In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful.
Praise be to Allah, who sent down the Book as a clear exposition of all things; I bear witness that there is no deity but Allah, alone without partner, and I bear witness that our Prophet Muhammad is His servant and Messenger. O Allah, send Your peace and blessings upon him, upon his family, companions, and those who follow them with excellence until the Day of Judgment.
Servants of Allah, O blessed gathering, we continue with you in the realm of the hadeeth about removing the veil from the tangle of things and lifting the veil from certain Friday matters for the lay folk. Among the issues before us today is the question of women’s presence at the Friday prayer, one of the weightier issues that demands our careful consideration and explicit guidance.
Servants of Allah, with Allah’s help and by His favour, and after close and patient scrutiny of all that the eminent authorities have said on the matter of women’s attendance to Friday prayers, ranging from absolutely prohibited, to disliked, to permitted, and including the decisive position of the Maliki school—our official jurisprudential school in Nigeria—where their presence is viewed with caution and where there is no harm to men in their gathering, especially in light of Ibn Rushd’s classifications for women into four states: aged and withdrawn from public life, mixed company but modest, noticeably young and modest, and noticeably young and dissolute, and what the Qarafi and others differed on, making their attendance obligatory by choice, though
The majority of Malikis hold that their attendance suffices for the noon (Dhuhr) prayer, even if they are not explicitly summoned to attend.
Servants of Allah, after careful study of the hadeeths that permit their attendance and others that stress the superiority of their prayers in their homes, and after examining the reasons for the prohibition across the four categories, these are the matters we undertake to address:
Reasoned explanations for the diminution of obligation for the servant, and the hardship for the sick and the traveller, and the prevention of the corrupting vice of fornication by blocking its avenues.
Servants of Allah. O people of blessing, this is a measure shaped by prudence, a safeguarding of public interest in a time when the number of Muslims seeks to augment in a society where religions contend for strength or wane, where nakedness and moral decay are widespread, and where religious motive wanes and concern for religious duties diminishes. Therefore, we deem it commendable that women attend Friday prayers in all four categories—the aged and withdrawn, the visibly young yet modest, the visibly young yet remarkable, and the visibly young yet unobtrusive—within a community ravaged by such ills. This follows the maxim: “Prevention of harm takes precedence over the pursuit of benefit.” If it be decreed or assumed that in their presence there is a peril of temptation—which is not at all evident in this era, given that every mosque or a Friday Masjid houses women with veiled curtains, partitions, and walls—then that peril is not greater than the dangers already mentioned. For the harm of incurring fornication is not greater than the harm caused by ignorance of the faith; indeed, the aim of preserving faith among the scholars of Maqaasid is higher than the aim of safeguarding lineage and honour. When two harms conflict, the greater is not sacrificed for the lesser; and their presence (for prayers in the Masjid) is less harmful than their absence, for absence gives rise to the spread of degeneracy and moral decay among the young. The mothers have missed the mission of the Friday sermon—its teaching, admonition, and guidance—and they need to learn and adhere to it in order to manage their households effectively and fulfil the rights of their husbands and children.
Allah bless Ibrahim’s memory, who sang:
The mother is the teacher of teachers, whose achievements fill the horizons.
The mother nourishes life if you take care of her with kindness.
The mother is a schoolteacher if you prepare her for the task.
And another said:
The first filth of water is the filth of its soil. The first filth of people is the filth of marriage.
Servants of Allah, the danger of temptation when women attend the mosques—the very thing that has occasioned the admonitions—has been mitigated and, indeed, addressed by erecting a barrier between the male and female prayer spaces, and by maintaining their modesty and decorum. The ruling follows its underlying cause, whether it exists or not; if the cause is removed, the ruling is also removed. Our Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, did not conceal this truth: “Do not prevent Allah’s maidens from attending the Masaajids of Allah; they should go out, modestly veiled, not provocatively, to safeguard against temptations.” This guidance covers Friday and the congregational prayer: they may attend with modest dignity, without exposing themselves to Fitnah. Add to this the fact that the Prophet, peace be upon him, permitted and even urged women to attend the two greater congregations of prayer: Eid prayers, which are more numerous and more public than Friday, and the attendance of which is sunnah, then their attendance at Friday—which was originally obligatory—remains superior and preferred.
Servants of Allah, in the Prophet’s statement, peace be upon him: “If the wife of any one of you seeks his consent to go to the mosque, let him not prevent her”—a sign of the permissibility of their attendance, for had sitting at home been the preferred course, the Prophet would not have forbidden husbands from preventing them to attend.
Moreover, the indications in the hadeeths that speak of women’s non-exit from their dwellings are explicit that their prayer at home is best, yet they are not explicit in prohibiting them from going out to pray.
And, O people, nothing in the texts authorises a prohibition to prohibit a wife from leaving for prayer when she is appropriately adorned, chaste, and with her husband’s permission.
Servants of Allah, there is no doubt that jurists have long taught that a legal ruling may differ across four dimensions: time, place, persons, and circumstances. We do not deny that rulings shift with changing times and places, for our Nigerian society may require filtering and refining of women—a task not achieved by staying alone in their homes. If we miss the chance for them to attend and listen to the sermon in a society such as this, who then will carry out their legitimate and social role? How could she be spared from deception, or misguidance—intellectually, ideationally, behaviourally, credally, and religiously? Especially in a society where wolves abound and scoundrels have their day. What we say, Servants of Allah, is a practice in line with the Maqaasid of priorities and the jurisprudence of environments, and how much we need them in these perilous times. Contemporary scholars—such as Sheikh Al-Sha’rawi in his fatwas, and Sheikh Qais al-Sheikh, a member of the Majlis of Senior Scholars of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, along with Sheikh Muhammad al-Hassan Walad al-Dodou and other venerable scholars—affirm this view.
Servants of Allah, pray and send blessings upon the guiding Prophet, Muhammad, peace be upon him.
