Women's Equality in the Mosque: How to explain Hadith which seem to
discourage Women's Participation in the Masjid?
By Kaukab Siddique
Br. Shoaib, a well-read, thoughtful and thought provoking Muslim,
active in the Muslim community in the London, England area has asked
how one
can explain hadith which seem to create an impression that it is better
for women to pray at home and not go to the mosque. Here is my response:
The Qur'an gives the broad principle about the kind of people who
should be in charge of mosques:
"The mosques of Allah shall be visited and maintained by such as
believe in Allah and the Last Day, establish regular prayers, and pay the
zakat, and fear none (at all) except Allah. It is they who are expected
to be on true guidance." [9:18]
[I don't know about England, but most imams of mosques in
America
are disqualified by the final condition in that verse, 'fear none except
Allah',
as they are by and large bootlickers of the American power structure and
hangers on of the rich and the powerful.]
Obviously 9:18 includes all believers, men and women, who have the
given qualities, as those who are entitled to visit and maintain
mosques. As
Yusuf Ali's commentary points out (p.502), "ya'amuru" (roughly
translated as
'visited and maintained') includes all mosque activities, four of which
he lists: 1. To build or repair. 2. to maintain in fitting dignity. 3. to
visit
for purposes of devotion 4. fill with light and life and activity.
The concept of "masjid" or mosque as taught by the Prophet Muhammad
(pbuh) is so broad and comprehensive that there is no question of
keeping anyone out of it who means well:
"Abu Huraira (r.a.) narrates that the messenger of Allah, pbuh, said:
The ENTIRE earth has been made for me pure and a masjid." [Literally:
place of prostration in worship.] Hadith, Sahih Muslim, kitabus salat,
Tirmizey Sunan, kitabus siir, Ibn Maja's Sunan, kitabut taharah.
In the pre-Islamic ethos, women were given a secondary position in
places of worship. In pagan temples, as in the Hindu religion, they
were sent
into places of worship to be made into servants of men and sources of
entertainment. Pagan men often thought that women should bring
enjoyment for men in places of worship.
Islam
rejected pagan use of women for
entertainment. Hence the new entrants into Islam were very sensitive to
the idea of women entering places of worship. They did not want mosques to
go the way of pagan temples. [This fear was similar to the one related to
rituals of
Hajj which the pagans had corrupted. The Qur'an, for instance, taught
Muslims
that they should run up and down the hills of Safa and Marwa and not stay
away just because they had seen the pagans going there. Islam was
reclaiming the original worship for those who had cast paganism aside.]
Hence the Prophet (pbuh) commanded:
[From Nafi', who narrates from Abdullah ibn ‘Umar (r.a.): The Prophet,
pbuh, said]: Do not stop the maid servants of Allah from the mosques of
Allah. (Hadith, Muwatta of Imam Malik, compiled late in the first
century of Islam, published in the second.)
Then there was the element of lawlessness because Madina was under attack
and the streets of the city were not lighted. In spite of the element
of danger, Prophet, pbuh, insisted:
[From ‘Amash, from Mujahid from Ibn ‘Umar] The messenger of Allah, pbuh,
said: "Do not stop women from going to the mosque at NIGHT." [Hadith,
Bukhari, Muslim, Abu Dawud, Tirmizy, kitabus salat.]
Imam Abu Hanifa, who began his hadith studies in the first century of
Islam, and completed his work in the first half of the second century
compiled this specific hadith about women's participation in the mosque
prayers at the difficult times of morning, before sun rise, and at night:
"Abu Hanifa narrates from Hammad from Ibrahim from Sha'abi from Ibn ‘Umar
(r.a.): The Prophet, pbuh, permitted women to go forth and participate in
fajr and ‘Isha. (Musnad of Imam Abu Hanifa, under the heading: The
benefit of participation in Fajr and Isha prayers.]
Hazrat ‘Ayesha narrates the ongoing process of women coming for
collective [jamaat] prayers in the mosque so early that it was pitch
dark and the women could not be recognized:
"From the Mother of the believers, ‘Ayesha (r.a.): After the messenger
of Allah completed the fajr prayer, the women, wrapped in their outer
garments, returned homes. It used to be so dark that they could not be
recognized." [Hadith, Bukhari, Muslim, Abu Dawud, Nasai, kitabus
salat.]
IT APPEARS THAT NOT ONLY WOMEN PARTICIPATED WITH THE PROPHET (pbuh)
in the PRAYERS, with male sahaba, companions of the Prophet, the women
also HELD THEIR OWN COLLECTIVE PRAYERS IN THE MASJID:
Tamima, the daughter of Salama, narrates that the Mother of the
Believers, ‘Ayesha (r.a.) led the women as their imam in Maghrib
prayers. She
stood in the center (of the first line) and recited loudly. [Darqutni,
with reference to the musannaf og Abdur Razzaq, 3:141]
Hujaira, the daughter of Husaain, narrates: Umm Salama, mother of the
believers, led us inb Asr prayer and stood in the middle (of the first
row). [Compiled by Ibn Saad in his Tabaqat, vol.8, p.356. Darqutni has
collected
this narration from Ibn Abi Shaiba, Abdur Razzaq and Imam Shafii.]
Taus narrates that the mother of the belivers, ‘Ayesha Siddiqa, (r.a.)
used to call the adhan and the iqama (before leading prayers). (The
musannaf of Ibn Abi Shaiba, 1:223)
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Nearly 99.9% of hadith collected by the scholars of Islam are
authentic. There are a very few, however, which are defective or out of
context. There are even a couple of fabrications which managed to
survive the
intense scrutiny of scholars; hence the hadith is put second to the
Qur'an, and not equal to it, as the source of Islamic knowledge.
Related to the issue of women's equal participation in mosques, here is
a discouraging hadith which opponents of women's rights in the mosque,
use:
"From Ibn ‘Umar (r.a.): The Prophet (pbuh) said: Do not stop your women
from going to the mosque and their homes are better for them." [Hakim
in his Mustadrak vol.1, p.209.]
It is also related in Abu Daw'ud's Sunan under the heading: "Collective
prayer and its blessings."
As we noticed above, there are hadith with excellent chains of narration
from Ibn ‘Umar (r.a.) accepted by the imams of Hadith, Bukhari and
Muslim, in
which the Prophet (pbuh) commands: Do not stop women from going to the
mosque. So why the contradiction in this hadith attributed to Ibn ‘Umar
(r.a.) himself?
My understanding is that this hadith is narrating two pieces of
narration and has left out what went on between them. It is narrated
that when ‘Ibn ‘Umar (r.a.) narrated the Prophet's (pbuh) command not to
stop women, Ibn ‘Umar's son objected and said their homes are better for
them and
that people will use the hadith permitting women to go "to weave the
webs of
deception." His son insisted that he would stop his wife. At this ‘Ibn
‘Umar was extremely upset. He said to his son: "I am telling you what the
Prophet
said and you are saying you will stop your wife!" (Musnad of Abu Hanifa)
Other narratives say that ‘Ibn ‘Umar cursed his son for opposing the
Prophet's command. Some even say that he thereafter refused to talk to
his son.(Musnad of Ahmed)
My understanding is that the words "their homes are better for them"
are a fragment from the bitter words between father and son and have been
inserted along with the Prophet's command into the collections of Hakim
and Abu Dawud. [Note that Ibn ‘Umar's son was not a sahabi and his opinion
does not count as a religious text.]
Imam Bukhari and Imam Muslim left the fragment "their homes are better
for them" out of their collections which are universally accepted as
the most authentic of Hadith collections.
Opponents of women in the mosques also bring a narration which says:
"Abdul Hamid bin al-Mundhir Ansari narrated from his grandmother or his
mother's aunt, not clear which, Umm Humaid, as follows: The Prophet, pbuh,
said, your prayer in your home, is better than the one you pray with
me" (in masjid nabawi): (Ahmed in his Musnad, vol.6, p.371)
This has a number of variations, one of which appears in Ibn Khuzaima's
collection to the effect that "it is better for a woman to pray in the
inner little room of her house than to pray in the main room of the house,
better
to pray in the local mosque than in the main mosque ..." (Attributed to
hazrat ‘Ayesha in Baihaqi's Sunan.)
Abdul Hamid al-Mundhir's narration is not acceptable because the
scholars of Hadith say that he is MAJHUL. No one knows who he was. The
narrations which support women's rights have well known, in fact
famous, narrators at every level of narration.
The narration attributed to hazrat ‘Ayesha (r.a.), if taken at face
value, contradicts the numerous narrations which assert that women used
to pray in the mosque in the time of the Prophet (pbuh) and in the
caliphate of
Abu Bakr, ‘Umar, Usman and Ali (Allah be pleased with them). In fact ‘Umar
and Ali (Allah be pleased with them), leaders, along with ‘Ayesha (r.a)
of Islamic thought, took extra efforts to appoint imams to lead women in
prayers
in the main masjid, especially when the crowds were big in Ramadan and
the main imam could not be heard by the women.
‘Ayesha the exalted (r.a.) not only prayed in the masjid BUT LED
PRAYERS in masjide nabawi.
I have been trying to trace the cause behind this narration from
‘Ayesha (r.a.) given by Baihaqi. It appears that there was a woman who
was so
poverty stricken that she did not have enough clothes to cover herself
to travel from her home on the outskirts of Madina to the mosque of the
Prophet
(pbuh). At the same time she was too self-respecting to accept charity.
The Prophet (pbuh) understood her dilemma and her modesty. He gave her a
blessing
that if she prayed in the innermost closet room of her home, she would
get the same rewards as if she was praying in the mosque of the Prophet
(pbuh). [Allahu Akbar wa lillahil hamd.] This it was not an effort by the
Prophet (pbuh) to curtail the participation of women in the mosques, which
would have
contradicted his entire mission, but to give special blessings to a
woman's vibrant faith and sincerity.
It would be extremely CONTRADICTORY for all those women to be going to
the masjid at FAJR and ‘ISHA (as quoted in sahih hadith above) if they
could
have just stayed at home and gotten more rewards for praying at home. I
don't think the opponents of women's rights have a case here.
Finally there are some narrations which claim that ‘Umar (r.a.) did
not like his wife to go to the masjid. [Perhaps he remembered how women
were
used as sources of corruption in the pagan forms of worship even in the
most
sacred of places, the Ka'aba.] However, remembering the command of the
Prophet (pbuh) he never actually stopped his wife. In fact the relevant
narration is very instructive about the tension created by the
emergence of
the new revolutionary Islamic community coming out of a background of
jahiliyya and exploitation of women:
"Mu'ammar narrates from Zuhri that ‘Atika, the daughter of Zaid
ibn'Umru bin Nufail, was marrried to ‘Umar ibn al-Khattab (r.a.). She
used to
pray regularly in the masjid. ‘Umar used to say to her: By Allah! You
know that I don't like this. She would reply: I will not stop until you
actually
forbid me. ‘Umar would say:, No, I will not forbid you. The day ‘Umar
(r.a.) was assassinated, ‘Atika was in the mosque." (Abdur Razzaq's
collection, vol.3:148)
Ibn Hazm has a superb comment on this situation. He says, ‘Umar (r.a.)
could have said that ‘Atika you are doing something inferior (praying
in the
masjid) as opposed to praying at home which according to the narration
we discussed above is superior. Also, I, as husband, disapprove of it.
How could a sahabia (‘Atika, r.a.) continue to act in a way which was
inferior in
worship and aroused the displeasure of her husband, and a husband who
was a great Muslim, a great teacher of Islam and the greatest Khalifa the
Muslims
have ever had. Obviously both ‘Umar (r.a.) and ‘Atika (r.a.) knew that
‘Umar
was simply expressing his gut feeling and not an Islamic edict. She was
torn
by the assassination of ‘Umar (r.a.); she loved him beyond herself. All
the women of Madina respected him as their older brother. Their mourning
knew no
bounds when he was assassinated. He is the one who got down from the
mimbar
in humility when a woman of Madina objected to a point he had made in his
khutba in MASJIDE NABAWI. [I have referenced this incident elsewhere in
my writings.]
In ‘Umar's armies there were thousands of Islamic women, both married
and unmarried, who went forth to topple the empires of Rome and Persia.
I have documented this fact in a critique I wrote of Fatima Mernissi who
was ignorant of basic facts about ‘Umar (r.a.) and made some false
statements
about this great servant of Allah, great leader and mujtahid.
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2002-09-28 Sat 17:00ct