right of women to inherit, are not being talked about or implemented by many clerics or by others who pretend to live according to religious principles.”
