Madurai: A woman has become the member of a "Jamaat" in this city of Tamil Nadu, perhaps for the first time in the country.

Nazneen Bakrath, a former principal of a Government women's college, has achieved the rare distinction when she was unanimously inducted into the K K Nagar Mosque Committee Jamaat last week.

Jamaat sources said it was a kind of victory for Muslim women who had been fighting for equal rights for more than two decades.

The 59-year old Bakrath is happy to become member of Jamaat, which has powers equivalent to that of a Panchayat.

"Infact, the appointment of a woman as the chairperson of the State Wakf Board (by the Jayalalithaa Government) has paved the way for my inclusion in the Jamaat," she said.

According to D Sharifa Khanam, member of a women's development organisation, though women had every right (to become member of a Jamaat) and had even been members of Jamaats during the time of the Prophet, they had been denied the right over the years. "Muslim women themselves were not aware of their rights in many countries."

Prophet himself had given equal rights in property and religion to women. But these were being denied in practice, she said.

Arguing for allowing women into mosques for prayers, Bakrath said when women in the United States and some other countries were being allowed into the mosques to offer worship why their Indian counterparts could not enjoy the right.

She stressed the need for presence of women in the Jamaats, saying an all-men Jamaat could not deliver judgements on issues relating to women 'fairly and impartially'.

Jamaat sources said that many Jamaats in the country were willing to include women members now.

A woman member in a rural Jamaat would go a long way in helping the women especially in view of the "injustice" meted out to Muslim women after marriage, they said.