Maryam Amir – Can women recite the Quran in public Part 1
AI: Summary ©
The use of the Quran in women's culture is discussed, including reciting it in public events and female venues. The importance of practice in practicing reciting is emphasized, along with the need for practice in practicing words that are "back to the curtain" in television. The speaker also discusses the concept of "ewra" and the difficulty of finding women who recite the Quran.
AI: Summary ©
When I was in college, I went to my local masjid for an event that
was geared about teaching those who are not Muslim, Isla, and they
had a high school student who was female recite the Quran. And I was
so appalled, because I thought it was so haram that a woman would
recite the Quran where men could hear her, I approached the
organizer of the event, an incredible sister, may Allah,
bless her. And I asked her about this, and I was like, you know, we
shouldn't have had a woman, we said, in the Quran. And she said,
Well, maybe it's a difference of opinion. And she was so surprised
to hear that, because she said she's from Indonesia, and in
Indonesia, woman reset Quran all the time. Now that's normal. And
that was the first time I ever came across that idea that
Subhanallah, there are Muslim majority countries in which women
recite the Quran on competitions, on TV, in conferences, women
recite the Quran. And then, when I moved to Egypt, I went to Mishal
alzhar One day I was going to study, and there was a famous
Quran reciter. He was sitting in the masjid in front of him. There
were men on one side with a small little gap. On the other side,
there were women, and he was reciting, and the men and women
were reciting after him. They were practicing their recitation by
mimicking exactly how he would recite. There were probably 200
people there. And subhanAllah, he was conducting this halo where men
and women were feeling so uplifted with the words of Allah, subhanho
wa taala, and they were all present. And there was a second
time that I was ever exposed to women reciting the Quran in a
space where men could hear their voices. And then the third time
was when I moved to LA after Egypt, I went to go do my masters
at UCLA, and I was looking everywhere for female Quran
teacher. Because even though I had those two experiences, I had never
really studied this issue, and I wasn't sure I could study with a
male. I had only had female Quran teachers until, until that point,
and I couldn't find a Quran teacher anywhere who was a woman.
And then Allah opened. I mean, Masha, Allah, I did, may Allah,
bless her so much. But it was just her schedule. My schedule wouldn't
work because she was an hour in and I was in LA and I was doing my
program, and it just couldn't work. Subhanallah, I kept making
dah to Allah open the right way. And Allah, bless me. Was Sheik
Moheb, who many of you have heard me rave about on social media, a
master of the Quran, Mashallah. He knows all of the ascended and
everything. He knows the Quran, the entire thing, like Suratul
tatiha, he does not look at the must have to recite. He opens the
must have because he says that it's a ibada simply to look at the
must have. But he'll have it open at sort of Baqarah. And he's
reciting surat al Naida Subhan Allah. So he told me, Miriam, you
need to recite the Quran at the end of the year banquet. You need
to show people that you're not Arab, that you're from California,
that you're a woman, and that you can recite the Quran. And I was
like Sheik so far. Allah, Sheik, I am, you know, I'm not able to do
that. I'm a female. You are a teacher. You are my Quran teacher,
and you are a grandfather, because he actually is May Allah bless him
and have so much mercy on him and his family. I can't recite him
from a bunch of men. And he got so angry at me, may Allah forgive me
for my lack of adip with Sheik shuyuk, I have no knowledge. And
Sheik Mohib was like, Maryam, don't you know that Islamic
history is filled with women reciters? Don't you know that our
legacy is women reciting the Quran? Don't you know how many in
our history? How many women have taught them, taught men the Quran?
This is our history. This is Islamic legacy, women reciters.
And so I recite the Quran at the banquet. And then I started really
studying this issue. And there are three points I'm Inshallah, going
to be releasing an article that goes into all of these issues
inshallah with all of the references for you. But because
this is going to be a very short inshallah video, just to quickly
go over the point so that you can participate inshallah in the
female Quran reciter campaign, the for mother campaign, in which
inshaAllah, every day I'm going to be releasing a recitation from
jazamma, and I would love for you women, sisters, my sisters, to
recite on social media. This doesn't have to be about men at
all. This is for women, by woman with women, for the sake of Allah
subhanahu. WA bless you so much. If you are concerned about you
know anything, we respect you and we love you for the sake of Allah,
and we just ask that you turn off your sound, because this isn't
about you. May Allah bless you so much. This is about sisters,
hearing the voices of other sisters, and feeling inspired by
other women. I personally never felt the need to hear other
women's voices. I didn't know that I loved reciting and listening to
men. I loved listening to male reciters, but when I started
reciting Quran in front of women for women's conferences and
events, hundreds of women would come to me in tears telling me
this is the first time they ever thought the Quran was accessible
to them. So we need this. We need so much to hear other women's
voice.
Says, And it's okay if you sound like nails on a chalkboard, we're
all gonna sound like that in the beginning, because we haven't
practiced this. But with practice Inshallah, we will get there, and
Allah sees your effort. And here are the three points that I want
inshallah to tell you, so that Inshallah, your heart will feel at
ease. The first one is the concept of a voice of a woman being awra.
But that concept is refuted in the Quran itself, because Allah says,
What?
Yes, hey, jab, if you're going to ask them something, ask them from
behind a curtain. Now that ayah itself has the most empowering
understanding, but we're not going to get into that right now. What
we're actually going to focus on is the fact that Allah spent Allah
simply says when you speak that is refutation to the concept of a
woman's voice being aura. Allah SWT also says, Welcome Nicole and
marufa and speak words that are speak well, and that's a
refutation. I mean, obviously, if you're going to be speaking, your
voice is not going to be out of in fact, the Quran is giving
guidelines for how to speak. Now here is a real issue, the ayafa
Donna, Bill colfay, he modeled local Nicole and marufa, so don't
speak. And here is the by loose attempt at a translation. Don't
speak seductively. Don't speak flirtatiously. Don't make your
voice in this manner so that it can impact someone who has a
disease in their heart. Now, Irene suyuti, his tafsir does very much
align with what I just said, but other, MUFA si Roon, like katada,
like and scholars, katada, Imam abawi and others, their
understanding of this ayah is very different. They talk about a
person who has hypocrisy in their heart, someone who has someone who
has fuju, who has fuju, who's struggling with fiscal like these
are very big, serious, serious issues. So a different
understanding of this verse that is used for not just women don't
be sad Quran could have to do with protecting the Muslim community
from the way the words that you speak could be protection of the
whole Mahat themselves from someone who could be having ill
will. So many different interpretations of this verse
exist from classical Quran scholars. So we're not going to go
into all of that right now. We're just going to say that more exists
than simply women don't recite Quran. So then what about Hadith?
The Hadith of the Prophet salallahu alaihi wasallam doesn't,
in any way, in anywhere, say women do not recite Quran. In fact,
there was a narration of the Prophet Sallallahu alasam, as
mentioned in Imam Ahmed. He was the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa
sallam was walking past a home and he heard a woman reciting Hadith
Allah Shia, the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, to whom this
verse has the news not come to you, was revealed, became
extremely emotional and said, it has come to me. It has come to me.
Oh, chemical Salalah. Ali wasallam, the Prophet sallallahu
alayhi waslam, it's an obligation on him to say, It's haram for a
woman to recite, to recite the Quran so loudly. It's haram for
men to hear the a woman recite Quran. It's an obligation for him.
Sallallahu alayhi wasallam to clarify rulings, but he didn't and
said he was simply emotionally impacted by the recitation of this
woman. Now, where does the concept of a woman not reciting come from?
It comes from, said, of the rare which is really
blocking the means to great to harm, so preventing something that
could cause fitna, so in a certain time period, maybe hearing a
woman's voice reciting the Quran could have been a cause of great
fitna for a particular community.
We live in California, right? I live in California. You live
wherever you live. But we can generally say that in our globe
right now, we are hearing women and men sing. We are exposed on
Instagram, on your feed, to crazy, crazy stuff on Tiktok. I mean, we
have in our society exposure to so much more fitna than a woman
reciting the Quran. The greater fitna that we have in our society
right now is the fact that we have closed the doors of hearing
women's recitation so other women don't know that the Quran is for
them. The Greater fitna right now is that we've caused women to feel
like they cannot approach the Quran like memorizing the Quran is
not something that they should even consider. The greater fitna
is leaving Islam our May Allah protect us. Is women not feeling
like Islam is accessible to them because we've closed those doors
in fear of fitna. We have Islamic history in which women were Quran
reciters, the teacher of Abdul Basit, the great reciter. We have
umsa al khair, who would was a master of the Quran in Egypt, who
would teach men and whose recitation would be asked to be in
banquets and in weddings and only with she mentions the plethora of
radios, and just using the radio. When that came about, she stopped
being such a well asked Quran recited to recite in all these
functions. We also have um Imam sahawi Listening to um Hani and
being emotionally impacted by her. We have Quran reciters as part of
our history. It's time that we allow women to hear other women
and become them. InshaAllah.