Maryam Amir – Part 2 Women Reciting Quran in Public

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.