Maryam Amir – Part 2 Women Reciting Quran in Public
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The speaker discusses the importance of the Prophet sallam's rule, which is for men to recite in private settings. They also mention the need for men to clarify that women are not being considered in relation to the rule. The segment then touches on the issue of fear of fitna during recitation, where men face a desire to see a woman in public, and the shift in women's recitation in Eastern Europe where men recite in a seductive way. The speaker suggests two options for women to recite the Quran, one of which is "The" one that is "The" one that is "The" one that is "The" one that is "The" one that is "The" one that is "The" one that is "The" one that is "The" one that is "The" one that is "The" one that is "The" one that is "The" one that is "The" one that is "The" one that is "The" one that is "The" one that is "The"
AI: Summary ©
One time, Abu Bakr said to Alma radila An humah, let's go visit um
Ayman, as the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam used to do. When
they went to visit her, she began to cry. And they said, What is
causing you to cry? Don't you know that what is with Allah is better
for the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam? And she responded, I'm
not crying because I don't know that what is with Allah is better
for the Prophet sallallahu, alayhi wa sallam, I'm crying because the
revelation has been cut off from the heavens. And when Omar and Abu
Bakr Al yaho An uma heard this, they began to cry. And so they all
cried together
that love is something that we talk about sometimes. How do we
bring this love back into our Ummah for the Quran, like the
companions. But something that we don't necessarily address is the
fact that sometimes we as a community are the individuals who
set policies in the way that our community spaces are going to look
like that don't facilitate that type of love.
One of those issues is giving role models of women reciting the Quran
to other women, so that they can see what it looks like to dream of
becoming a Quran reciter. In part one of this video, I spoke about
the different interpretations of the aya fella to my Aladdin colon
my arufa and how different classical scholars looked at the
different meanings of this verse. And this verse is the one ayah
that is used by scholars who say that it is haram for a woman to
recite in a public space where men can hear her. But there are also
different interpretations of that ayah and different scholars who
have a different ruling on this issue. And I mentioned the Hadith
of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, in which he was
emotionally impacted by hearing a woman recite in her home Hal
attack, a hadith of roshia, the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam
did not say that it is haram for her to recite in a voice in which
men could hear her outside. Now, there were a number of people who
mentioned to me that, well, of course, she's in her home. Why
would the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam say something to
someone in a private space like her own, her own home? But that's
a problematic understanding of the role of the Prophet sallallahu
alayhi wa sallam, he is a legislator of law, which means
that like Imam Muhammad Al lazali, mentions when Zainab rodi Allahu
anha, his daughter, sallallahu alayhi wa sallam called out in the
masjid of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, after he had
initiated the Salah and They were already praying, she called out
the protection that she gave to her husband, Abu Alas, who was, at
that time, not a Muslim, and she is seeking protection. She's
calling this out in the entire Masjid space where men and women
can hear her, and they've already started Salah now. Imam Muhammad
Al lazali mentions this as one of the incidents that proves that a
woman's voice is not an aura. Why? Because the Prophet sallallahu
alayhi wa sallam spoke to the to the Companions afterwards,
surprised that his daughter had made this statement, not knowing
that she was going to do so beforehand, he spoke to her, his
daughter, sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, about the rulings of
interacting with Abu al house, and he spoke to the people who had the
property of Abu Laos. But what the Prophet sallallahu, alayhi
wasallam did not talk about was how she should not have used her
voice in a masjid space where men are going to hear her now, of
course, in Salah itself, when the Imam makes a mistake, woman clamp,
the rulings of Salah, in and of itself, are different from the
rulings of everyday life. And so when we look at the Prophet
sallallahu alayhi wa sallam's rule as a legislator, as a source of
law, it is a requirement upon him to clarify that, for example, the
homes in Medina are close together. They are not soundproof.
The roads are tight. There are numerous incidences in which male
companions narrate hearing women speaking in their home, arguing in
their homes. There are numerous incidences in which we have
women's voices being heard on the street from within their home
space. And so yes, it would have been a requirement on the Prophet
sallallahu alayhi wa sallam to clarify that it is haram if he
heard a woman reciting, said instead his focus was the
emotional impact that her recitation gave him when he heard
the very verses that were revealed to him. SallAllahu, alayhi wa
salam,
scholars throughout time have discussed the issue of women
reciting the Quran in spaces where men are going to hear her. This is
not a liberal, progressive feminist decision.
Discussion, conversation that's only happening right now. When we
look at Imam Al mujahirini, for example, from the 1100s after
Hijra. He's a great Shafi scholar. He mentions that it is haram for a
man to listen to a woman's voice, even if it's the recitation of the
Quran, if it's going to cause him to feel
excuse me for saying this aroused. If he's going to feel sexually
attracted. Forgive me for being so blunt to her voice, then it is
haram for him to listen to that Ibn MUFA al maqdisi, a great
Hambali scholar who came even earlier than Imam Abu Jair me. He
came in the seven hundreds after Hijra. He says that the right
opinion is that a woman's voice is not awra, but it is haram for a
man to hear her, even if it's the recitation of the Quran, if he is
going to find himself attracted to hearing her recitation she had
been baz Rahima Allah. He mentions that
if a woman is going to recite the Quran alone or two other women,
she should follow all of the rules, and she should beautify her
voice. But if she's going to recite in front of men, notice he
doesn't say a haram to recite in front of men. He says, if she is
going to recite in front of men, she should not give the full
beautification to her voice. Why? Because of the fear that there
could be a man who finds her voice attractive in a way that is not
unbecoming of the divine revelation he may have undivided
thoughts when he is listening to the divine revelation. Ibn Hazra
as Kalani, he wrote a book in which he references over 1500
female Hadith scholars, Quran scholars, fiqh scholars, over 1500
and that was in his time how many more have been since that time
which Shaykh Akram nadui outlines the great Muhaddith in his book as
muhaddithat over 9000 he found SubhanAllah. But Ibn Hajar
mentions that they are all these women who are teaching and who are
scholars. There is no way that they're also not going to be
reciting the Quran when they're teaching the Quran. There is no
way that that didn't happen. We have a Shanthi Sheik Hashem Titi,
who states that same Hadith that I mentioned about listening to the
recitation of the female companion from her home, and he mentions
this as proof for why a woman can reset the Quran out loud in a
place where men are going to hear her, as long as there is no fear
of a fitna that can be caused from listening to her voice.
Sheik Mustafa Ibn Hamza, he mentions that Allah says God is
semi Allahu, Kola, Leti, tuja, tuja di Luka,
the Allah Spano te ALA, hears this woman who is arguing with the
Prophet sallallahu, alayhi wa sallam. She's arguing in an
argument. Is your voice going to be stoic the whole time? Is it
going to be static at one level? There's gonna be times where you
are frustrated and your voice is harsh, and there's times that
you're emotional and your voice is soft, and there's pitches all the
way in between. And his point is that Allah's panawata never spoke
about the problematic issue of her voice or the way that her voice
was pitched. Rather, the focus was on what the issue was for her that
she's complaining to with the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa
sallam. And again, the Prophet sallallahu, alayhi wasallam did
not prohibit her from changing the tones of her voice.
Contemporary
Daughters of iftah, they have fatawa now, for example, Darul
IFTA in Jordan and Darul IFTA in Egypt, both of them state that as
long as there is no fear of fitna, that it is permissible for a woman
to recite the Quran in public spaces where men are going to hear
her. This concept of fear of fitna is really where this falls,
because over and over again, what you hear is that the issue isn't
with her reciting. The issue is if a man hears her and finds himself
attracted, and not simply just listening and finding enjoyment.
And Oh, it's beautiful, and I'm enjoying listening to the Quran?
No, he is finding himself to another level that is
inappropriate with the Quran.
If this is the problem, who do these scholars address? Who are
these scholars addressing? They're addressing the man that he should
not listen to.
A woman, where she is reciting, and he is impacted in that way, we
have so many Muslim majority countries, amongst which are
Nigeria and Indonesia and and Morocco and so many others where
women's recitation are the norm. They are on stages in conferences,
Quran competitions, on TV, and women's voices are not, forgive me
for making this statement with the Quran. They are not sexualized.
They are encouraged to recite the Quran because they are the Divine
Words of Allah. And it doesn't matter if it's a man or a woman
who recites them, because, as Shaykh, Allah says that if a man,
if there's something that's haram for a man, it's also haram for a
woman. What's the problem with recitation? The problem can be if
somebody uses their recitation, sings it like a song, in a
flirtatious, seductive way, that is problematic, and that can be
between men or and women. And we have in our history that, unlike
many places that we live today in the West, women recited the Quran
actively, like, for example, in Egypt, when Muhammad Ali was the
Ottoman ruler, he had om Muhammad come she was a Quran reciter who
he had in the palace reciting the Quran. And he ordered that she be
buried where Imam as Shafir is buried, that is where she is where
she is buried. May Allah have mercy on the both of them. There
were great Quran reciters who were famous in Egypt after the time of
Muhammad Ali, for example, we have kirima Al adidaya and Munira Abdu.
Munira Abdu, she was approached by a Tunisian merchant who heard her
recitation in Egypt and offered to pay her 1000 June so that she
could recite in Tunisia, in Ramadan, where he was living in
his palace. And all of this can be found in Sheik Saad, in his book
that was overviewed by the great Quranic scholar, Sheikha Shah Ali.
And she refused. She wanted to stay in Egypt, and so that
Tunisian merchant came to Egypt to listen to her public recitations.
Now, the process of which women's recitations have shifted and where
they're not the norm anymore is a different conversation. But what I
want to leave you with right now is that we really have two
options. We can go with the opinion that it is haram to hear a
woman resent in the Quran with a beautiful voice, and make that a
general policy that we implement in all of our masajid in North
America or wherever in the West that you are, that I have visited
so many women, I have, Alhamdulillah, been so honored to
speak to women in the 1000s in different parts of the West. A
Muslim woman consistently tell me that I'm the very first person
they've ever heard recite the Quran with tears in their eyes,
saying that if they had heard this before, they would have memorized
the Quran, knowing that it's for them too. So yes, we can choose to
continue to go down the path that it is haram. And what is the worst
thing that's going to happen if we allow women to recite for a man?
The worst thing that's going to happen is there might be a man who
finds himself attracted to her voice, and what does he need to
do? He needs to scroll away, walk out, turn off the sound, and move
forward and be a responsible individual for his actions. But
the worst thing that's going to happen for a woman is that we're
going to have another generation of little girls who did not grow
up hearing the Quran, who did not know that the Quran is for them,
and who had no idea that they can grow up in the Quran reciters too,
and since beginning the foremothers campaign in Ramadan, I
have heard in all of these months, women who, for the very first
time, in their 40s and 50s, are reciting the Quran for the first
time ever in their lives out loud, who are now taking classes, who
are memorizing the Quran because foremothers campaign is a bridge
between not knowing that you want to be a Quran reciter and knowing
that there are classes you can take. These women are now
memorizing the Quran women who have been singing their whole
lives, telling me that now they are using those voices instead for
the Quran women who, as children, loved the Quran but were told it's
not for adult women, where, for the first time in decades, going
back to the Quran, if you want to continue on this path in which
it's haram for women to recite the Quran, then at the very least,
provide women with alternative spaces where they hear other women
in qiyams, in conferences, in competitions. This is the time in
which we can, inshaAllah call women back, a new generation of
women back to feeling this connection to the Quran like um
Ayman did? Khadija. Radila anha was the very first woman who heard
the revelation of the Quran. Hafsah. Radila huanna is the very
first non ruler who held the copy of the must have in her home, the
Quran was revealed for women as it was for men. Let us take back that
legacy and become like the woman who witnessed the revelation. Our
foremothers a.