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Women’s Imamate in Prayer

Answered as per Hanafi Fiqh by Qibla.com

Answered by Shaykh Gibril F Haddad

Sunan Abu Dawud, Volume 1, book 2, number 592: Umm Waraqah, the daughter of Abdullaah bin al-Harith, “the Messenger of Allah (SAW) used to visit her at her house. He appointed a mu’adhdhin to call adhan for her and he commanded her to lead the inmates of her house in prayer.” Abdurrahmaan said, “I saw that her mu’adhdhin was an old man.” Can you please explain this hadith. Does it mean women can lead men in salaah? What is the tafseer behind this hadith?

Answer:
In the Name of Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful

Wa `alaykum as-Salam

i.e. the female inmates. If this included the males then it would have been inconceivable for a lone hadith to be remotely probative without stipulating it more explicitly, since it is well established that a condition of imamate for men is maleness.

If she could lead men in prayer then she could definitely raise her voice in adhan, but the hadith indicates that she was not to do so. Further, a stronger and far more probative hadith in the Muwatta’ tells us that `A’isha, Allah be well-pleased with her, would pray Tarawih behind her male slave. This is far more probative because `A’isha was a Faqiha of the first rank, the most knowledgeable women of the Umma or of human history according to the Salaf, and if any woman could lead men in prayer it should have been `A’isha. Further, the Tarawih is a non-obligatory prayer that would have been a most appropriate way of illustrating such a possibility if it were valid, because it is well-known that strictures are relaxed in non-obligatory prayers. Yet she did not lead. Finally, the Muwatta’ report is much stronger in terms of authenticity.

As for the website that claims there were women imams for men, from an organisation called Muslim Women’s League at http://www.mwlusa.org/publications/essays/polirights.html: they do well to remain anonymous as do so many anti-Muslim and pseudo-Muslim agenda carriers, since their writings are full of blatant inaccuracies and outright lies.

Hajj Gibril

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