Footage shows woman leading Muslim prayer in India, not Bangladesh

Published on April 23, 2025 at 10:38
2 min read
By Eyamin SAJID, AFP Bangladesh

As women in socially conservative Bangladesh are generally not allowed to lead Muslim prayers, footage purportedly depicting a Bangladeshi woman breaking taboo sparked anger on social media. But the clip has been misrepresented and was in fact filmed in India's southern Kerala state.

"A woman leads the congregation while men behind perform prayers!! What kind of Bangladesh are we in today?" says a Bengali-language Facebook post that shared the clip on March 9, 2025.

It shows a woman in front of a group of men, leading them in a Muslim prayer service.

Screenshot of the false post, taken April 13, 2025

Similar posts spread elsewhere on Facebook, generating a flurry of indignant responses from Bangladeshi users who believe women should not lead men in congregations (archived link).

"How can men perform prayers behind a woman! God forgive us," a user commented while another wrote: "Has religion changed?"

Although the video genuinely shows a woman breaking convention to lead a prayer, it was filmed in India and not Bangladesh as the posts allege.

A reverse image search on Google using the video's keyframes found it earlier posted on the verified YouTube channel of local Indian media outlet Dainik Savera on January 29, 2018 (archived link).

"In a first, Kerala woman leads Friday prayers," its title reads.

Screenshot comparison of the false post (left) and video from Dainik Savera

Reports from Times of India and Scroll identified the woman in video as Jamida Beevi, saying she was the first Indian Muslim woman to lead a mixed-gender congregation prayer publicly in Kerala's Malappuram district on January 26, 2018 (archived links here and here).

Beevi belonged to a group called the Khuran Sunnath Society, which says it "works to reform" the Muslim community, the reports say.

In an interview she gave with Malayalam television channel Asianet News in January 2018, Beevi said she did it "to challenge the male dominance in the religion" (archived link).

She received death threats for doing it, according to Indian media organisation rediff.com (archived link).

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