Mustafa Umar – Female Muslim Scholars Throughout History
AI: Summary ©
AI: Transcript ©
So today, we're gonna be presenting
the topic of female scholars in Islamic history,
and how we can revive this
forgotten,
past
or perhaps this neglected past that we've had
in the past, Insha'Allah Ta'ala.
So let's begin.
Before we talk about
Muslim scholar or Muslim female scholars in history,
we have to talk a little bit about
women before Islam
in different parts of the world.
Because without understanding
what the situation actually was in different parts
of the world, we won't be able to
appreciate,
you know, the accomplishments
of the Muslims themselves
throughout their own Islamic history. And, it's very
important that we try to,
address each and every single time so that
we have a clear conception of what
know, we're not going to go through
the entire status of women, but we're going
to talk about the status of women
particular to education
in the past,
as well as throughout history. So let us
look at that so that we can understand
and appreciate,
what these Muslim women scholars were actually achieving
and accomplishing.
So let's take a look at India.
And we know that many Muslims,
are from India. India, had Islam for a
very long time. But oftentimes we find that
we are becoming influenced again
sometimes by non Islamic or un Islamic
Hindu culture
or other type of pagan culture.
So let's take a look at India.
According to the Encyclopedia Britannica,
it's saying for women, subjection was the cardinal
principle.
That was the rule.
According to the one who made the laws,
the religious laws, Manu, the one of the
lawmakers,
he said day night must women be held
by their protectors in a state of dependence.
So this was the status of women at
that time according to their religious law even.
And then it says, a good wife is
a woman whose mind, speech,
and body are kept in subjection.
She acquires high renowned in this world and
then the next, and she can have the
same abode with her husband in the next
life. So meaning
that in this life a good wife is
going to be someone whose mind, speech, and
body are subjective.
So the mind has no place. Whatever the
husband says, that's going to be the only
thing she can think about. She has no
independent ability to reason for herself. Right? We're
not talking about making decisions here. We're talking
about the ability to reason. And she does
not have that ability, she should not have
that ability. And if she's kept in subjection,
then she will acquire high status in this
world.
So the higher the status a a woman
wants to have in this world, she should
not think for herself.
And if she wants to have the highest
status in the next life,
she should, you know, try to do these
things so that her highest level will be
wherever her husband is, she can maybe equal
the same level. So in terms of spirituality
in the next life, husband and wife,
you know, the wife could never precede the
husband. She can only become equal or lesser
to the husband. So that's pretty much the
way it was in India.
Now, let's move to another part of the
world. The Roman Empire.
Now, the Roman Empire is generally credited with
bringing law,
advanced forms of government, civility to Europe and
Western Nations.
So usually we find that people when they
talk about the Roman Empire, they're talking about
what? So you know what, our modern civilization
which is so great, it has its basis
in the Roman Empire. Alright? And Greek thought
and all of that. So we we usually
wind up praising Roman Empire. So what what
happens is you look at, for example,
you know, films.
You know, films about the Roman Empire or
about the Romans are generally kind of like,
that's us.
And then films about somebody else is kind
of like them. So there's a perception that's
there. So we have to understand that. So
let's take a look at what professor Allen
writes. He says, a Roman wife was described
by historians as a babe, a minor,
not an adult, a minor, a ward, a
person incapable of doing or acting anything according
to her own individual taste,
a person continually
under the tutelage and guardianship
of her husband.
K. So that's she's not able to think
for herself. And she should not be thinking
for herself, and that's her place in society.
And then it says, in Roman law, a
woman was even in historic times completely dependent.
If she got married, she and her property
passed into the power of her husband. The
wife was the purchased property of her husband,
and like a slave, she's only acquired for
his benefit. She doesn't have any contribution.
A woman could not exercise any civil or
public office. She could not be a witness.
So she cannot act as a witness for
anything. She cannot be surety. She cannot be
a tutor. She cannot be a curator.
She could not adopt nor could she be
adopted by anyone nor is she allowed to
make any will or contract.
This was the status. Now can you imagine
what kind of education,
is going to come out of the women
who are living in that kind of society?
Not much. Right? So then we take a
look at ancient Greece.
Ancient
Greece, despite people praising its advanced civilization, its
philosophers,
its thinkers,
all of that is is nice in theory,
but let's take a look at what actually
professor Allen has to say.
Athenian women were viewed as helpless children forever
in need of guidance, protection and provision for
male benefactors.
Her consent in marriage was generally thought unnecessary
and she was obliged to submit to the
wishes of her parents and receive from their
husband and her lord.
Meaning, there's not much, in the field of
education that's going to be coming with this
type of outlook. And Aristotle, the praised philosopher,
he even says, he considered women to be
inferior beings. So they're not at the same
level as men. They're actually a lower a
lower, you know, life form. Like animals for
example, they're a lower life form than human
beings, so women are falling in the same
category. So if you look at what kind
of educational,
things are going to come out of Greek
civilization
for women and women's education, you're not going
to expect very much. Now let's take a
look at how Christianity
influenced the Roman Empire and influenced,
the people in the West. So if you
look at the Jews and the Christians, according
to the scripture, and this is not the
topic to go into details. I'm just mentioning
to you a very little, but this is
like an introduction. So according to the scripture,
in the book of Genesis,
it says,
to the women he, meaning God, according to
them, he said, I will make your pains
in child bearing very severe. With painful labor
you will give birth to children. Your desire
will be for your husband and he will
rule over you. And then Paul writes in
the new testament in the first book of
Timothy,
he says, a woman should learn in quietness
and in full submission.
I do not permit a woman to teach.
So according to the bible, a woman is
not allowed to teach
nor is she allowed to assume authority over
a man. She must be quiet. She shouldn't
speak. For Adam and the reason behind it
is, Adam was formed first and then Eve.
And Adam was not the one who was
deceived, it was the woman who was deceived
and she became a sinner. So woman is
not allowed to teach, woman is not allowed
to be doing anything else besides that. The
only way she can acquire salvation
is through childbearing.
That's her purpose, her her main purpose in
life, and that's her main function. That's pretty
much, all that she's gonna be good for.
Now that's
that's pretty much the conception of when you
talk about ancient history, or we talk about,
you know, classical medieval history,
from outside of the Muslim lens.
Now, if you look
and you look at women's education in the
west today,
we have universities,
women are going to school, women are doing
all of these things, and we say, well
that that's due to
the Western civilization. So all this stuff that
we just talked about right now, that was
all in the really way back in the
past. We've progressed so much since then. Right?
We've progressed so Things have changed so much
since then. But the question is,
when did they change?
And why did they change?
And how did they change?
Now we can't get into all the details,
but let me just give you an example.
The feminist
or
pseudo feminist,
Emily Davies in 18/70,
she founded the first
college for women
ever in Europe. Now, the reason why we're
talking about Europe is because I'm talking Western
Europe by the way. The reason why we're
talking about Europe is because America,
and Canada, and Australia
is a child in a way of Western
Europe. Because of the renaissance, and the enlightenment,
and all of these things. So we're talking
about the 1st
college
where women are actually studying
has been formed in 18/70.
18/70.
Right? The first college in Europe or in
the West was actually formed. Before this, there
were no colleges. There were no, you know,
higher education for women at all. It didn't
even exist. It wasn't even allowed.
Now,
Girton College became part of Cambridge University. The
famous university which many people are aware of.
From 18 70 to 1921,
Cambridge refused
to give any of these women who are
graduating from the college a degree.
You can study
but you don't get a degree. If a
man comes and studies, he gets a degree.
But if you study, you don't get a
degree. Why? Because you're not worthy of it.
You don't deserve the position. We're talking about
1921.
We're talking about something very recent. This is
about a 100 years ago. Right? Less than
a 100 years ago. This was the first
time that women or a few schools in
America started a little bit before 1921
awarding some degrees. But the first school that
was founded was in 18/70.
So it shows you
a little bit about the history of how
recent
women's education actually began in the West. Okay?
Now just to give you one counter example.
18/70.
Right?
Fatima al Fihri in the year 859
not only studied,
but she built the first and one of
the oldest universities in existence today, the University
of Al Qairawan.
We're not talking about studying.
We're not talking about getting a degree. We're
talking about founding the entire university.
Starting it and getting it built from the
ground up. You know, Emily Davis, if she
knew this, she'd probably rolling around in her
grave. But it's something that we don't know.
Right? Most of us don't know. How many
of you knew how many of you knew
knew this fact? How many of you ever
heard of Fatima al Fihri by the way?
Raise your hand.
Like 2 people. Right? How many of you
knew that University of Al Qairawan was founded
by a woman? Raise your hand. Right? Nobody.
Not a single person because we don't know
our history. So that's why we're just going
to talk today a little bit in the
limited time we have. We could do a
whole seminar on this. But in the limited
time we have, we're going to talk about
some examples
of women's education throughout Islamic history so that
we don't have this perceived,
you know, notion
about
feminism and westernism being the liberator of women.
And this is where all of the education
came from and all of these things. We
wanna have a little bit more holistic view
and realistic view of what really took place
and what happened. So one of my teachers,
Sheikh Mohammed Akram Naddui,
he wrote a book called Al Muhadizat
for his research in Oxford University.
And he began
thinking that he might find he wanted to
document the lives of some of these women
scholars that existed in in Muslim history. So
he thought he would find about 50,
maybe a100.
And he researched, and he researched, and he
researched, and he was going for about 8,
9 years of just researching.
And he came out with 8,000,
not women total, but 8,000 famous women scholars
whose lives have been documented.
And he documented their lives and he released
this book in 57 volumes.
Imagine 57, this encyclopedia
about women scholars
only in one field. And that's in the
field of hadith. Muhadithat means someone who's a
specialist in the field of hadith and is
a woman. So he documented their lives,
educational history of women only in the field
of hadith in particular.
And 57 volumes.
Unfortunately
it costs too much money to print this
book. So they're actually trying to raise funds
so that they can even publish the book.
So make Dua Insha Allah. May Allah subhanahu
wa ta'ala give them the necessary funds,
and the support so that they can actually
print the book. Because it's it's extremely expensive
and mostly libraries will only be purchasing it.
So most of my material is based upon
his work. But the interesting thing is this,
is that Islam gave rights to women
without a fight.
And that's very very important to understand.
In today's modern world,
all the movements and all the fighting and
all the, you know, having to, you know,
demand this and demand that took place.
Islam didn't require any of that because Allah
subhanahu wa ta'ala gave women their rights without
having a fight. It was automatic
change in people's perception because it was a
divine mandate. So it's not something that was
only theoretical. See most of us as Muslims
we know that yes, yes, we know Islam
came to liberate women. We know some of
the verses of the Quran. We know that
women now are allowed to own property and
allowed to do this, allowed to that. We
know all of that in theory.
Right? But we don't know our history.
We don't know whether this actually took place
or didn't. Right? So for example, like if
you look at the United States Constitution.
Right? So all men are created equal. All
people are created equal. Right? When they wrote
that, that sounds nice when we look at
it. Right? But that did not apply to
blacks.
That did not apply to people of color.
It did not apply to the poor white,
you know, classes of family. So in theory
it all sounded nice, but in practicality,
you look at how it was applied and
you say, Woah. Woah. Wait a minute. That's
all beautiful on paper, but did that really
happen? Did Was that really implemented? Is that
what it meant? So that's why
it's important we look at some of the
lives of these individuals. So let's begin.
Women, we're just going to take few few,
you know, few examples throughout history and kind
of get like a broad
spectrum,
of what we are covering today. So learning
and teaching.
On the day of Eid al Fitr, the
prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam, he gave the
aid khutba. He gave the aid sermon.
And after he was done with the sermon,
he went to Bilal He went with Bilal
and he went to the women afterwards. Keep
in mind they didn't have microphones.
Right? So it's it's, you know, it's not
easy to convey the message all the way
to so many people. So the Prophet Sallallahu
Alaihi Wasallam, he went over to the women
with Bilal and he gave them a separate
sermon.
Why? He gave them a separate sermon because
he felt that it's important that this sermon
also be given to the women in case
they didn't get it or in case they
need a little bit different message.
What happened later
after that, the generation of scholars that came
right afterwards,
they began to look at this. This is
not just one incident by the way, but
they began to look at incidents like this.
And they began to question,
was this specific
for the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam? Or
is it something that we should also be
applying? So if you look at some of
the great scholars, Ibn Juraj, he came to
Ata'a
and he asked him. He said, do you
think the imam is required to preach to
women?
Is it required for imams and for religious
preachers to to preach to women as well?
Aqsa responded, of course it is. And I
don't understand why they're not doing it. Right?
Whoever is not doing it, I don't understand
why they're not doing it. What he meant
was, this is not specific
this this this, preaching, you know, to the
women was not specific to the prophet sallallahu
alaihi wa sallam. So when it comes to,
you know, teaching women or women learning,
it is something that the prophet salallahu alaihi
wa sallam specifically took time out separately to
make sure that they're also going to be
taught. In case they didn't get the message
or in case, you know, the message didn't
reach them whatever, there's special timing that was
given to them. And there was a special
time of the day, a day of the
week that was dedicated to answering the questions
from the women as well, from the prophet
sallallahu alaihi wa sallam. Why is this important?
Why is this sometimes for some people, this
may seem like,
okay, we already know this. I mean this
is not anything new. But we find
throughout the Muslim community today in many different
parts of the Muslim world or, you know,
even where Muslims are living as minorities,
people don't feel that this is something important.
And if you look at
even some scholars,
their daughters
and their wives are left completely uneducated, and
they don't know anything. And you'll go and
you ask them and you think, oh, that
they know something else because the guy is
a scholar, but they don't know anything. And
if you go in other societies, you will
find that women are not encouraged to have
any classes. There are no classes for them.
There's no opportunities at home for them. There's
no opportunities online for them, or they're not
encouraged to learn at all. And we end
up finding an entire generation of Muslim women
who are becoming very ignorant of their religion
and they're going to be raising the next
generation of Muslims. So we have a problem.
Right? So now that's just the importance of
women learning.
Now let's take a look at
women teaching,
which somehow
has become a very,
become a touchy subject in in some parts
of the Muslim world. That it's become like,
are women allowed to teach? Not just that,
are they allowed to teach in front of
men?
Are they allowed to teach men? It's become
a very very common question, right? How many
of you heard this question before? Like this
is actual debate that's taking place, right? It's
a debate in many places. Now let's take
a look at what Islam had to say.
So learning from women
in Islamic history, early Islamic history was never
seen as an issue at all. If you
look at the field of hadith,
right,
whenever there's a statement of the prophet, Muhammad,
peace and blessings be upon him, it goes
with a chain of narrators back to the
prophet. So you have the prophet here, you
have one of the companions narrating it from
him. And then you have a successor afterwards.
And then another person in the chain, another
person in the chain.
If you look at any book of hadith,
Muslim,
Bukhari,
Abu Dawood, Sirmidi, Nasai, ibn Majay, Muslim Ahmad
Mu'ta, any one of them, you'll find that
there are women
in every single part of that chain.
Because usually what we find, what we think
is
the the the Sahabiat,
right? The companions
amongst the women. We know about them. We
know about the wives of the prophet. We
know about the women companions.
What we don't realize is it didn't It
wasn't limited to them only. It didn't stop
there.
So every single chain that you find in
a hadith, you will find women somewhere along
the chain. They they will be somewhere in
every part of the chain. They're not only
in the first part of the chain. During
the second, the third, the 4th, the 5th,
the 6th, you will find them somewhere along
In some hadith, you will find them in
every section. Meaning
that women were teaching.
And you'll find the chain with the woman
teaching another man and that man saying, I
heard from Aisha
who heard not Aisha, the companion. I heard
from Fatima, not the companion,
who heard from another guy, who heard from
another guy, who heard from the prophet sallallahu
alaihi wa sallam. Now how did that guy
hear it from Fatima
if she was not teaching him?
Right? There was there were no books she
could read it from. There was no, you
know, she did not tweet it and he
know he read her tweet and then all
of a sudden you know this message came
out or something like that. It didn't happen
that way. Imam Hakim Anais Saburi who is
the famous author of Al Mustadriq Al Sahihain,
he writes,
1 fourth of our religion depends on the
narrations of women.
Meaning 25%
of all the ahadith that we have about
the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam, all of
that 25% of them it contain women in
those narrations.
So if we did not accept the narrations
of women, we would have lost 25%
of what the messenger of Allah salallahu alaihi
wa sallam had actually taught us in the
first place. So teaching
in early Islam was not considered to be
an issue that was even dealt with really.
A few books mentioned that you know what,
it's okay in this context, okay in that
context. But generally it's it's considered to be
something that was not a major question.
So let's take a look at
preservation of the Quran in the sunnah. The
most important thing we have in our religion
are the two main sources. We have the
Quran and we have the sunnah of the
prophet salallahu alaihi wa sallam, which is preserved
in the form of ahadith. Right? In the
form of his statements.
So if you look at history,
the battle of Yamama,
which took place
during the, khilaf of Abu Bakr radiAllahu an.
Many of the huffas were murdered in this
battle. And this battle took place against a
man by the name of Musaylama who was
labeled Al Khazab, who was claiming to be
a prophet.
It was a very very fierce battle.
And many of the people who had memorized
the entire Quran, they were murdered in this
battle. So what ended up happening?
For those who know the story,
Abu Bakr was convinced
that we need to write down the Quran
and compile it into a mushaf.
Into the one copy so that it remains
preserved. Now what does it mean remain preserved?
It was already preserved in the memories of
the other people as well. But just in
case it's good to have one thing written
down, one codex that's there So we can
refer to it if case is any disagreement
or someone says, you know, this letter should
be this way or recited this way, whatever
it is. So we can go and refer
to that that book. So he was convinced.
Now Abu Bakr radiAllahu an,
he commissioned
that this first copy of the Quran be
compiled completely.
Very rigorous process in which they compiled it.
After Abu Bakr radiAllahu an passed away,
it went to the second khalifa,
Umar, Imiral Khattab.
After Umar Radiallahuwan
passed away, it went
to Hafsa, the daughter of Umar. So it
went to Hafsa. So it was kept in
her possession.
So think about this, you know think about
the only
written down compiled official
copy of the Quran by the Islamic government,
by the Islamic state is being put in
the possession of a woman Hafsa.
She has it in her possession.
When it came time that Uthman radhiallahuwan when
he became Khalifa,
he had to go and ask Hafsa's permission
to borrow this book.
Right? And to make copies of it and
then distribute it throughout the land.
Now the important thing is
that nobody questioned her trust.
Nobody said, you know what? Can we trust
the fact that this book has been kept
with a woman?
Can we trust her? Is she reliable? Is
there a problem because she's a woman? There
was no question about it. Right? So that
was not something that people were asking at
that time. And yet today some people are
actually asking these questions. Is it reliable because
it's coming from a woman? There are some
people, not too many, but there are some.
So that means
that
today the way that we have the Quran
preserved for us,
it came through this channel of Hafsa ibn
Umar as well coming through us. So the
baraka or the blessing of part of the
preservation of the Quran, it would have been
preserved anyways. But part of the preservation of
the Quran is coming through a woman. That's
the Quran that we have with us today.
Right? Now let's take a look at the
sunnah. Let's take a look at hadith.
Famous scholar by the name of Aisha bint
Abdul Hadi.
Okay? She was
a sheikha of Hadith
and she used to teach Bukhari in the
Grand Masjid of Damascus.
Now I want you to understand something. In
the classical,
tradition
of teaching, you know you have different faculties
and different departments and everything like that. Today
the faculty of you know, medicine is considered
to be the highest, right? Like if you
get really good grades in high school and
you're examined everything in many countries where do
you go? You're going to go to medical
school, that's where you're going to go. Perhaps
a little bit lower, you're going to go
to law school. A little bit lower, you're
going to go, you know, become an engineer
or something like that. At that time,
the science of hadith was the top field
at that time. It was one of the
top and most important fields. Fiqh and hadith
were both at the top. And you know
there are different professors who teach different subjects.
So imagine in a university, there's somebody who's
teaching, you know, calculus, and there's someone who's
teaching calculus 2, there's someone who's teaching linear
algebra and mathematics, there's someone who's teaching the
highest level of mathematics.
Right? That highest level book or the highest
level class was the teaching of Sahih al
Bukhari.
It only goes to the people who are
like the chair, the top of their department
at that time. And Aisha bint Abdul Hadi,
she was the one who was teaching the
highest book in one of the most important
fields in the Grand Masjid of Damascus in
front of men and women. She's teaching all
the students over there because they couldn't find
anyone who was more qualified than her. They
couldn't find a woman or a man, nobody
was more qualified than her. She was the
expert in this field.
So, ibn Hajar al Askalani, one of the
very very important scholars of hadith, in fact
he traveled just to go study with her
only.
And he studied 100 books and there's list
of exactly which 100 books he studied. In
detail he studied with her 100 entire books.
So imagine the amount of time that, you
know, they they were able to spend with
with one another. And this is many many
scholars. Now the thing is this,
if you ask the average scholar today, if
I showed you that list, forget the average
person. If you ask the average scholar today,
how many of these books have you read?
Forget that. If you ask them how many
of these books have you ever heard of?
Most scholars will not heard of the majority
of these books. That's how advanced they were
in this field, and the specialist in this
field was Aisha. It was Aisha. Now the
interesting thing here is,
ibn Hajar al Askalani, who's a very very
renowned scholar. If anyone is familiar a little
bit about the field of how did they
know about Ibrahim Hajar al Askalani?
He
says that she was the last person
who actually has
the strong or a high chain
going directly back to Imam Al Bukhari, meaning
that she heard it from her teacher, her
teacher heard it from another person from another
person going back directly to Imam Al Bukhari.
What ended up happening was everyone else had
like an intermediary chain. No one else else
had a direct chain of hearing going back
because some people began to neglect,
the listening part of Sahil Bukhar. They didn't
neglect studying it, but they didn't get the
direct hearing that they used to have before.
And that's the highest chain. So she has
the strongest chain today in hadith. So if
anyone wants to memorize,
had Even today when people they study hadith,
what they do is they memorize from now,
says, who did I study it with? And
who is that who is his person's Sheikh?
That Sheikh, that Sheikh, that Sheikh, going all
the way back to Imam Al Bukhari, going
all the way back to the Prophet sallallahu
alaihi wa sallam.
So the thing is, anyone now who wants
to have the shortest the the shorter the
chain, the stronger it is. Right? So anyone
who wants to have the shortest chain going
back to Imam Al Bukhari, she has he
has to go through Ayesha bint Abdul Hadi.
He has to go through her because between
her and between Imam Al Bukhari, there are
8 people in the chain. And everyone else
in during that time they had 9, 10,
11, 12 people between them. And between Imam
al Bukhari and the Prophet sometimes you have
3, you
have 4, you have 5 or you can
have even you know more than that. So
the thing is the shortest chain, the way
that it's even been preserved today, when we
talk about having a full or
a full chain going back to the prophet
salallahu alaihi wa sallam, we have the sheikha
of hadith here preserving it for us as
well. So if you look at that from
one perspective,
Bukhari in its most authentic form has been
preserved through the intermediary of a woman.
And the Quran in in one sense has
been preserved through the intermediary of a woman
as well. And this is very important to
understand.
Alright? And Imam Az Zahabi mentioned something interesting
about, you know, Quran and Sun and all
of that. He said that there's not ever
been a single hadith that was rejected because
it was narrated by a woman.
There's no hadith that
was ever rejected and said we're not going
to accept this because a woman narrated it.
And then he says something even more interesting.
He says,
I do not know
among the women anyone who has been accused
of lying or whose hadith has been left
for that reason.
Now what does that mean? It means that
in the science of Hadith
people have been classified as being trustworthy narrators,
medium narrators,
you know bad narrators and like liars. So
there's like 8 different main categories you can
put them in. People who are like, you
know, completely they call it. You know, or
imam, or you know someone who's completely reliable.
And then you have someone who's pretty reliable.
And you have someone who's like,
You're like, you know, we can take him.
He's he's okay. Then you have someone who,
you know,
little bit, you know, he has a bad
memory, he makes mistakes sometimes. Then you have
someone under that who's like, matruk, we don't
accept from him. He's really weak.
Or something like that. Then you have 2
on the bottom.
These 2 on the bottom, one of them,
it says, this person has been accused of
lying.
This is person is kazab.
They've been accused. They've been they've been had
the accusation that they're a liar. You don't
take their hadith. Their hadith go into the
realm of not da'if, not weak, but in
the realm of fabricated, moldur.
And then you have somebody under that who
says, these people's hadith has been left completely.
They're known 100%. They're known to fabricate hadith.
And the interesting thing is you don't find
any women
on the bottom two levels.
You find men.
A lot of men. But you don't find
women.
So Sheikh Akram actually sometimes asked a question,
he says, The question then is can men
be trusted? Right? So it's interesting. It's interesting.
This Imam al Zahabi, one of the great
scholars of hadith as well, who also studied
with many women. Okay. Now let's take a
look at one of the the Tabi ayats.
1 of the second generation of women who
came and studied.
She died in 81.
She was a a successor. Meaning, she came
in the generation after the companions.
So she used to make she was a
great scholar by the way. She was really
really renowned. She said,
I have sought worship in everything, and I
did not find anything more relieving to me
than sitting with scholars and exchanging knowledge with
them. So she used to sit down with
all the scholars of the time, and she
used to sit there back and forth and
exchange knowledge with them, and discuss and debate
issues and everything. And in fact,
she was so, you know, knowledgeable and so
respected among the people, 2 of the Khalifas
of her time tried to marry her. And
they proposed and they proposed
and she she said, I'm not interested. She,
you know, she did not get married after
her, you know, her husband. She did not
get married after that, and she continued and
dedicated herself entirely to knowledge. Now, not not
every one of these women by the way
were like that. She was one of the
exceptions. She was a little bit, you could
say a little bit more masculine in her
character because she didn't get married for the,
you know, most part of her life, and
she did not want to get remarried afterwards.
So it's, she was a kind of an
exception. But everyone was interested in her. She
used to teach in the Umayyad Masjid in
Damascus and in Jerusalem.
So she was teaching in the Umayyad Masjid.
These are the the most important Umayyad Masjid
in Damascus and she's teaching in Masjid Al
Aqsa
in Jerusalem. Very very important places. And you
know, today we actually have discussions and debates.
You know what? Are we allowed to have
you know a woman speaker you know for
like a Friday family night or something like
that? Not here Alhamdulillah,
but there are many places where they're debating
this, right? Of course there are some regulations
and you know we keep things,
you know regulated of course, but at the
same time it wasn't considered to be a
major or a big issue that needed a
lot of debate. So if you look at
the Khalifa,
Abdul Malik ibn Marwan. K. He was a
Khalifa at that time. Now I want you
to understand how how much the Muslim empire
had grown in this time.
He ruled from Spain in the west all
the way from to India in the east.
This is the Khalifa of the Muslims
controlling all of that land, one of the
largest empires the world has ever seen.
And he used to attend
the classes, her classes in Damascus on fiqh.
So he used to study with Dar Dada.
He used to be one of the students
in the class. And he says, I want
to learn fiqh, so I'm going to go
learn from the best. And see who's the
best, and he used to attend her classes
as well. So while he was attending his
classes, some interesting things happened.
In Jerusalem one night, one of the students
narrates that Maghrib time came
and it was time for him to lead
the prayer because he's the Khalifa.
So she goes
and she, you know, while he's getting up
she gets up and she was old at
this time now. So she's leaning on him
and he's escorting her into the main area
of the masjid, and then she goes into
the woman's area and he goes to lead
the prayer. Now just Now she's old by
the way so the the touching part was
not more not a major issue. But just
think about that if something like this happened
in today's society.
Imagine what people would be saying. Right? And
we're talking about this is the Khalifa at
that time. Very very different world view. These
are just things from history that we find
which took place.
The woman who used to try and worship
with her, they used to try and pray
along with her, they couldn't stand anymore. They
tried to, you know, keep up with her
prayer, they couldn't take it anymore. So whoever
wanted to pray with Darda, this is showing
you she's not just a scholar who just,
you know, reads a lot. She was a
worshiper as well. She used to pray. And
the woman couldn't keep up with her, so
they used to lean on ropes just to
be able to keep up with her because
she reads prayer for such a long time.
This shows you her piety and it shows
you her knowledge and her understanding of what
to focus on.
So one incident was
where people, they began to accompany
on one of these journeys. They used to
always try and go around her, follow her.
Men and women, they were always students who
were trying to follow her, be in her
company, learn something from her. So one time
she was on a journey,
And one man, he came and he joined
the group a little bit later.
So she looked at this man and she
saw him. So this man is he's not
doing anything. All of her students were on
a strict schedule. You're either reading Quran, or
you're making zikr, or you're doing some studying,
or something like that. So this man, he's
not doing anything. So she said, you know,
what is stopping you from reciting the Quran
and remembering Allah as your other companion? The
people around you, they're all doing it. Why
aren't you doing it?
The man responded,
I only memorized 1 surah of the Quran,
and I've repeated it so often. I've repeated
it so many times. I let it go.
So this is her she is looking at
this guy. She says,
is the Quran let go? I mean, can
you let go of the Quran?
She said, I will not keep company with
you. I don't want you to be here.
Either you're gonna go ahead or you're gonna
stay behind. Get out of my sight. I
don't want you in our company anymore. And
the man, he mounted his camel and he
left.
That shows you the power and the authority
that she had. It shows you the type
of character and the authority that she has.
People wanted to be in her company. And
if she doesn't want you to be in
your in her company, you're gonna you're gonna
get out. You don't have any authority, you
don't have any right to dictate what happens.
The khalifa again, Abdul Malik ibn Marwan. Remember,
this is the khalifa who rules
huge, probably probably the biggest empire the world
has ever seen.
He invited her to his house as a
guest to stay. So she stayed obviously in
a separate room and everything.
At nighttime one night,
he woke up in the middle of the
night and he called his servant over there
too. Maybe, you know, maybe he wanted some
water, maybe he had a bad dream, he
wanted, I don't know, some entertainment, whatever it
was. Right?
So the servant came a little bit late,
and he started cursing the servant, you know,
how dare you do this and dare. He
started yelling and screaming a little bit. The
next morning when they woke up, she met
him again. She told him a hadith. Now
she she's rebuking him. She's rebuking the Khalifa
and saying, you know, I heard I heard
what happened last night. I heard you saying.
And remember the hadith. The Prophet sallallahu alaihi
wa sallam said, the cursors
will not be intercessors
of,
or witnesses on the day of judgment.
Whoever curses
or whoever, you know, you know, does these
kind of things, they will not have a
special position on the day of judgment. So
she's rebuking and she's speaking up to the
Khalifa
of that time.
Just think about that. Very very important status
and a very important situation.
Let's go a little bit forward and look
at Amra bint Abdul Rahman ibn Sa'ad ibn
Zurara. Sa'ad ibn Zurara by the way is
one of the important companions of the Prophet
salallahu alaihi wa sallam. She died in the
year 103.
She was a student of Aisha,
Radiallahu Anha, the companion. The wife of the
Prophet salallahu alaihi wa sallam. And she was
the best student of Aisha.
So she was a Faqihah and she was
a Muhadeetha. She was a specialist in the
field of fiqh, Islamic law, and she was
a specialist in the field of hadith as
well.
Now the Khalifa, Umar ibn Abdul Aziz, in
in the year 99 when he became Khalifa,
he announced publicly
to all the scholars.
Imagine this coming from the Khalifa. He said,
if you want to learn hadith,
you go to Amra.
Anyone who really wants to learn properly, go
to Amra. State decree.
State decree. If you really want to learn,
you go to her. Right? So there people
used to go to her. Imam al Zuhri,
who is one of the, you know, very
famous
people who helped document hadith. One of the
earliest scholars who was charged by the Islamic
State to begin writing down and documenting hadith
and compiling them into volumes.
He was told by one of his teachers.
He said one of his teachers came to
him and he said, I see, my boy,
that you are greedy for knowledge. You're really
passionate about knowledge.
Should I not inform you of the vessel
of knowledge?
Where can you get this knowledge from? He
said, go and stick to Amra for she
was under the guardianship of Aisha.
So Imam Azuhri, he went to go and
study with Amra and he said, then I
came to her and I found her not
to be a vessel.
I found her to be an ocean and
its water never dries up. She had so
much knowledge. Every time you try and say
something in front of her, she has more
knowledge than you. That's how she was being
described.
Right? And then the interesting thing about Amra
is we're talking about not just knowledge,
but her
her status and her position of power in
front of the other men who were also
scholars at the time. So the judge of
Medina at that time, he was very famous
judge, Abu Bakr ibn Muhammad ibn Amir ibn
Hazm.
Okay. Not ibn Hazm and Andalusi but a
very very important early judge in Medina.
He was, during one incident,
he was holding an Nafti who was a
Christian who came from Syria
who had stolen some iron rings from the
prison that he was in. So he was
holding that person, you know, as in custody.
And he was about to issue the decree
that this person's hand should be cut off
because he stole. So a thief, the penalty
is that you have to cut off the
person's hand. So as soon as Amra found
out about it now here's the thing,
you have,
you know, at this time you have what
are known as the 7 famous,
fuqaha, the 7 famous jurists of Madinah.
Very, very famous jurists living in Madinah. They're
specialists in the field of fiqh as well.
No one made any other comment.
Nobody said anything because this judge had this
high position. No one said anything. Umrah, somehow
she found out about this ruling. Meaning she
was she was aware of what's taking place
in the society.
And she sent her messenger, Umayyah,
and with a message
in public. And they said, Are you about
to cut this guy's hand off? I said,
Yes. Said, Your judgment is wrong. Your judgment
is wrong because the value of what he
stole does not equal a quarter dinar. And
according to the prophet salallahu alayhi wasalam, according
to this hadith that I have on the
authority of maybe Aisha or whoever else it
was, you're not allowed to cut this hand.
Immediately that judge instead of questioning him, instead
of questioning her, or going and saying, you
know what? I have to consult with the
other scholars of Madinah. Or you know what?
I have to think about it for a
while.
Immediately he let that person go and this
is documented in the Muwata of Imam Malik.
It shows you the status. This is the
top judge of Madinah.
Amra goes and gives one statement,
you're not going to do this. Immediately he
said, you know what? You're right. I'm sorry.
I'm wrong. Change my mind.
This is the this is the status that
they had. Right? So this is we're talking
still 2nd early 2nd century here. Let's move
a little bit forward. Fatima bin Ibrahim bin
Johar, another great scholar. This is just a
random person I'm bringing up, but 7th, 8th
century here. She was a teacher of Imam
Az Zahabi. She was a teacher of Imam
Az Subqi, and she used to teach them
Sahih al Bukhari as well as a ton
of other books as well. Anyone who knows
these scholars realize how how important, you know,
they are.
When she went for Hajj,
she went to Makkah to perform the pilgrimage.
She was invited to teach inside the Prophet's
Masjid, inside Masjid al Nabi. Right? And while
she was teaching, because she was getting a
little bit old, she used to lean against
the grave of the Prophet salallahu alaihi wa
sallam, and she used to teach hadith. So
she's teaching Bukhari, she's teaching Muslim, and she's
leaning against the grave of the Prophet salallahu
alaihi wa sallam. No one is questioning her.
And when she was done, she used to
go and personally hand write the ijazah or
what's known as like the degree. And you
who attended my class use your certificate to
every single student and hand it to them
personally.
And now today we all we we we
ask ourselves the question, you know, should we
actually allow the women
inside the masjid?
Inside any masjid. Should there even be a
prayer space for them? And we look at,
you know, we look at Fatima here. She's
teaching
inside the masjid of the prophet salallahu alaihi
wa sallam, and she's leaning against the grave
of the prophet salallahu alaihi wa sallam. And
no one is saying anything. And this is
not a time of decadence.
This is not a time of Muslim decadence
where they had lost their, you know, character
or something like that. So it's very important
that we understand, you know, some of these
things.
Fatima bin Saad Al Khayr.
I threw her in because she's an interesting
person who traveled a lot. And it's interesting
to see how women used to travel for
knowledge as well. Usually, we talk about men,
how they traveled for knowledge and where they
went and all of that. She's just one
example. There's so many, but I'm just giving
you one example because someone had already prepared
a map. So I can use that map
inshallah.
So her father was a scholar
from Valencia.
Where is Valencia?
Spain. Right? So in Muslim Spain, her father
was a scholar. And at that time, around
this time, the, you know, inquisition, you know,
the Christians
were kind of taking over some of the
lands, pressure was being put against, you know,
Muslims who were living there. So he moved
to China.
Now imagine that. He moved from Spain
all the way traveling to China.
There was no airplanes.
Right? They're traveling. So while he's traveling from
Spain to China, he was already a scholar.
He said, you know what? On the way,
let's go ahead and study
and stop by in all the lands where
there's a lot of scholarship. So he stopped
by in Damascus and he studied there, and
he had a lot of daughters. He had
a son later on, but he had a
lot of daughters with him. So his daughters
he would make sure that his daughters were
going and studying as well. Right? He had
several daughters. All of them were studying with
the father while they were traveling. So they
would study in Bukhara, and they would study
in Samarkand. They would go and study in
Damascus, and they would go and study every
place that they would stop by while they're
traveling. They would stop there for a while
and they would start studying.
And he would encourage not encourage he would
go and enroll them in the school and
make sure that all of his daughters were
studying as well. So today we kind of
look at we think that, you know what,
studies are something new, something that just started
in the 20th century or in the 19th
century, that now the parents are sending their,
you know, girls to school and all of
that. This is not something that's new.
It's not something that just came up or
something like that. We have to know our
own history. So they were going and studying,
and then they finally reached all the way
into China.
So they settled in China all the way
in, you know, Western China obviously, but from
the Muslim Muslim empire
all the way in the east somewhere.
So she actually began studying when she was
very, very young. And she started traveling. She
started, you know, studying. So for example, she
heard, Imam
in the year 529.
Now this is what's interesting here. She was
born in the year 5/22.
She studied Imam
in the year 5/29. How old was she?
7. 7 years old.
If you know this book,
today, scholars who try and study this book,
this is an advanced advanced book which is
taught like at the masters level in hadith.
This is not some random book. And she's
starting at a very young age. She heard
Al Khatib al Baghdadi's Jami Le Akhlaq Rahwi.
Another very very advanced book also in the
year 529.
And what's really interesting
is that
these universities and these schools that were teaching
all of these subjects, they used to keep
a roster sheet.
And those rosters of all the students that
were attending and who was listening to which
book and who studied which books are still
preserved today.
They're still preserved. So you can go and
take them and you can see that in
this year, in fact, we even know the
month. The month that she finished these books.
I just didn't write it down for the
sake of space. You know the month and
the year in which she completed this and
which she actually studied with. And we have
these documents. And where are these documents? These
documents are in random libraries. In Morocco,
in Istanbul,
Top Copy Museum,
in Cairo,
in different places. And they were in Baghdad.
They were
in Baghdad,
unfortunately.
Until the vast majority of them were either
destroyed in the recent war, if you can
call it a war, or they were or
they were stolen, they were looted, they were
pillaged, and we're losing our history. And in
fact, one of my teachers from from Jeddah,
he he he mentioned an interesting thing. He's
a specialist in history. His PhD is in
history.
And he said,
out of all the things that Muslims have
produced,
we've lost
90%
of all of the past books. We've lost
90% of our heritage.
So how did we lose it? He said
90% is gone completely. We don't know what
happened to it. He said 2.5%
has been,
published in forms.
K? And we have about 5, I think
he mentioned 5% or something. 5% has been
published or it's been edited in manuscript form.
And the other 5% of that, the history
that we have all those imagine all those
books that have been written. Everything we know
about our past,
they're sitting in, you know, libraries
in manuscript form that we don't even know
what to do with them. We don't have
specialists
in the field who can even read and
understand what's going on.
And here's the thing about manuscripts.
What happens with manuscripts, these are very old,
these are 1000 year old manuscripts. So they're
made of like, you know, they're written on
different types of paper and all of that.
People go into the library not knowing anything,
you know. Who do you, put in the
library?
Everyone is going into medical school and modern
universities and all of that. So the guys
who work in the library, they're paid like
peanuts.
They're like less than minimum wage employees. So
they walk in there, they say, Oh, look.
We found this great collection. So they'll go
and they try to open it and they'll
try and start reading. And what ends up
with the ancient manuscript when you open it
up, it's going to fall apart completely and
it's gone. You've lost the order.
You've lost what what it meant. It's it's
destroyed completely because you don't know how to
deal with the manuscript. And even if it
didn't get destroyed, they can't even read it.
They can't even read the script that's there.
So these manuscripts are sitting in different libraries
in Marrakesh, in Morocco, in throughout North Africa,
throughout Egypt. Egypt is documenting a little bit
more Syria, you know, Turkey, Istanbul.
All of these things are sitting in libraries
undocumented, you know, manuscripts that are just there.
And he says, one of my the same
teacher, Sheikh Musa Sharif, he said, I was
traveling in Northern Africa, and I went to
some places. And in Northern Africa, they have
like,
you know, when you go to like a
carnival or something like that, they sell you
like peanuts.
Like, you know, we got peanuts and we
got cotton candy and all of that stuff.
And what do some of them do? When
they roll the cotton candy, you know the
thing they put newspapers?
They roll it, and they when they put
the peanuts you know, many third world countries
you go there. Right? They put the peanuts
in like a newspaper that was made into
a little bag, and you put your peanuts
in there and you go in. So what
are they doing? They're taking
those manuscripts.
Maybe 5 100, 600, 800 year old manuscript
from the libraries,
and they're wrapping them up, and they're putting
the peanuts in there, and they're selling them
for like whatever. Nothing.
That's what's happening to our heritage. That's what's
happening to our history. Because we're not giving
it attention. Because we don't value it.
And we find that some of the best
and most preserved manuscripts are where?
Harvard, Princeton, Yale,
Oxford, Cambridge. Why? Because they value it.
They value our history more than we value
our own history. Because we're losing it. Because
we didn't care. Because we didn't care about
education. We only cared about, you know, other
stuff. And this is a problem. We need
to revive this. So, anyways, that was
just a tangent.
But here, Fatima,
she heard the entire Mu'ajam al Kabir by
Imam Tabirani,
and she hired the she heard the entire
Mu'ajam al Sahir by Imam Tabirani
from Fatima al Juzdaniyah.
Now if you know if you've ever heard
Mu'jam al Kabir has been recently,
published
in 37 volumes.
And I can almost guarantee you
that you can barely find a scholar who's
ever even read the entire book.
Let alone studied in detail. And the interesting
thing about this book, it's a very very
important book. It's full of ahadith.
Very some very strong ahadith in there as
well. So this Majamal Kabir by Imam At
Tabarani
was only preserved until this day through the
chains
of women.
So Fatima Aljuzdaniyah
taught Fatima bin Saad Al Khair and she
taught some other students later on. And only
women had preserved it, and then men kind
of took it up again. So there was
a break in the chain. So you have
to go through them, they were preserved they
were preserving. Meaning, they were not only learning,
they were teaching amongst themselves as well. This
is something interesting, but here's a map
of her travels.
Okay? So if you look at the travels,
she was coming from the east. If you
look at the arrow going down from the
right side, she came back from China. On
her travels after she had arrived in China,
she came back down, she was going through
Samarkand, going through Bukhara,
going all the way through Nisapur, to Rey.
She was going all the way all around.
These are her her travels that she was
taking place in. And every single major Muslim
women scholar, you'll find the same map for
them. That they would travel to this land,
and they studied hadith. They traveled to this
land, They were all we know about like
we know like Imam Bukhari traveled, and we
see the story of his life and everything.
He said, Masha'Allah, he traveled so much. There
were all these other scholars were traveling, and
they were traveling everywhere. They were all over
the place
in order to go and seek knowledge. And
today what do we find?
Today we find that we want the knowledge
to come to us.
So we say, you know what? If we
have a class over here, can you come
and teach this class in our Masjid? Because
no one wants to drive 20 minutes to
your Masjid.
This is what's happening. We no. We don't
want to drive over there. Can you come
to our MSA? Because,
they don't really want to drive over there,
you know, into your other city. And sometimes
as traffic, it takes 30 minutes
or 40 minutes. Or can we have something
else? You know, we don't really have that
much time. It would be so nice if
you could come and, you know, when we
talk about Quran.
So you know, we have great Quran classes
in the masjid. No. You know what? I
want a private teacher who can kind of
come at my convenience, like a kind of
drive through type drive through type of thing,
you know. I want you to come to
my house, and you teach on my schedule,
and you teach my one kid, so you
can focus on them, and then you can
go ahead and drive. And there are some
exceptional circumstance, I understand. But we become too
comfortable.
We look at how they were studying. If
you're serious about knowledge, or you're serious about
not even becoming a specialist, just learning your
deen, there's some travel that's required, there's some
effort that's required. These people were making this
effort. And many of these women were making
this effort. So last thing I'll conclude with
insha'Allah
is that
even there was no there was no shame
when, you know, husbands were even learning from
their own wives. And that's something that we
find today. So I'll just give you two
examples which I find are very interesting.
Hisham ibn Arwa ibn Zubayr.
He was the teacher of Imam Abu Hanifa,
and he was the teacher of Imam Malik.
So you can get an idea of how
important this guy is. Right? So
the best ahadith which are found in him
He's a narrator in Bukhari and Muslim. The
best ahadith which are found in Bukhari and
Muslim through his line, they were narrated through
his wife Fatima bint Munzir. So he used
to go and get the chain from his
wife so that he could elevate his chain
and then they were preserved in Bukhari and
Muslim. There was no issue in saying, you
know what? Why should I go to my
wife and get it? Right? I should report
it for myself. There was no conception like
that. And the last story I'll I'll conclude
with is Imam al Kasani. Okay? Imam al
Kasani, he wrote one of the great Hanafi,
books
called Badayu Sanaha'i
It's about 8 or 9 volumes published today.
It's a really big book and it's a
beautiful book.
He actually married his teacher's daughter. Aladin al
Samarqani was his teacher. He wrote a book
called Tafatul Fuqaha, 3 volume book, also in
fiqh.
He married the daughter of his teacher Aladdin
as Samarkandi.
Now the students reported one interesting incident.
So while Imam al Qasani, he was studying,
he's teaching in his study circles, you know,
all of his students are there. Imagine he's
a very popular imam. All of the people
are studying there, and then they go and
they ask him a very difficult question.
And he says, you know, I don't know
the answer. That's a very good question.
So you know, I'll get back to you.
So he goes home.
Right? As soon as he goes home, he
comes back, and he has the answer immediately.
He said, man, this guy is good. Later
on, they kept on asking him something else.
He doesn't know the answer. He goes back
home, and he comes back. They said, man,
this guy must have an amazing library at
home. Like, he has this organized library where
he can just go and find the answer
right there.
Later on, they found out, you know, something
is weird, what's going on? They found out
he used to just go home, and he
used to ask his wife.
Because his wife was the daughter of his
teacher, Al Adim and
she was more knowledgeable than him. So he
would go back to the masjid and give
the answer from his wife. Right?
So the thing is, today
Tell me if you have or have not
heard this,
is that somebody,
a woman who has a bachelor's degree,
should not be married to a man who
does not have a bachelor's degree. And a
woman who has a master's degree should not
be married to a man who has a
bachelor's degree because that means that her education
is higher than his. Who has heard this
before?
Right. About 50%. Right? This is becoming so
common because we feel that we can't learn
these type of things. We feel that these
things are not, you know,
our perception
on education and our perception on women and
education
has been altered but it's not been altered
in line with our own Islamic history.
Often time it's been altered in line with
our own,
you know, misconceptions that we have or foreign
traditions which are antithetical to Islam.
So that's pretty much what I wanted to
present. This is a very basic overview about
a little bit about women and education. And
the important thing to remember as Sheikh Akram
mentions in the beginning of his book, he
says
that
Western feminism
asks one,
has one very interesting premise
which we don't accept. And that premise is,
if men can do it,
then so can women.
Why can't women do it as well? So
if the men are able to do it,
then the women should be able to do
it as well. That was not the point
of this lecture.
The point of this lecture is not if
men can go and study fit and become
a specialist, then why can't women do it
as well? If men can go and become
specialist in hadith, then why can't women? If
men can narrate hadith, then why can't women?
The problem with question in western feminism is
you'd never ask the question the other way
around.
You don't say that if women can do
it, then why can't men? If women can
raise this, then why can't men? If women
can breastfeed, then why can't men? If women
can, you know, have children, then why can't
men? The thing is because
there's an intrinsic
mistaken notion here. And the mistaken notion is
that the domestic life
is inferior
to the public or civic life that men
are leading.
It's intrinsically
considered to be inferior. Therefore women have to
somehow become in the same role like these
men in order to gain some sense of
self worth.
And that is a problem.
And Sheikh Akram gives a beautiful explanation. He
says, These women who were studying,
they were not trying to prove anything to
anybody.
They were not trying to prove to the
men, we can do it if you can
do it. They were not trying to say,
If you don't if you can study fit,
then we can study fit as well. They
were only doing it
because
of their love for the deen, and they're
wanting to learn learn and know about Islam.
That was it. Their motivation and their desire
to study Islam in order to please Allah
Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala was the sole reason and
the primary
driving force behind why they were doing this
in the 1st place. So Insha'Allah ta'ala, I
hope and I pray, we ask Allah subhanahu
wa ta'ala that we can rectify
our own misconceptions that we have about Islam
and Islamic history. We ask Allah subhanahu wa
ta'ala to teach us more about our own
history and about what he actually has, you
know, decreed for us and the true teachings
of the prophet Muhammad Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam. Subhanahu
rabbika rabbil 'Aisi amayasifoon wa salamu alaal mursaleen
walhamdulillahi rabbil 'Aalameen. Shal, I think we have
time for maybe a few minutes of questions,
if anyone has
any questions.
Good question. So how did this tradition die
out? Technically,
the tradition has not completely died out. There
are still women scholars
in some parts of the world.
But what ended up happening, I think it's
it's severely gone down.
Not just women,
but scholarship
in general has gone down. And because of
that, I feel that the women scholarship has
gone down and certain perceptions about women have
also been have also you know caused some
of these problems. The perceptions regarding women has
become people have become hyper masculine
that's one problem and that's resulted in you
know women having a different status.
Another thing is western feminism
has created a new type
of, you know, Muslim women scholar.
A very different type in trying to prove
a point to other people that we can
do whatever you can do. So you find
nowadays that Muslim women scholars who are scholars
in different fields for example,
many of them are trying to prove some
point to somebody else in order to show
that our life is, you know,
we're not just into the domestic life. We're
more we can do what you're able to
do. And, you know, we have to show
you that we, you know, we are able
to achieve this. We're able to achieve this.
So their perception of knowledge has changed as
well. I think there's many many factors, but
I think these are some of them. InshaAllah.
Insha'Allah.
So and, make dua that we're able to
revive this scholarship. And just a quick note,
if you look, look at the little logo
here in the corner, it says, College of
Islamic Studies. See, we're trying to revive that
insha'Allah. If you haven't heard about the College
of Islamic Studies, go to
iioc.com/cis,
and learn about the College of Islamic Studies.
Our next quarter starts April 30th. That's coming
up. Registration is about to be open next
week inshallah, and we're gonna be teaching 4
new classes. They're trying to revive this scholarship.
It's not just scholarship. We're trying to revive
what every Muslim actually needs to know about
their own religion. So please join us, Insha'Allah.