Women and Daʿwah in Western Society

A peer-reviewed paper presented to the 10th Annual Conference of the Assembly of Muslim Jurists of America (AMJA) — "Contemporary Issues Facing the Muslim Woman in the West," 1–3 March 2013. Prepared by Dr. Ahmed Muhammad ʿAli Abouseif, imam of the Toledo Muslim Community Center, Ohio (TMCC), and former director of the General Administration of Religious Guidance at the Egyptian Ministry of Endowments. (The juristic opinions in this paper are the author's own and do not represent the Assembly.)

Introduction

Praise and thanks be to God, and may His peace and blessings rest upon His servant, prophet, and messenger ﷺ. To proceed:

In response to the honor my brothers and teachers among the scholars — those who direct the work of the Assembly of Muslim Jurists of America — have conferred upon me in commissioning a working paper on "The Daʿwah Role of Women in the West," I offer this study drawing on what I have come to know of the Assembly's work and of its part in addressing contemporary issues, and on the value of such juristic assemblies, which bring together scholars specialized in the various fields of Islamic legal knowledge.

In setting this out, I may lean on what the eminent imam Prof. Dr. Salah al-Sawi stated in a press release to the al-Muslim website, later carried by other sites(1), where he said, may God preserve him: The Assembly of Muslim Jurists of North America is a scholarly, non-profit institution made up of a select group of the jurists and scholars of the Muslim ummah; it seeks to clarify the rulings of the Sharia on the unprecedented questions and issues that confront those residing in America.

The Assembly's objectives may be summarized as follows:

1. To issue fatwas on the questions and novel cases brought before it, clarifying the ruling of the Sharia upon them.

1. To prepare Islamic legal research and studies bearing on the circumstances of Muslims in American society and on the emerging economic, social, cultural, and educational problems they face there, to set out the appropriate juristic solutions, and to oversee their implementation.

1. To study and analyze what the media publishes about Islam and the Islamic heritage and to assess it — so as to benefit from whatever sound opinion it contains, and to identify, correct, and refute whatever errors it carries.

Note (1): Websites: almoslim.net/node/86690 — lahona.com (show_news nid=58213) — lahona.com (show_news nid=59700).

1. To assist Islamic financial institutions by preparing research and studies, devising financing structures and investment contracts, supplying the fatwas and consultations they request, and training their personnel accordingly.

1. To hold training courses for imams and directors of Islamic centers across the various juristic fields — family matters, financial matters, the matters of Islamic arbitration, and the like.

1. To foster cooperation between the Assembly and other juristic bodies and assemblies, so as to approach something resembling a universal consensus on the binding matters and the constants of the ummah.

1. To address the question of citizenship and the rights and duties it entails for Muslims who hold the right of citizenship in the West.

1. To support the work of the Islamic arbitration committees established by Muslim communities in Western countries, to review the decisions and recommendations they submit, and to prepare an accessible codification of juristic rulings in the chapters of family law and financial transactions, to serve as a reference for the emerging arbitration bodies in the West.

1. To establish the Assembly's fund for zakat and social solidarity, within the limits the laws and regulations allow, and after obtaining the approval of the competent authorities(1).

With these objectives, the Assembly may well stand as a model worth emulating — the kind of juristic assembly the ummah needs, one upon whose frontier the ummah closes ranks, and which spares it the affliction of individual fatwas issued wholesale to the public at large, even though their proper basis is the particular case. This is precisely what the masses complain of, all the more so with the spread of satellite channels and the exposure of those who speak on them to the questions of those seeking rulings; for the answer of a single person is altogether different from the fatwa of a community or an ummah. It is well known that every region has its customs and conventions, which must be weighed when a fatwa is issued within it, so long as they do not run counter to the foundations of the religion and the constants of the Sharia.

Preliminary

This comprises:

The Terminology of the Study

Woman (al-marʾah):

• Lisān al-ʿArab(1) states: al-marʾ is the human being... A person's two smallest things are his heart and his tongue. And al-marʾ is the man... maruʾa, yamruʾu. Maraʾah is the feminine of "man," the feminine of the word marʾ, its diminutive being muraɪyyah... Imraʾah is the feminine of imruʾ... It also denotes the complete one — that is, an implicit exalting of her standing, so that when one says, "I married a woman (imraʾah)," he means "a complete one," just as one says, "So-and-so is a man," meaning complete in manhood. To diminish a woman's standing one says al-muraɪyyah... And murʾ (with a ḍammah on the mīm) means the man.

The term "woman" may be defined as follows:

• Woman: an Arabic term for the human being whom God Most High created from her partner in life (the man) and named "female," her equal in the order of legal and worldly rights and duties, differing from him only in what pertains to her nature and her physiological functions.

Note (1): Lisān al-ʿArab, the entry (m-r-ʾ).

• This is expressed in the words of God Most High: "O mankind, We created you from a male and a female, and made you into peoples and tribes so that you may know one another. Indeed, the noblest of you in the sight of God is the most righteous of you. God is All-Knowing, All-Aware." [al-Ḥujurāt: 13].

• And His words, Most High: "O mankind, be mindful of your Lord, who created you from a single soul, and from it created its mate, and from the two of them spread forth many men and women. Be mindful of God, in whose name you make demands of one another, and of the ties of kinship. Indeed, God is ever watchful over you." [al-Nisāʾ: 1].

• It is also said: she is that gentle being who shares with man the origin of creation and differs from him in physiological constitution(1).

• And it is said: woman is that creature who cradles men, rears generations, and forms the impregnable fortress of society — when she gives way, the family gives way with her.

Daʿwah:

Al-daʿwah and al-duʿāʾ mean a call; to call to a thing is to urge that it be sought. The call to God is the summons to faith in Him, to worshiping Him alone without partner, to obeying Him and forsaking disobedience to Him; for God, glorified be He, created creation to worship Him, as He Most High said: "I created jinn and mankind only to worship Me. I want no provision from them, nor do I want them to feed Me. Indeed, it is God who is the All-Provider, the Lord of strength, the Ever Firm."(2). God has commanded that men call to His path, bring back those who stray, teach the ignorant, and remind the heedless; so He sent down His books and dispatched His messengers for the sake of the call to Him, and He summoned His servants, through the tongues of His messengers, to return to Him. He says, Most High: "He sends down the angels with the Spirit from His command upon whom He wills of His servants, saying: Warn that there is no god but Me, so be mindful of Me."(3).

Notes: (1) "The Role of Women in Daʿwah and the Reform of Society" by Dr. Tahir Mahdi al-Buli, member of the European Council for Fatwa and Research, professor of comparative jurisprudence, legal theory, and maqāṣid at the Academy for Islamic Sciences in Brussels. (2) Sūrat al-Dhāriyāt, verses 56–58. (3) Sūrat al-Naḥl, verse 2.

He also said, Most High: "Messengers bearing good news and warning, so that mankind would have no argument against God after the messengers."(1); that they might be set upon the road to Paradise and saved from the Fire — "God calls to Paradise and to forgiveness by His leave,"(2) "God calls to the Home of Peace,"(3) "He calls you so that He may forgive you some of your sins and grant you respite for an appointed term."(4).

In common usage, daʿwah means urging people toward good and guidance, enjoining the right and forbidding the wrong, so that they may attain the happiness of this world and the next. It is of three kinds:

The first kind: the call of the Muhammadan ummah to all nations, inviting them to Islam and to a share in the guidance and the religion of truth that this ummah upholds. This is the duty of this ummah by virtue of its being made the best community brought forth for mankind, and by virtue of the description of the believers granted permission to fight, in the words of God Most High: "They are those who, if We establish them firmly in the land, maintain the prayer, pay the alms, enjoin what is right, and forbid what is wrong." [al-Ḥajj: 41].

The second kind: the call of Muslims to one another toward good, as in His words, glorified be He: "Why, then, does a band from each group among them not go forth..." [al-Tawbah: 122], to the end of the verse.

The third kind: that which passes between individuals among themselves — pointing one another toward good and commending it, and forbidding evil and warning against it — as in His words, Mighty and Majestic: "By the passage of time, mankind is surely in loss, except for those who believe, do righteous deeds, and counsel one another to truth and counsel one another to patience." [al-ʿAṣr: 1–3], and "And who speaks better than one who calls to God" [Fuṣṣilat: 33], that is, to the religion of God.

Notes: (1) Sūrat al-Nisāʾ, verse 165. (2) Sūrat al-Baqarah, verse 221. (3) Sūrat Yūnus, verse 25. (4) Sūrat Ibrāhīm, verse 10. (5) Wahbah al-Zuḥaylī, al-Tafsīr al-Munīr (8/506).

It has three conditions:

The first condition: that the caller intends by it the Face of God, the Exalted and Most High, and seeks no recompense besides — neither the goods of this world, nor people's praise and acclaim, nor their drawing close to him.

The second condition: that the caller follows in it the way of the Messenger of God ﷺ, rather than calling according to norms that he himself, or some faction around him, has devised. His daʿwah must accord with the Sunnah of the Prophet ﷺ.

The third condition: that the caller possesses clear insight (baṣīrah) into his daʿwah — knowing and understanding what he calls to, aware of his own standing in it and of what must be left and avoided. Otherwise his daʿwah will corrupt more than it sets right(1).

If the people of a region or country fail to discharge daʿwah in full, the sin becomes shared, the duty falls upon all, and every person must undertake daʿwah to the measure of his capacity and means.

So when callers grow few, evils multiply, and ignorance prevails, daʿwah becomes an individual obligation (farḍ ʿayn) upon each person according to his ability. Perhaps this is what the Prophet ﷺ intended in the hadith: "Whoever among you sees an evil, let him change it with his hand; if he cannot, then with his tongue; and if he cannot, then with his heart — and that is the weakest of faith"(1). From this we see that whether daʿwah is an individual obligation or a communal one (farḍ kifāyah) is relative and varies: it may be an individual obligation upon certain peoples and persons, and merely recommended (sunnah) for others — because among them, in their place and to their knowledge, there was already someone who took up the task and discharged it on their behalf.

Western society: In drawing attention to this term, I mean what bears on our study: the wide gulf between the two societies, Western and Eastern, especially in the matter of daʿwah and the attendant differences of language, traditions, and cultures.

• As for language: the Islamic legal sciences were originally set down in Arabic, with its renowned eloquence and clarity. To grasp them, and to apprehend them directly, is therefore no easy thing except for specialists and those versed in the craft; and that comes hard to the sons and daughters of communities in which Arabic is a second language rather than the first.

Note (1): Reported by Muslim (49), from Abū Saʿīd al-Khudrī.

• As for traditions (al-taqālīd): this is the plural of "tradition" (taqlīd), meaning the whole body of what the members of a given society have grown accustomed to and reckoned among the rules that govern its life, which they expect to recur in various situations, and in which they have followed those who came before them.

It derives from the verb "qallada, taqlīdan," and it also signifies one generation's imitating the ways of the generation before it and carrying them on — whether in dress, in conduct and behavior, or in the various beliefs and practices the heirs inherit from their forebears(1).

The Arabs are loath to graft new customs onto their inherited ones, fearing that such novelties might strip their society of some of the noble traits they wish to keep alive within it; and so they say: "Abolish a custom, but do not found one."

Notes: (1) Customs (al-ʿādāt): the plural of "custom" (ʿādah), from the verb "ʿāda, yaʿūdu"; one says, "longing or yearning returned to him (ʿādahu)" — that is, came back to him time after time; and one says, "ʿawwadtuhu upon such-and-such," meaning I made him take it up again until it became a habit. In common usage the word means those things that people grow up doing or performing, which recur until they become familiar and well-worn — a pattern of conduct repeated until it is done automatically. A custom, then, is what is done so often that it becomes second nature, something the eye grows used to from seeing it again and again in people's daily lives. (2) In traditional societies, it is what passes to a person from his forefathers and his society by way of beliefs, customs, knowledge, and morals.

Chapter One: The Status of Women in Islam

He ﷺ said: "Women are the full sisters of men"(1).

Woman is the foundation of society, for she is the mother, the wife, the sister, the daughter, the paternal aunt, and the maternal aunt — just as there is the father, the son, the brother, the paternal uncle, and the maternal uncle. She is half of human society; for humankind, in the origin of creation, is nothing but a male and a female, a man and a woman, and every natural society is nothing but a husband and a wife. God Most High said: "O mankind, We created you from a male and a female, and made you into peoples and tribes so that you may know one another. Indeed, the noblest of you in the sight of God is the most righteous of you. God is All-Knowing, All-Aware."(2).

"O mankind, be mindful of your Lord, who created you from a single soul, and from it created its mate, and from the two of them spread forth many men and women. Be mindful of God, in whose name you make demands of one another, and of the ties of kinship. Indeed, God is ever watchful over you."(3).

And He Most High said: "He created you from a single soul, then made from it its mate, and sent down for you eight head of livestock in pairs. He creates you in your mothers' wombs, creation after creation, in three layers of darkness. Such is God, your Lord; to Him belongs all dominion. There is no god but Him — how, then, are you turned away?"(4).

So woman, then, is half of society in both the tangible and the abstract sense. From the material standpoint this is plain: in a census, the number of women is most often greater than that of the men, and at the very least equal to it. As for

Notes: (1) ‘Women are the full sisters of men’: reported by Abū Dāwūd (236), al-Tirmidhī (113), Ibn Mājah (612), and Aḥmad (26195), from ʿĀʾishah; graded ṣaḥīḥ by al-Albānī. (2) Verse 13 of Sūrat al-Ḥujurāt. (3) Verse 1 of Sūrat al-Nisāʾ. (4) Verse 6 of Sūrat al-Zumar.

the abstract sense, woman is a repose for her husband; the settling of his life, the building of his household, and the fulfillment of his hopes and aspirations cannot be complete without her presence at his side.

Likewise, she is half of society in the preparation, upbringing, and shaping of generations; she takes on the essential, formative share of raising Muslim generations through childhood, until she hands them over to the fathers and the men at the threshold of puberty, legal accountability, and adolescence — while still sharing in that stage as well. Indeed, the bearing of a child in the natural way stands as a pivot of consideration and assessment — not as regards the origin of woman's creation, as a creature of God Most High, but as regards the appraisal of her role and standing.

The status of woman in Islam has risen to a lofty rank she had attained in no earlier creed and reached in no nation since.

Woman in the Qurʾan: The word "woman" (al-marʾah) occurs in the Qurʾan twenty-four times, and God has invested it with the meanings of virtue (murūʾah), chastity, and humanity. She is the one whose plea God heard as she disputed; the one told, "Be comforted and do not grieve," knowing that God's promise is true; the one for whom God revealed verses that steadied her heart. God Most High said: "Their Lord answered them: I will never let the work of any worker among you be lost, male or female; you are of one another." [Āl ʿImrān: 195].

From the wife of ʿImrān to the wife of al-ʿAzīz; from a woman mentioned in the context of faith to the one given glad tidings of Isaac, a prophet among the righteous; from Bilqīs, who reigned and was granted all things, to the two maidens of Madyan; from Pharaoh's wife, who chose the nearness of her Lord over the wealth of her husband, to that believing woman, may God be pleased with her, who offered herself to the best of God's creation ﷺ. Set against them are those who perished: the wife of Noah, the wife of Lot, and the bearer of firewood. Thus the Noble Qurʾan has told of woman in all her states and recorded her in all her roles.

Islam's honoring of the human being embraces woman and man alike. God Most High said: "We have honored the children of Adam, and carried them over land and sea, and provided them with good things, and favored them far above many of those We created."(1).

So the two are equal in this world; the legal obligations were addressed to both alike: the command to believe in God, His angels, His books, His messengers, and the Last Day; the obligatory acts of prayer, fasting, zakat, and Hajj; and the social duties of dutifulness to parents, maintaining the ties of kinship, and the rest — with no distinction between man and woman in being charged with them or held answerable for them. Whatever difference there is was made in her favor, in deference to her nature and as a kindness to her — such as lifting the obligation of prayer during menstruation and postnatal bleeding, or deferring the fast and some of the rites of Hajj during them. God Most High said: "Keep up the prayer and pay the alms; whatever good you store up for yourselves, you will find it with God. Indeed, God sees all that you do."(2).

And He Most High said: "The believing men and believing women are allies of one another; they enjoin what is right and forbid what is wrong, keep up the prayer, pay the alms, and obey God and His Messenger. Upon those God will have mercy. Indeed, God is Mighty and Wise."(3). And He Most High said: "Your Lord has decreed that you worship none but Him, and that you be good to your parents. If one or both of them reach old age with you, say not even 'uff' to them, nor rebuke them, but speak to them a gracious word. And lower to them the wing of humility out of mercy, and say: My Lord, have mercy on them, as they raised me when I was small."(4).

And in the reward and punishment that follow from deeds, they are equal: whoever does good, male or female, has the like of the other's reward; and whoever does evil, male or female, has the like of the other's punishment. He

Notes: (1) Verse 70 of Sūrat al-Isrāʾ. (2) Verse 110 of Sūrat al-Baqarah. (3) Verse 71 of Sūrat al-Tawbah. (4) Verses 23–24 of Sūrat al-Isrāʾ.

Most High said: "Their Lord answered them: I will never let the work of any worker among you be lost, male or female; you are of one another. Those who emigrated, or were driven from their homes, or were harmed in My cause, or fought and were slain — I will surely absolve them of their misdeeds and admit them to gardens through which rivers flow, as a reward from God; and with God is the finest reward."(1).

And He Most High said: "Whoever does good, male or female, while being a believer — We will surely give them a good life, and We will reward them according to the best of what they used to do." [al-Naḥl: 97]. And He, Mighty in His pronouncement, said: "Whoever does righteous deeds, male or female, while being a believer — they will enter Paradise and not be wronged by so much as the speck on a date stone." [al-Nisāʾ: 124].

And in entitlement they are equal. God Most High said: "Men have a share of what their parents and close relatives leave, and women have a share of what their parents and close relatives leave." (2). And He, sublime in His praise, said: "And women have rights matching their obligations, according to what is fair." (3). And He Most High said: "Their Lord answered them: I will never let the work of any worker among you be lost, male or female."(4).

This honor that woman has attained in Islam is without parallel in any other creed or sect. In Islam she is not stripped of her rights, nor a piece of worthless chattel, nor a soulless being, nor — in Islam's eyes — a token of Satan's handiwork. No one has the right, in the name of religion, to sell her or buy her. She has her right to life, to choosing her husband, and to disposing of her wealth through honest earning, travel, and trade. Her mission in life does not end when her husband's life ends, nor does a curse fall upon her merely for disagreeing with him or for seeking an honorable separation — contrary to how she was cast in Judaism as "more bitter than death," and short of that, what is written in the Old

Notes: (1) Verse 195 of Sūrat Āl ʿImrān. (2) Verse 7 of Sūrat al-Nisāʾ. (3) Verse 228 of Sūrat al-Baqarah. (4) Verse 195 of Sūrat Āl ʿImrān.

Testament: "I turned, I and my heart, to know and to search and to seek out wisdom and reason, and to recognize wickedness as folly and folly as madness; and I found more bitter than death the woman who is a snare, whose heart is a net and whose hands are fetters. He who is pleasing to God escapes her, but the sinner is caught by her..."(1).

The matter is little different in the medieval and modern eras, which would rank woman a creature of the second order, or make her the subject of their own debate: Is she even a human being? Is she made for any purpose beyond serving man? May she own property and wealth as men do, or not? Can she give, sell, or buy? Article 217 of the French law provided: "A married woman — even where her marriage rests on the separation of her property from her husband's — may not give a gift, transfer her property, mortgage, or acquire, whether for consideration or gratuitously, without her husband's joining in the contract or consenting to it in writing."

As for the plight of the contemporary woman in Europe, it is hidden from no one who has a mind, who lends an ear, or who cares to discern the truth: from an outward show that inflames the appetites and entices imitation, to the raging hell of homes where covert violence is dealt, to the cases of women complaining of psychological oppression, to the rates of suicide and divorce — all of it betrays a degradation dressed up in ornate phrasing and honeyed words. Nothing illustrates this better than her being exploited — in body and as a lure — to push goods and move merchandise: she is the broad shop-front that draws customers into the great stores, and for it she may be paid much or little, but she will earn no esteem in return, neither from her own people nor from anyone else.

Then, the moment she can no longer work, her lot is to sit at home with no one calling or knocking at her door — nothing but debts that pile up and a condition that steadily worsens; and even where the state provides some support, it will never make up for

Note (1): The Book of Ecclesiastes, chapter 7: 25–26.

the emotional support that the upright Sharia has guaranteed the woman "the mother," when the Prophet ﷺ placed her ahead of the father in the hadith. The Prophet ﷺ said of her: "Your mother, then your mother, then your mother, then your father"(1). She is the mother beneath whose feet the Prophet ﷺ placed Paradise, the mother whom — together with the father — he set at the very heart of Paradise, so that one enters it only through them; for God, the Exalted and Most High, said: "Your Lord has decreed that you worship none but Him, and that you be good to your parents." [al-Isrāʾ: 23].

The mother, accordingly, has the greater claim to care and attention, even over the father — for all that we know of the father's exertion, giving, toil, and labor; yet the Sharia gives the mother her due for that first sacrifice which no one across time can ever match, and acknowledges woman's right as the one who carried and bore the child(2). The father then comes in the next rank — though the matter, as a question of fatwa, is not free of weighing the condition of each according to need; for caring for an ailing father takes precedence over the like care for a strong mother, and the mother is given precedence in care when the two are in equal condition.

Indeed, the Prophet ﷺ raised the banner "Paradise lies beneath the feet of mothers," as narrated by Muʿāwiyah ibn Jāhimah, who said: A man — meaning Jāhimah — came to the Messenger of God ﷺ and said: O Messenger of God, I intended to go out to fight, and I have come to seek your counsel. He said: "Do you have a mother?" He said: Yes. He said: "Then stay by her, for Paradise is beneath her feet." Then a second time, and a third, in different gatherings(3).

Notes: (1) Agreed upon: al-Bukhārī (5971) and Muslim (2548), from Abū Hurayrah. (2) It is reported of one of the Arabs that he carried his mother on his back, chanting: "I carry my mother, who once carried me... She nursed me with milk and with patience... and no mother is ever repaid for her gift." (A well-known mawqūf literary report not established by a strong chain; cited with the wording of weakness.) (3) The hadith of Muʿāwiyah b. Jāhimah, ‘Stay with her, for Paradise is beneath her feet’: reported by al-Nasāʾī (3104), Aḥmad (15538), and Ibn Mājah; ḥasan. The popular wording ‘Paradise is beneath the feet of mothers’ is not established as a marfūʿ hadith in that exact form.

The author of al-Manār says:

• Some peoples, among the Franks and others, used to reckon woman among the dumb beasts or among the devils, rather than among human beings; so Islam came to abolish that with His words, glorified be He: "O mankind, We created you from a male and a female" [al-Ḥujurāt: 13], to the end of the verse, and His words: "He created you from a single soul, and from it created its mate, and from the two of them spread forth many men and women" [al-Nisāʾ: 1], and the like.

• Some peoples, among the Franks and others, held that woman could not properly have a religion at all, to the point of formally forbidding her to read the holy books; so Islam came addressing men and women together with the religious obligations, in the words "believing men and believing women," "Muslim men and Muslim women"(1).

Among God's honoring of woman is what the Noble Qurʾan records in His words, Most High: "The believing men and believing women are allies of one another" [al-Tawbah: 71]; for God affirmed for believing women a full alliance (wilāyah) with believing men, encompassing the bond of brotherhood, of financial and social cooperation, and of military and political support — save that the Sharia relieved women of the duty of actual combat. So the women of the Prophet ﷺ and of his Companions would go out on the campaigns alongside the men, carrying water, preparing food, dressing wounds, and urging the fighters on. It is established in the authentic collections that Fāṭimah, peace be upon her, the daughter of the Messenger of God ﷺ, carried the waterskins — she, Umm Sulaym, and others — to the wounded at the Battle of Uḥud, giving them water and washing their wounds. And when the Messenger of God ﷺ was wounded, it was Fāṭimah, peace be upon her, who washed and dressed his wound.

Note (1): Tafsīr al-Qurʾān al-Ḥakīm (Tafsīr al-Manār) of Muḥammad Rashīd Riḍā (d. 1354 AH).

The Legal Capacity of Woman in Islam

The natural person is the human being, whether man or woman; for God, Mighty and Majestic, created the human being and singled him out with the capacity for legal accountability, endowing him with the power to comprehend the address and the ability to choose, so that he becomes fit to comply by acting or refraining.

This capacity is "legal competence" (ahliyyah): the quality by which the human being becomes capable of having the address of the Lawgiver attach to his deeds and words. It rests fundamentally on his humanity, and its ground is soundness of intellect; and from his possessing it follow a set of duties upon him, and a set of rights and interests for him, indispensable to his discharge of those duties.

Competence is a condition for every legal act in which validity and nullity come into play. Just as religious acts of worship call for two kinds of competence — competence for an act of worship to be validly performed by a person, and competence for that act of worship to be obligatory upon him — so too penal sanctions of every kind require, for their incurrence in Sharia and in law, that there be in the offender the competence to bear the consequence and the penal responsibility.

Since this study concerns the legal competence of woman, to sketch the features of woman's competence in Islamic jurisprudence — to define its limits, to determine how far it is independent, deficient, or dependent on another, and to trace how it differs from man's — requires that we keep in view the purpose for which God Most High created the human race upon the earth, in His words, Most High: "I created jinn and mankind only to worship Me. I want no provision from them, nor do I want them to feed Me. Indeed, it is God who is the All-Provider, the Lord of strength, the Ever Firm."

To be charged with worship requires of the one charged a competence answering to the nature of that charge. The Prophet's ﷺ dealings with men and women were built upon this very legislation, in the honor of accountability he affirmed for woman as for man, and in the rulings he asked of her, with no difference that would count as a slighting of her or a stripping of her right. Islam set out to affirm woman's competence in every sphere of religion and worldly life; and the following are some of its forms.

Political Competence

The Prophet's ﷺ taking the pledge of allegiance (bayʿah) from women just as from men is the surest witness to her competence. It is striking that the Prophet ﷺ took a pledge from the women of the Anṣār at ʿAqabat Minā before the Hijrah — the second, great pledge, upon protection (al-manʿah), that is, defense — that they would guard him as they guard their own women and children. He likewise took a pledge from the believers beneath the tree at al-Ḥudaybiyah, in the sixth year of the Hijrah, that they would not flee unto death. As for the pledge of the women, its text is given in Sūrat al-Mumtaḥanah, in His words, Most High: "O Prophet, when the believing women come to you, pledging that they will not associate anything with God, nor steal, nor commit unlawful intercourse, nor kill their children, nor utter any slander they have fabricated between their hands and feet, nor disobey you in what is right — then accept their pledge and ask God's forgiveness for them. Indeed, God is Most Forgiving, Most Merciful."(1).

It was revealed on the day of the Conquest of Mecca, and the Prophet ﷺ took the women's pledge by it upon al-Ṣafā after he had finished taking the men's pledge upon Islam and jihad; ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb relayed it on their behalf as he stood below him.

Hind bint ʿUtbah, the wife of Abū Sufyān ibn Ḥarb, attended this pledge of the women, veiled and disguised among them so that the Messenger of God ﷺ would not recognize her — she who had cut out Ḥamzah's liver and chewed it on the day of Uḥud. The Messenger of God ﷺ said: "I take your pledge 'that you will not associate anything with God.'(2)" Hind raised her head and said: By God, you take from us what we never saw you take from the men — for we used to pledge to the men upon Islam and jihad. The Prophet ﷺ said: "Nor steal." Hind said: Abū Sufyān is a tight-fisted man, and I have taken from his wealth, so I do not know whether that is lawful or not. Abū Sufyān said: Whatever you have taken, past and to come, is lawful for you. So the Messenger of God ﷺ laughed and recognized her, and said: "You are surely Hind bint ʿUtbah." She said: Yes; so pardon what is past, may God pardon you. He said: "Nor commit unlawful intercourse." She said: Does a free woman commit fornication? He said: "Nor kill their children." She said: We raised them as little ones, and you killed them as grown men, so you and they know best — for her son Ḥanẓalah ibn Abī Sufyān had been slain on the day of Badr. At this ʿUmar, may God be pleased with him, laughed

Notes: (1) Verse 12 of Sūrat al-Mumtaḥanah. (2) From verse 12 of Sūrat al-Mumtaḥanah.

until he fell on his back, and the Messenger of God ﷺ smiled. He said: "Nor utter any slander they have fabricated between their hands and feet" — that is, for a woman to ascribe to her husband a child not his own. Hind said: By God, slander is indeed vile, and you enjoin upon us nothing but right conduct and noble character. He said: "Nor disobey you in what is right." Hind said: We have not sat in this gathering of ours with any intention in our hearts to disobey you in anything. So the women acknowledged what he had taken from them, and the Prophet ﷺ would say to them as he took the pledge: "In what you are able and capable of," and they would answer: God and His Messenger are more merciful to us than we are to ourselves.

The Messenger of God ﷺ then took from the men the pledge of the women, as in the agreed-upon hadith of ʿUbādah ibn al-Ṣāmit, who said: We were with the Messenger of God ﷺ in a gathering, and he said: "Pledge to me that you will not associate anything with God, nor steal, nor commit unlawful intercourse, nor kill your children" — and he recited the verse that had been taken from the women, "When the believing women come to you" — "Whoever of you fulfills it, his reward is with God; whoever does any of these and is punished for it, it is an expiation for him; and whoever does any of these and God conceals it for him, his affair rests with God: if He wills, He forgives him, and if He wills, He punishes him."

Imam Aḥmad narrated that Fāṭimah bint ʿUtbah came to pledge to the Messenger of God ﷺ, and he took from her "that they will not associate anything with God, nor steal, nor commit unlawful intercourse,"(1) and she placed her hand upon her head out of modesty, and what he saw of her pleased him. ʿĀʾishah said: "Give your assent, O woman, for by God we pledged on nothing but this." She said: Then yes; and he took her pledge by the verse.

Her Competence for the Legal Obligations

It is a matter of consensus — and a thing known of the religion by necessity — that women bear the same pillars of Islam as men, and that woman is addressed by every branch of the Sharia; except that prayer falls away from her entirely during menstruation and postnatal bleeding, so she leaves it and does not make it up, given how often it recurs. Fasting, too, falls away during her period, and she makes up the days of Ramadan she did not keep, given how seldom it comes. As for her Hajj, it is valid in every state, save that she does not circumambulate the Sacred House except in a state of purity.

Notes: (1) From verse 12 of Sūrat al-Mumtaḥanah. (2) From verse 12 of Sūrat al-Mumtaḥanah.

Her Competence for Reward and Punishment

God has made woman like man in the matter of reward and punishment, saying: "Whoever does good, male or female, while being a believer — We will surely give them a good life, and We will reward them according to the best of what they used to do."(1). And His words, Most High: "It will not be in accordance with your wishful thinking, nor that of the People of the Scripture. Whoever does wrong will be requited for it, and will find besides God no protector and no helper. And whoever does righteous deeds, male or female, while being a believer — they will enter Paradise and not be wronged by so much as the speck on a date stone."(2). That is in respect of the requital that follows from deeds in this world.

As for the otherworldly reward and punishment, there are His words, Most High: "Whoever does an evil deed will be requited only with its like; but whoever does good, male or female, while being a believer — they will enter Paradise and be provided for therein without measure." [Ghāfir: 40].

And His words, Most High, concerning those of understanding who remember Him much, reflect upon the creation of the heavens and the earth, and call upon Him: "Their Lord answered them: I will never let the work of any worker among you be lost, male or female; you are of one another."(3); and in it He promised them all admission to Paradise and the finest reward.

And His words, Most High: "Indeed, the Muslim men and Muslim women, the believing men and believing women, the obedient men and obedient women, the truthful men and truthful women, the patient men and patient women, the humble men and humble women, the charitable men and charitable women, the fasting men and fasting women, the men who guard their chastity and the women who do so, and the men who remember God often and the women who do so — for them God has prepared forgiveness and a great reward."(4).

Notes: (1) Verse 97 of Sūrat al-Naḥl. (2) Verses 123–124 of Sūrat al-Nisāʾ. (3) From verse 195 of Sūrat Āl ʿImrān. (4) Verse 35 of Sūrat al-Aḥzāb.

On the authority of ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Shaybah: I heard Umm Salamah, the wife of the Prophet ﷺ, say: I said to the Prophet ﷺ, "Why is it that we are not mentioned in the Qurʾan as the men are?" Nothing roused me one day but his call from the pulpit while I was combing my hair; so I gathered up my hair, went out to one of the rooms of my house, and began to listen near the pulpit, and there he was, saying: "Indeed, the Muslim men and Muslim women, the believing men and believing women," to the end of the verse(1).

This matter weighed on a number of women at the time; for it is reported that Umm ʿUmārah al-Anṣāriyyah, may God be pleased with her, came to the Prophet ﷺ and said: I see everything going to the men, and I do not see women mentioned in anything. So this verse was revealed: "Indeed, the Muslim men and Muslim women, the believing men and believing women"(2).

And His words, Most High: "God has promised the believing men and believing women gardens through which rivers flow, there to abide forever, and goodly dwellings in gardens of perpetual residence; but God's good pleasure is greater still. That is the supreme triumph." [al-Tawbah: 72].

Her Competence to Grant Protection to Others, Even Non-Muslims

Among woman's political rights in Islam is that if she grants protection or safe conduct to one of the warring enemy, it holds. Umm Hāniʾ — the daughter of his paternal uncle Abū Ṭālib — said to the Prophet ﷺ on the day of the Conquest of Mecca: I have granted protection to two of my in-laws. The Prophet ﷺ said: "We grant protection to whomever you have granted it, O Umm Hāniʾ"(3). In some narrations, she granted protection to a man whom her brother ʿAlī, may God ennoble his face, wished to kill; so she complained of him to the Prophet ﷺ, who granted the man safety and upheld her protection.

Notes: (1) Reported by Aḥmad (26575), al-Nasāʾī in al-Sunan al-Kubrā, and al-Ṭabarī, from Umm Salamah; ṣaḥīḥ — it is the occasion of revelation of al-Aḥzāb (35). (2) Mentioned by al-Tirmidhī (ḥasan); the preserved narration on the occasion of revelation of al-Aḥzāb (35) is that of Umm Salamah. (3) Agreed upon: al-Bukhārī (357; also 3171) and Muslim (336), from Umm Hāniʾ; the addition ‘and we grant protection to whomever you protect’ is in Abū Dāwūd.

In a ḥasan hadith in al-Tirmidhī, on the authority of Abū Hurayrah, the Prophet ﷺ said: "Indeed, a woman may grant protection on behalf of the people" — meaning she may grant it on behalf of the Muslims, even the lowliest of them. And on the authority of ʿĀʾishah, the Mother of the Believers, she said: "Indeed, a woman may grant protection on behalf of the believers, and it is valid." Ibn al-Mundhir transmitted that the Muslims reached consensus on the validity of a woman's protection and safe conduct.

Her Competence to Bear Witness, and What Follows from It in Concluding Contracts and Executing Legal Rulings

Among the proofs, too, is what the Qurʾan laid down — that woman is exactly like man in the testimony of liʿān (mutual cursing), which the Qurʾan legislated between spouses when a man accuses his wife and has no witnesses for what he alleges: "As for those who accuse their wives but have no witnesses except themselves, let each of them testify four times by God that he is telling the truth, and a fifth time that the curse of God be upon him if he is lying. But punishment is averted from her if she testifies four times by God that he is lying, and a fifth time that the wrath of God be upon her if he is telling the truth." [al-Nūr: 6–9].

Four testimonies from the man, sealed with the invocation of God's curse upon himself if he is lying, are matched and nullified by four testimonies from the woman, sealed with the invocation of God's wrath upon herself if her husband is truthful. Such is the justice of Islam in apportioning public rights between man and woman, on a footing where their shared humanity is realized in full.

• As for the claim that a woman's testimony is half a man's in Islam, the Grand Imam, Shaykh of al-Azhar Maḥmūd Shaltūt (1310–1383 AH / 1893–1963 CE), may God have mercy on him, answered it thus: The words of God, glorified and exalted, "And if there are not two men, then a man and two women," are not spoken in the setting of the testimony by which a judge decides and rules, but rather in the setting of guidance toward the means of securing and assuring rights between parties at the time of a transaction; for the verse comes in His words: "O you who believe, when you contract a debt for a fixed term, put it in writing. Let a scribe write it between you justly; no scribe shall refuse to write as God has taught him," down to His words: "And call two of your men as witnesses; and if there are not two men, then a man and two women of those you accept as witnesses, so that if one of the two errs, the other may remind her."

So the setting is one of securing rights, not of adjudicating by them. The verse guides toward the soundest means of securing — the means by which the parties' minds are set at ease concerning their rights.

This does not mean that a woman's testimony, in cases where women testify and no man is present, fails to establish a right or that a judge will not rule by it; for the most the judiciary requires is "clear evidence" (al-bayyinah).

The erudite Ibn al-Qayyim established that, in the Sharia, clear evidence is broader than testimony, and that anything by which a right is made clear and manifest is clear evidence on which a judge decides and rules — including that the judge rules by decisive circumstantial indications, and rules by the testimony of a non-Muslim whenever he trusts and is reassured by it.

The Qurʾan's reckoning a woman's testimony, in the securing of rights, equal to that of one man is not because of a weakness of intellect that would entail a deficiency in her humanity and follow from it; rather it is because woman — as Shaykh Muḥammad ʿAbduh said — is not by nature occupied with financial dealings and the like exchanges; hence her memory in such matters is weaker, though not so in domestic affairs, which are her province, in which her memory is stronger than the man's. It is the way of human beings generally that recollection grows stronger for the matters that concern them, that they practice, and that they are much occupied with.

So the verse came in keeping with what was customary in the affairs of woman; and most women remain so to this day — they do not attend the sessions where debts are contracted, nor engage in the markets of buying and selling; and that some of them do engage in this does not negate the principle her nature in life requires.

And if the verse guides toward the most complete means of securing rights, and the parties belong to an environment in which women commonly engage in trade and attend the sessions of debt-contracting, then they have the right to secure their rights through the woman just as through the man, whenever they are reassured of her recollection and her not forgetting, in the way they would be of the man's.

The jurists, moreover, have laid down that there are cases in which the testimony of a woman alone is accepted — namely those whose subjects men are not customarily privy to, such as childbirth, virginity, the bodily defects of women, and other hidden matters.

And that there are cases in which the testimony of a man alone is accepted — namely those whose subjects stir a woman's emotions so that she cannot bear them. Yet they allowed her testimony in cases of bloodshed wounds and homicide where it is the only means of establishing the right and of reassuring the judge. And there are cases in which the testimony of both together is accepted.

Chapter Two: May a Woman Lecture in Mixed Assemblies of Both Men and Women?

On this question I have found a vast gulf: on the one side, one who reckons woman the equal of man in the scope of her movement and mobility — indeed in roaming the earth as she pleases, dressing as she likes, and appearing as she sees fit, under no one's guardianship, neither father's nor husband's — holding all this to be among the demands of civilization and refinement; and, on the other, one who says(1) that she:

"Is fit only to be under a man's protection and his guardianship (qiwāmah), her seclusion being the secret of her beauty and her femininity. God Most High said: 'Men are the guardians (qawwāmūn) of women, by what God has favored one over the other and by what they spend of their wealth,' then He said: 'So righteous women are devoutly obedient, guarding in their husbands' absence what God would have them guard.' This is the definition of the righteous woman, given by the Lord of the Worlds; whoever is other than her is not righteous. She is the one obedient to God, then to her husband and her parents.

And part of obedience to God is that she answer His command with joy and gladness of soul; of this are His words, Most High: 'So do not be soft in speech, lest he in whose heart is sickness should covet, but speak with fitting words. And remain in your homes, and do not flaunt your finery as in the former days of ignorance; keep up the prayer, pay the alms, and obey God and His Messenger'... down to His words: 'And remember what is recited in your homes of God's verses and wisdom,' down to His words: 'Indeed, the Muslim men and Muslim women,' the verse — and He did not mention therein 'the emigrant men and emigrant women,' or 'the calling men and calling women,' or 'the men and women who enjoin what is right'; even though, when He singled out the qualities of men in the verse of al-Tawbah, He mentioned these very things, saying: 'Indeed, God has purchased from the believers their lives and their wealth in return for Paradise; they fight in the cause of God, slaying and being slain,' the verse, then said after it: 'Those who repent, who worship...' down to His words: 'Those who enjoin what is right and forbid what is wrong.' But when He singled out the qualities of women, He did not mention these things, saying in the verse of al-Taḥrīm: 'It may be that, if he divorces you,

Note (1): Shaykh ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Ṣāliḥ al-Maḥmūd, an electronic source.

his Lord would give him in your place wives better than you — submitting, believing, devoutly obedient, penitent, worshipping, given to fasting or to traveling for His cause — previously married and virgins' — and she is among the righteous, the devoutly obedient — so He mentioned the particular qualities. Among the qualities of good women one might mention: trustworthy, calling to God, striving (mujāhidāt), or seeking reward (muḥtasibāt). And if combat is not enjoined upon woman, then neither are the other kinds of jihad that entail appearing before the public; but between a woman and her sisters and female relatives in her home, or among those she calls to God by enjoining the right and forbidding the wrong to the measure of her ability, there is no objection. As for her leaving her home on the pretext of calling to God — had that been good, Fāṭimah and ʿĀʾishah and the best of the women of the worlds would have done so before her. The righteous woman is she who seeks her Lord's pleasure and does not follow her own whim or what the devils of mankind and jinn make alluring to her; she is the one who keeps to her home, and if she desires knowledge it comes to her in the depths of her home through the scholars' books, recordings, and fatwas." End of the cited opinion.

In answer to this, we say: We stand between two extremes, each as far from the other as East from West, in their very conception of the question and their basic view of it.

First: the holder of the view that woman is the equal of man in everything — in physical, intellectual, and psychological strength, in the measure of endurance, patience, and the bearing of burdens, in self-defense, and in the freedom to roam the earth.

The answer to that: There may be something fitting in what was said — that God created woman an independent being with her own self-evident rights in all their recognized aspects; yet He, glorified be He, placed in her qualities suited to her being female, who needs as she is needed, depends as she is depended upon, and is consulted as she consults — without an excess that dissolves families or disintegrates societies, without a freedom that reaches the point of license, and without a rebellion against the original innate nature (fiṭrah) and the order of life.

I hold that we should not dwell at length on answering this view, since it contradicts sound innate nature in itself, and no one strays to it but one who has known in himself some deviance or aberration.

As for the holders of the latter view — who are counted among the people of daʿwah and who speak in the name of religion — for the sake of discussion only, I would respond that to assert without qualification that woman is a thing to be concealed (ʿawrah) and an allurement (fitnah), that she has no life except through a man, is a charge laid against her; and that God

did not charge her with jihad or striving, and that her mission in life is confined to keeping the home, its settled mistress. The substance of the reply is as follows:

The Claim That She Is Absolutely an ʿAwrah (to Be Concealed)

What is understood from this word in this context is that woman is a being who ought to disappear from sight and not appear to creation — and this does not accord with the explicit text of the Noble Qurʾan; for God Most High said: "except what necessarily appears thereof," indicating that she is present among creation, and that something of her outer garment will show, or what appears of her face and hands, or what is at times unavoidable. All of this, even at first glance, tells us that she is no ʿawrah as regards her presence in society, that this was not the guidance of the Prophet ﷺ, nor the practice of those who lived around him ﷺ.

Woman would appear in society as one of its two halves; the Prophet ﷺ would meet one of them on the road — indeed, a bondwoman might take his noble hand ﷺ and lead him wherever she wished. As evidence of this we cite the report of Jābir ibn ʿAbd Allāh, may God be pleased with both: My maternal aunt was divorced, and she wished to harvest her date palms (to cut their fruit), but a man rebuked her for going out, so she came to the Prophet ﷺ, who said: "Yes, harvest your palms, for you may well give in charity or do some good"(1). Thus the Prophet ﷺ commanded her, in this situation, to go out among the people to do the work men do. As you know, work of this kind naturally entails a woman's raising her hand so that some features of her body become apparent... while still keeping it covered and unexposed. The Prophet ﷺ did not bar her from doing her work in society. And it was part of the mutual support among the throngs of Companions that each would be to his fellow as he is to himself and his own sister, so that she might find someone to relieve her in this work of hers, to cut the fruit and bring it back to her, without her having to endure that grueling labor herself.

Note (1): Reported by Muslim (1483), from Jābir b. ʿAbd Allāh.

As for "fitnah": The lexicons of the language give its senses as: experience, or testing; your being captivated by a thing; misguidance; sin; scandal; torment; and the fighting that breaks out among people... The word "fitnah," with its derivatives, occurs in the Noble Qurʾan fifty-eight times.

So which of these kinds of fitnah is applied to woman? And what did the Prophet ﷺ intend when he said: "I have left behind me no fitnah more harmful to men than women" [and in another narration: "I have left behind me no fitnah more to be feared by my ummah than women"]?

Perhaps the most comprehensive of its meanings is testing and trial, as in His words, Most High: "Do people think they will be left to say, 'We believe,' and not be tested?"(1); and as God Most High said of the believers' being tested by the disbelievers: "We have made some of you a trial for others — will you be steadfast?"(2); and as He made the rich and the poor a trial for one another: "Thus We have tested some of them through others, that they might say, 'Are these the ones God has favored among us?' Does God not know best those who are grateful?"(3).

Accordingly, the fitnah of women means the testing of men; for God placed in the constitution of each of the two sexes — man and woman — an innate inclination toward the other, ever since He created Adam and fashioned for him a mate of his own kind. And the test does not arise from every woman a man meets in his life or deals with in some way; rather the fitnah here is what is set off by a woman's susceptibility to error and a man's impulse toward it, together with what Satan stirs up — the display of forbidden adornment, softness of speech, and the like. He is helped to grasp this by what the Prophet ﷺ said in associating woman with fitnah in contexts other than his words about the fitnah of women, and likewise by the other narrations in which the Prophet ﷺ warned against women who allure God's creation, affecting it in word and deed.

Notes: (1) Al-ʿAnkabūt: 2. (2) Al-Furqān: 20. (3) Al-Anʿām: 53.

Accordingly, the earnest woman who sets out toward God and His Messenger, striving for the truth and speaking with good — she is not the one meant in the making of fitnah. God has had mercy upon believing women in general within Muslim society, saying: "So righteous women are devoutly obedient, guarding in absence what God would have them guard"(1); thus describing them with the most upright, the finest, and the most promising of qualities for nearness to His servant, glorified be He. And it is through the other narrations that we recognize what kind of woman the Prophet ﷺ reckoned a source of fitnah and seduction.

We may well fall into a grave error if we judge a woman's going out to strive or to work — within its proper bounds — through the eye of one who sees every woman as a fitnah. Fitnah in Arabic carries the senses of misguidance, sin, scandal, torment, and the fighting that breaks out among people; not every man is one in whose heart is sickness, and so not every woman is a fitnah. I ask each reader of these words to call to mind the good his own mother poured into society or the reform she worked in it, the conduct of his sister — sound or otherwise — and what he has heard of his maternal aunt, his paternal aunt, or his kinswoman: was she a source of safety for society, or a source of danger? We may revere them all as we revere our mothers, seeking good from them, hoping for their prayers, and turning for help to those among them seasoned in hardship — in the experience of days and the wisdom of nights.

Perhaps what emerges is that woman in olden times, when she went out beside her man into the field to strike the earth with her hoe, brought nothing but benefit to the ummah and to humanity, and was held up as a byword for nothing but strength and soundness of work, soul, and body.

This whole set of covenants for woman's going forth in daʿwah may come to mind when we recall the passenger buses where her body is pressed against a man's — a woman who cannot flee him even unto death — or the mingling in office corridors, or the raucous laughter of women who lack the modesty that guards against adopting ways other than truth, righteousness, and propriety. But the corruption of people does not reach back to the foundation of the legislation so as to alter its realities or change its features.

Note (1): From verse 34 of Sūrat al-Nisāʾ.

And there is the claim that her place is the home alone, as her abode within it, and that woman is fit only to be under a man's protection and his guardianship.

The answer to this: This may hold true when speaking of marital companionship and the intimacy of two parties, each completing the other, each drawing from the other what he or she lacks; for the mercy that pours from a woman's heart, and the tenderness and gentleness her femininity affords, are completed in the man by his firmness, valor, strength, protectiveness, solidity, and abundant prudence — each in keeping with the primary mission of each in life: he toils upon the earth as God has commanded, and she brings forth offspring, which the strongest and mightiest of men cannot do. But she, in any case — as the Prophet ﷺ counseled in the incident of the maternal aunt of Jābir ibn ʿAbd Allāh, that she go out to her field to cut the fruit of her palms — is able to bring herself to safety if the man is, for some reason, absent from her life; and she may excel at raising generations and at teaching those in her charge, when that is entrusted to her. By this I mean, again, the woman whom God intended from among the daughters of Eve and the heirs of Mary, Khadījah, ʿĀʾishah, and their like — not what the idol of history has cast.

As for the claim that, in His words, Most High, "So righteous women are devoutly obedient, guarding in absence what God would have them guard," lies a definition of the righteous woman, such that whoever is other than her is not righteous — the response is that God Most High, in this verse, divided the women of Muslim society into two groups: the first: those described; and the second: those who fall into recalcitrance (nushūz); and perhaps this too is a matter bearing on spouses within the home, the private relationship between them, and the disputes that arise in a family over how the home and household are to be managed. It is far-fetched, then, that we should pronounce judgment on woman in her relation to society as a whole.

As for "the devoutly obedient one (al-qānitah)" being she who obeys God, then her husband and her parents: there is nothing in that to prevent her from being one who relates good, calls to a good thing, or speaks with good.

As for the claim that God Most High did not mention in the verse of al-Aḥzāb "the striving women," "the calling women," "the women who enjoin what is right," or "the women who forbid what is wrong" — likewise He did not mention in that same verse "the striving men," "the calling men," "the men who enjoin what is right," or "the men who forbid what is wrong." The description in the noble sūrah came only to set out the competence of both groups for the moral order that safeguards society against the presence of the hypocrites, the obstructers, those in whose hearts is sickness, and the alarmists — of every kind.

As for the claim that God Most High set "jihad" among the qualities of men in the verse of al-Tawbah, saying: "Indeed, God has purchased from the believers their lives and their wealth in return for Paradise; they fight in the cause of God, slaying and being slain," the verse, then said after it: "Those who repent, who worship..." down to His words: "Those who enjoin what is right and forbid what is wrong" — the address in the verse is shared between men and women, for there is nothing to divert it from its generality, as in His words: "Keep up the prayer and pay the alms"; and because the command to spend in the cause of God is likewise shared between men and women. And the qualities mentioned in the verse that follows it in the noble sūrah are devotional qualities in which men and women share by agreement.

And when He singled out the qualities of women — by their claim — saying in the verse of al-Taḥrīm: "It may be that, if he divorces you, his Lord would give him in your place wives better than you — submitting, believing, devoutly obedient, penitent, worshipping, given to fasting or to traveling for His cause — previously married and virgins" — and "al-sāʾiḥāt" means the fasting women — He mentioned the particular acts of worship and did not include among their qualities "trustworthy," "calling," "striving," or "seeking reward."

[And they say:] If combat is not enjoined upon woman, then neither are the other kinds of jihad that entail appearing before the public; and accordingly it is not permissible for her — on the foregoing reasoning — to leave her home on the pretext of calling to God, for had this been good, Fāṭimah and ʿĀʾishah and the best of the women of the worlds would have done so before her. This is the view in full, the one objected to — and the response follows in the coming pages.

The answer is that He, glorified be He, when He set out the qualities of men in the verse of Āl ʿImrān — "Those who say, 'Our Lord, we have believed, so forgive us our sins and protect us from the punishment of the Fire': the patient, the truthful, the obedient, those who spend in God's cause, and those who seek forgiveness before dawn" — mentioned only the devotional qualities and did not include among them the charge of jihad or striving in the land. This shows that mentioning some qualities in one place in the Qurʾan does not negate the charge of others. Moreover, we must distinguish the obligatory (taklīfī) from the merely permissible (mubāḥ); for if God Most High has exempted woman from attending the congregational and Friday prayers, that is no proof of any prohibition against her attending the prayers or witnessing the congregations. Witness to this is the report from Ibn ʿUmar, who said: A wife of ʿUmar used to attend the dawn and night prayers in congregation at the mosque, and she was asked: Why do you go out, when you know ʿUmar dislikes it and is jealous? She said: And what keeps him from forbidding me? He said: He is kept from it by the saying of the Messenger of God ﷺ: "Do not bar the bondwomen of God from the mosques of God"(1).

And Between the Two Extremes Lies a Middle Course

That woman be part of society; that she appreciate her duty to safeguard that society through chastity and purity; that she earn the trust of those around her by her effort and her effective work; and that she receive from them good intention, good treatment, and purity of heart. For as we have said: not every woman is a temptress, nor every man a libertine — else we would be speaking of throngs other than Muslim society.

• It is reported from Jābir ibn ʿAbd Allāh, who said: "While we were sitting with the Messenger of God ﷺ, a woman came to him and said: O Messenger of God, I am the delegate of the women to you. God, Mighty and Majestic, is the Lord of men and the Lord of women; Adam is the father of men and the father of women; and Eve is the mother of men and the mother of women; and God, Mighty and Majestic, sent His Prophet to men and women alike. The men, when they go out in the cause of God and are slain, are alive with their Lord, provided for; and when they go out, they have such reward as they have...

Note (1): Agreed upon: al-Bukhārī (900) and Muslim (442), from Ibn ʿUmar.

while we serve them and keep ourselves for them. Is there, then, any reward in that for us?" The Messenger of God ﷺ said to her: "Convey my greeting to the women, and tell them: A wife's obedience to her husband equals all of that — but few of you do it"(1).

In the narration of Ibn ʿAbbās, may God be pleased with both, he said: "A woman came to the Prophet ﷺ and said: O Messenger of God, I am the delegate of the women to you. God has prescribed jihad upon men, so that if they prevail they are rewarded, and if they are slain they are with their Lord, provided for; while we, the company of women, tend to them — so what is there in that for us? The Prophet ﷺ said: Tell whatever women you meet that a wife's obedience to her husband, and her acknowledgment of his right, equals that — but few of you do it."

• God willed to teach men an important lesson, and to establish for the mother in this world — and for the daughters of her sex, and for men as well — that the rank held with God Most High is one and the same for men and for women; and that a wife's obedience to her husband is a gift to the woman, for the reward that follows from obedience, and a gift to the man, for the completing of half his life that follows from it.

Perhaps a man rose up against his wife, charging that she is restricted in step and movement and is incapable, and so she wished to cite against him what the Messenger of God ﷺ would say to mend her heart — and the Prophet ﷺ dealt kindly with her when she cited her words in the other narration:

• On the authority of Asmāʾ bint Yazīd ibn al-Sakan, she said: "I came to the Messenger of God ﷺ as he sat with his Companions, and I said: O Messenger of God, I am the delegate of the women to you; there is not a woman who has heard of my coming out to you but holds the same view as I do. Indeed, God, blessed and exalted, sent you to men and women, and we believed in you and in your God who sent you; and God has favored you men over us — the company of women — with the congregation, the Friday prayer, visiting the sick, following funerals, and, more excellent than all of these, jihad in the cause of God. When one of you goes out to fight, to perform Hajj, or to perform ʿumrah, we guard your wealth, weave your garments, and raise your children; and we, the company of women, are kept and confined, the keepers of your homes — shall we not share with you in this reward?" So the Messenger of God ﷺ turned his whole face toward his Companions and said: "Have you heard the words of this woman?" They said: We never thought any woman would be guided to the like

Note (1): The hadith of ‘the women’s delegate’: reported through several chains, the strongest being Jābir’s via Ibn Abī al-Dunyā; the preponderant view is that it is weak (ḍaʿʿafahu al-Albānī), so it is cited with the wording of weakness.

of what this woman has been guided to! So the Messenger of God ﷺ said: "Understand — and tell the women behind you — that a woman's keeping good company with her husband, her seeking his agreement and his pleasure, equals all of that."

That a woman should speak of matters particular to her and to her relationship with her husband was not forbidden to be raised before the Messenger ﷺ and his noble Companions in the open circle, or during the Prophet's ﷺ address to his Companions — a woman speaking with her dignity, her full regard for the one who called her, her faith, the fineness of her expression, and the chastity of her phrasing.

On the authority of Abū Naḍrah, on the authority of al-Ṭufāwī, who said: The Messenger of God ﷺ said: "Does a man relate what he does with his wife? And does a woman, perhaps, relate what her husband does with her?" A black woman rose and said: O Messenger of God, indeed the men do, and indeed the women do. So the Messenger of God ﷺ said: "Shall I tell you what that is like? It is like a male devil who meets a female devil and falls upon her in the road while the people look on, satisfying his need of her while the people look on."

We observe that the Prophet ﷺ did not condemn any of the foregoing cases; had a woman's speaking among men been an ʿawrah, the Prophet ﷺ would have taught the women not to speak in the presence of men — for it is the consensus of the scholars that clarification may not be delayed past the time of need. This indicates the permissibility of a woman's lecturing in assemblies mixed between men and women together, subject to the legal constraints the discussion has set out.

***

May She Take Part in a Television Interview Watched by Millions via Satellite, When She Is Among Those Who Do Not Hold the Covering of the Face Obligatory?

After reviewing a number of fatwas our shaykhs have published on the Internet(1), I found a measure of objection, or a view holding it impermissible for a woman to appear on media screens.

For the most part, these fatwas rested on the following:

First: The male is not like the female; woman differs from man in form, external organs, and general features, as well as in what befalls her of menstruation and the like; this requires that she take on a role suited to her nature and her bodily function.

Second: The most important thing a woman undertakes and tends to is her home; for the role of motherhood, family, and household is among the most exalted and vital of roles, and one must never be lax in it or make light of its standing.

Third: A woman may pour her effort into improving her appearance and image for the viewers.

Fourth: Seclusion (khalwah) may occur with men unrelated to her during recording, preparation, and the like.

Fifth: Many media personnel bring a woman into this field only to draw the gaze of those who do not restrain their eyes; for it is well known that woman adds nothing new to the bulletin or the program.

And our answer to them — as it appears, and we ask God for soundness in religion and safety in speech — is:

1. "The male is not like the female" is a slogan whoever cites it deploys wherever he pleases; we must distinguish her being like the man as a human being, in right and duty, from her not being like the man in the matters the verses concerned —

Note (1): Fatwas published on websites (IslamWeb and the al-Muslim forum).

namely the state of the Children of Israel, who did not recognize woman as a being able to discharge a duty as the man does. And that is no impediment in itself to the works that may be assigned to her — those she is capable of, within her ethical bounds. These new media — with all the good in them, as noted — stand in greater need of righteous personnel, men and women alike, given the differences in nature, culture, and educational method that each of man and woman possesses.

1. As for her pouring her effort into improving her image for the viewers: that is built, at bottom, on ill suspicion; and if a woman is to be kept from going out adorned in her finery, then what of going out before the masses on the screen?! Here, then, we permit the matter to one who knows what is for her and what is upon her, in the bounds of dress and adornment and of not being soft in speech. And we may find her, in the way she presents herself, the very model that draws in those who hear or watch her.

1. As for woman's adding nothing to the media space: this conception holds if we confine it to a news bulletin or a political interview; but where there is beneficial knowledge in a specialty in which she excels, or a discussion of a matter touching the daughters of her sex, or something to which she has a connection and in which she is more effective — then the matter is different.

1. Seclusion with men during recording: those who have lived in these settings know that the recording of episodes or programs is never free of camera operators, those in charge of lighting, the director, the assistants, and others. The point more deserving of scrutiny in this question is whether she is alone in the midst of them all; and then the matter turns on the presence of safe company or of a maḥram. This is

the very same problem that arises for a woman whenever she is at any work alongside men; and it is to be referred back to the ruling on whether woman's work is permissible, and the legal bounds upon it.

In this particular reality, we ought not to forget that she has become a university professor whom her students see — like it or not — and a physician whom her patients come in to — also, like it or not — and that by closing such doors we risk having other doors opened against us that we cannot close. If we are to do any work and exert any diligence, it is to strive for reform as far as we are able, against what may seep into the soul and weaken it — the love of fame, the intoxication of stardom, the chase after wealth — all of them temptations that befall men and women alike.

May She Take On the Role of Program Host in These Public Sessions, Even Though There Are Young Men Who Do It Well?

This question in particular requires that I look for what bars it and what permits it; for the basic principle — as we said in describing how Islam regards woman — is that she is that being independent in self and identity, whom the religion has guaranteed rights and charged with duties. Taking on tasks particular to her may at times accord with her academic field or her own interest; so the point at issue is not whether the opportunity is open to her, but rather:

What are the constraints a woman or a girl must observe in undertaking this work of hers? Our chief ground for prohibition is the media field itself; for its standing among people was, for a long time, not a good one, and it cast a shadow over those who did good, so we judged that the bad in it was pervasive and the good exceptional. Perhaps this view needs to change — and that will come only by renewing the blood in this field.

We lived through a time when, in Egypt, we knew only Channel One and Channel Two, both state-run, broadcasting to the people what the people of politics wished; so the general ruling on watching television was dislike, except for the lawful in it, such as its wealth of news; and among what marred it was the sight of "those clothed yet naked," as the hadith has it. Were the years to bring forth a rising generation of workers in the field of daʿwah — for the blood must be renewed and the public's mental image altered through the visual image on the satellites — we would see the eminent figures of the ummah pour upon us from what God has poured upon them of good and knowledge.

Likewise the present reality needs to change the general image of woman, whom people know on the screen only as a naked body, or as a means of pushing some newly devised fashion, or some other commodity.

So there is no objection to our changing the media scene by these very means, with due regard for the constraints. And what is to prevent there being a media department in our Islamic universities across the world, graduating women callers who know the right of God and the right of humanity, and who excel at commending virtue at a time when its features have been lost? We ask God for soundness.

Among the most that we can fault when watching a program of any kind hosted by a woman is that she flirts with her guest by a glance of her eye — over his appearance — or that this comes across as a belittling of his standing before the program's viewers through influence by gesture; or that she looks plainly into the camera, with the cameraman's art lingering on her looks of admiration, displeasure, anger, or delight, and so on.

So if there is found the woman who lowers her gaze and raises it only as far as the occasion allows — and how fine if she hosts in her program well-guarded women of knowledge and jurisprudence — and if there is found the cameraman who knows the limit God has set in displaying what shows of a woman's adornment, and her clothing is not striking in itself but tends only toward a kind of cleanliness and decency — then there is no objection to the woman, the sister, presenting her program, in line with the criteria we have set out. And God Most High knows best.

The flaw plain to see now lies in the deficiencies of presenting daʿwah well in word and deed; so if we do not find among the people of knowledge one who would permit a woman, now, to present a talk show or a radio program, perhaps the reason, until now, is the absence of a model to be emulated. The matter is thus bound to the contrivances of people, not to the foundations of the Sharia.

***

If Her Husband Bars Her from Daʿwah Activities Despite Her Not Falling Short in Her Marital Duties, May She Count That as Harm to Her? And Is She Sinful If She Seeks khulʿ or Separation for Harm on This Ground?

If the ruling on a thing is a derivative of how it is conceived, then I wish first to set out the reasons that might lead a man to bar his wife from working in daʿwah, and the timing of that prohibition.

If it comes at the outset, when the marriage is being agreed, and he does not want her working in this field from the start, then what governs her is whether to accept their terms and the basis on which the contract is to rest — meeting his wish or rejecting it; and she may decline to marry him if she sees that she will not abide by what the agreement of the contract is to be. The text is explicit: "O you who believe, fulfill your contracts."(1).

But if his barring her comes after her reputation has spread and her knowledge has become widely known, then the reason is examined: is it a motive of fear for her, or a pull of jealousy and the like? Such matters are weighed each by its measure, and only the people of knowledge — those acquainted with the state of this husband and this woman — may issue a fatwa upon them.

I say this because a blanket ruling on this question leads to bitter strife between spouses, and to what follows of the wrecking of homes and the scattering of offspring, who are the foremost aim of marriage. What complicates it further is that the eminent figures and jurists of the ummah did not permit a woman to leave her husband's house without his leave, even to visit her father or mother; among them:

Shaykh al-Islam Ibn Taymiyyah, may God have mercy on him, said in the Fatāwā: "When a woman marries, her husband has a greater claim over her than her father, and her obedience to her husband is the more binding."

Note (1): From verse 1 of Sūrat al-Māʾidah.

He also said: "She may not leave his house without his leave, whether her father, her mother, or someone other than her father has bidden her — by the agreement of the imams."

And Ibn Ḥajar al-Haytamī said in al-Fatāwā al-Fiqhiyyah al-Kubrā — after listing the necessary cases in which a woman may go out without her husband's leave: "Not to visit a sick person, even her own father, nor for his death and the attending of his funeral."

And Ibn Qudāmah said in al-Mughnī: "The husband may bar her from leaving his house for anything she can do without, whether she wishes to visit her parents, nurse them in illness, or attend the funeral of one of them." Aḥmad said of a woman with a husband and an ailing mother: "Her obedience to her husband is more binding upon her than obedience to her mother, unless he gives her leave."

I am not one to comment on the words of the people of knowledge in this question, out of respect for what they said and for their standing. I understand from this that she must obey her husband even in forgoing the duty of dutifulness to parents — so what, then, of voluntary daʿwah?

We then ask: What if daʿwah rises to the level of an obligation, such that there is no one to take her place? God Most High said: "It is not for the believers to go forth all together. Why, then, does a band from each group among them not go forth to gain understanding in religion and to warn their people when they return to them, so that they may take heed?" So does the ruling to obey him and not disobey him in this still hold, once we have learned that "that without which an obligation cannot be fulfilled is itself an obligation"?

And what if his barring her is for a need of his own, just when she is keen to keep both her daʿwah and her home at once?!

These are but some of the questions that demand of us a measure of deliberation in such a ruling, and that lead us to refer it back to the individual cases, each judged on its own. And God is the One whose help is sought.

As for whether she has the right to seek khulʿ from him on this account, the question is like the one before it — it turns on the degree of difference in viewpoint between the two parties; for no sensible person would say that woman, in such a case, is a machine that runs or stops at the press of a button or the wave of a finger. The matter requires examining the true motives behind his barring her, and likewise behind her insistence on going on; then the jurist gives weight to one of the two scales according to the evidence before him.

As for whether she is sinful in seeking khulʿ from him, the answer is:

First: Knowledge of hearts belongs to God alone, and apprehending them is hard; so refraining from judging them is better than ruling on them, since they rest on the unseen.

Second: Her case is examined by the following criteria: how far she fulfills her husband's right and her home's right, and whether her fulfilling the home's right is mere claim or a reality acknowledged by the husband and borne out in fact; whether she is qualified for daʿwah work; and how far society, or the daʿwah work, needs her. If she reaches some measure of this — having fulfilled her husband's right and what the Sharia charges her with toward him, being qualified for the work and no pretender in it, her contribution promising fruit and yielding abundantly, and the need for her pressing, as is the case in the lands whose reality we now live — then there is no sin upon her; rather the sin is upon him, for he stands between her and the benefit that would accrue to society through her, and the protection of society from the sins of temptation, so far as she is able to reach that.

Third: It is important that we note how worthwhile it is for her to counsel her husband — if he is sound of heart and keen on the religion — as to the importance of what she does, and that the two of them will together attain before God Most High the reward of what He has given her of knowledge and ability.

But among the counsels is this: a woman caller ought not to do work that she senses angers her husband — anger that may be followed, if the husband is ignorant, by the anger of God Most High — nor to set right the homes and affairs of others while she corrupts her own home and family.

May She Take Part in Public Daʿwah Gatherings in the Street, or at Conferences and Symposiums? And May She Admonish Men in a Mosque from Behind a Screen or Directly — for Instance, Giving a Reflection (khāṭirah) in Ramadan? Or Answer Juristic Questions for Both Men and Women?

It has already been made clear that the woman whom Islam raised, whose rights it preserved, whose standing it elevated, and whom it honored, has been made an example to be emulated; that she must discharge her duty as a mother, a rearer of generations, and a teacher of good, in the finest way; and that she should contribute, through her knowledge and effort, to raising the banner of Islam and to enlightening the daughters of her sex with what brings them fruitful benefit.

Among her duties are: calling to God and enjoining the right and forbidding the wrong — with the legal etiquette that pertains to her as a woman; ordering her time among her duties; and arranging her priorities between elevating herself in faith and adorning herself with worship, caring for her husband and her home, raising her children, and staying connected with them under the conditions of the age — so as to strike a balance between her message in her home and what surrounds her family in the wider society.

If we trace the Islamic history of woman, we find that the Muslim woman struck the finest example and model for the daughters of her sex in her knowledge, her cultivation, and her keenness to receive knowledge from its authentic sources and to act upon it. ʿĀʾishah, may God be pleased with her, set us the finest example of the Muslim woman's devotion to learning; for she, may God be pleased with her, was distinguished by her copious, far-reaching knowledge across the fields: hadith, medicine, poetry, jurisprudence, and the laws of inheritance. Imam al-Zuhrī said of her: "If the knowledge of ʿĀʾishah were set beside the knowledge of all the Mothers of the Believers and the knowledge of all women, the knowledge of ʿĀʾishah would be the better of it."

Hishām ibn ʿUrwah said: "I have seen no one more learned in jurisprudence, medicine, or poetry than ʿĀʾishah." She, may God be pleased with her, was rigorous in verifying and inquiring; for al-Mizzī mentioned that she would not hear anything she did not know without pressing on it until she knew it. She is also counted among the most prolific narrators of hadith, and after the death of the Messenger ﷺ she was a magnificent model of the household of prophecy, and a beacon of knowledge...

Among the proofs is: a woman's speaking in the mosque, present among men and women — as already noted in the hadith of Asmāʾ bint Yazīd, nicknamed "the delegate of the women."

The matter — as before — requires examining how far she is needed, the knowledge she possesses, and society's acceptance of her appearing in mosques, public circles, symposiums, or public daʿwah gatherings; and that there be no pressing or aspiring for woman to be like man in the sermons of the mosques, with what might come of it in the demand that she lead the prayer, so as to round out the aspects of equality...

Recommendations

1. Woman's experience with the media in the past was not a good one on any level, but it lay in the field of what is called art and acting; and we may need to counter that flaw by its own means, with a difference in aim and in the direction the means take — toward woman's appearance in the daʿwah space — so that more wholesome models, worthy of emulation in real life and in religious commitment, may be opened up for our sons and daughters. We must reassess the faith-based settings that include women, and the diseased environments whose harm to our daughters we fear, even when they sit in the depths of their homes.

1. The constraints on woman's participation in the media are the constraints of responsibility in general, for her and for the man alike: that the participation not run counter to the Sharia in the ideas presented and the views called to. And there are constraints particular to woman that vary with the type of media outlet in which she takes part; among them, that she must not display her allurements — whether in visual media or in the press — just as she is forbidden to be soft in speech and to soften her words in a way that draws men when she takes part in audio media.

1. No one can find for woman how she may be an effective member of society but she herself; for the Muslim woman who carries sound thought and awareness will surely find the fitting field through which to serve her society in a way that does not conflict with her religion, and to be an effective member within it. The possibilities are vast, almost beyond counting; but woman must choose what suits her in time, inclination, and desire, and what she judges will yield positive results, without her work rebounding in harm upon herself and her family.

1. There must be a reconsideration of how the channels and programs that address the issues of the ummah are structured, and of woman's presence in them in a manner that does fuller justice to her person and her standing, and shields her better from the confrontations she may meet — for instance, that women's programs draw, in their production and administrative structure, on a body of specialized women alert to what should and should not be done. In this we find the middle solution to the crisis over which opinions on this question are divided.

Index

• Introduction
• Preliminary
• Chapter One: The Status of Women in Islam
• Chapter Two: May a Woman Lecture in Mixed Assemblies of Both Men and Women?
• Recommendations