A women’s assembly in a home and an imambargah

During her 2014 visit to Thokar Niaz Baig in Lahore, Delphine Ortis attended a women’s Muharram assembly in a home. A female zakira delivered the sermon to women and children gathered in the room. Her hosts also attended an assembly at a neighbourhood imambargah, where women occupied a separate area and listened to a male speaker. Loudspeakers and a screen extended that gathering beyond the hall. Within one local sequence, women encountered different speakers, arrangements and audiences. Ortis acknowledges that her Lahore observations were partial and shaped by the activities available to her as a woman.[1]

Programmes organised around different daily routines

Al-Huda International’s own diploma list describes several formats for girls and women. Taleem-Al-Quran is presented as a course in English and Urdu for young girls. Ilm-Al-Kitab is an evening programme for working women and students, while Noor-Al-Quran addresses women based at home. These descriptions recognise different audiences and schedules within organised religious study. The undated list describes programme types; it does not establish that every course runs at every branch today.[2]

The institution’s branch directory identifies a Lahore regional office and a network including Lahore neighbourhoods and Okara; it separately lists a Multan regional office. This gives the educational organisation a geography beyond one classroom. A branch listing records institutional presence, not a measure of attendance or of every woman’s ability to participate.[3]

Higher study at Bhera and a wider field of practice

Abdulhamit Birışık’s reference account of Muhammad Karam Shah al-Azhari describes another educational setting. A school for girls’ higher study began operating at Bhera in 1990 within his educational network. This historical example concerns advanced study connected with a named religious institution. It has its own organisation and chronology, distinct from the Lahore mourning assemblies and Al-Huda’s programme descriptions.[4]

Navtej Purewal and Virinder Kalra’s comparative study argues that women’s life-course rituals and worship cross neat boundaries between culture and religion. Its regional argument provides context for these cases without making all women’s experiences equivalent.[5]

Sources & notes

Source records include access dates and, where known, limits on what was examined. Checks used AI assistance; independent human or specialist review has not been completed.

  1. Delphine Ortis; Critical Pakistan Studies 1(1–2), pp. 161–186. What Sadness for Husain? Comparative ethnographic analysis of two Muharram celebrations in Sindh and Punjab (Pakistan) ↗Academic comparative ethnography · Source date: 2024-05-20 · Locator: Opening 2014 fieldwork account and “Lahore’s Muharram” section, especially women’s home assembly and mixed assembly, notes 43–46; comparison of Lahore assemblies and Sehwan processions. Accessed 2026-11-01.The actual publisher HTML body was read. The author explicitly describes the Lahore observations as fragmented and gendered, compared with more extensive Sehwan research. The online date is 20 May 2024, while issue metadata saysMay 2023; these are not represented as the same event. Interlocutors’ rankings of sadness and recorded hostile speeches are not adopted as universal community attitudes. This same whole article is shared with the women’s-spaces entry.Return to At a glance: Assembly setting ↑Return to A women’s assembly in a home and an imambargah, paragraph 1 ↑
  2. Al-Huda International. Diploma Courses Page ↗Institution’s primary programme description · Source date: publication date not established · Locator: Actual main body, “List Of Diploma Courses,” numbered items 1–4. Accessed 2026-11-01.The actual course-list body was read. It names target audiences and formats, not measured outcomes or a guarantee of present availability at every branch. The source’s term “domesticated women” is paraphrased neutrally. Alternate categories and query strings reproduce the same course list.Return to Programmes organised around different daily routines, paragraph 1 ↑
  3. Al-Huda International. Contacts ↗Institution’s primary branch directory · Source date: publication date not established · Locator: Actual Lahore Regional Office/registered-branch list and Multan Regional Office headings; page update 24 June 2026. Accessed 2026-11-01.The actual complete relevant directory sections were read. The page establishes how the institution presents its regional network, not women’s attendance rates or identical provision at each address. No personal contact details or travel/admissions instructions are reproduced. The update is not an original publication date. This is the institution’s branch directory, separate from evidence of programme attendance.Return to Programmes organised around different daily routines, paragraph 2 ↑
  4. Abdulhamit Birışık; TDV Islam Ansiklopedisi. Ezheri, Muhammed Kerem Şah ↗Authored scholarly reference · Source date: 2020 · Locator: Education paragraphs on Lahore, Resul Han and Naimuddin Muradabadi; paragraphs on Bhera’s Chishti branch and publishing work; final educational-work paragraph beginning “Ezherî’nin esas meşguliyeti…”. Accessed 2026-11-01.The actual full reference was read. It supports the named educational case, curriculum additions and 1990 girls’ higher-study school. Genealogy, private family details, political biography, universal moderation/extremism judgments and a present legal-equivalence claim are excluded. The same reference also supplies the women’s higher-study case; it is not an independent second study.Return to Higher study at Bhera and a wider field of practice, paragraph 1 ↑
  5. Navtej K. Purewal and Virinder S. Kalra; Women’s Studies International Forum 33(4), pp. 383–389; UAL Research Online. Women’s ‘Popular’ Practices as Critique: Vernacular Religion in Indian and Pakistani Punjab ↗Public abstract of an academic study · Source date: 2010 · Locator: Actual public abstract, especially the continuum between life-course rituals and spiritual worship; bibliographic metadata and DOI10.1016/j.wsif.2010.02.012. Accessed 2026-11-01.The actual institutional abstract and metadata were read; the full subscription article was not obtained. Only its stated regional argument is attributed, with no invented field episode. SOAS’s migrated page and a CiteSeer PDF delivery failed. A related book by the authors is not represented as a separately inspected full text.Return to Higher study at Bhera and a wider field of practice, paragraph 2 ↑
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Record PH-COM-0040 · English edition · human review not performed