Riyadh al-Saliheen and Women’s Q&A #13

This one I have been hammering out Amin salatu salam

Rosaleen, Davina will put once in a Mohammed Allah He offers solo as good listening, Aloha Island that'd be my inverno and fatten them.

Out of that

new day new Hadith, we have reached the 10 Hadith and the first chapter. And there are only 12 Hadith in this chapter. So we're almost to the end.

Our chapter is on sincerity.

And today we have a hadith that was narrated by Marina on the Allahu Anhu. We already talked extensively about his biography about his validity and reliability as a narrator despite some doubts from certain orientalists and that means we can get right into the effects of the Hadith. So Abu Huraira may Allah be pleased with him, said that the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam said, the reward for prayer, Salah,

the five daily prayers performed by a person in congregation is more than 20 times greater than that of the Salah performed in one's house or shop.

When one performs will do perfectly, and then proceeds to the MSG, with the sole intention of performing salah.

Then for every step he takes toward the mastery, he is upgraded, one degree in reward and one of his sins is eliminated until he enters the mastery. And when he enters the MSG, he is considered as being in the Salah.

He's in the state of prayer

as long as it the reason that he is there is the Salah as long as he's waiting around the for the prayer, and the thing that's holding him back from leaving the machine is the prayer.

The angels continue to supplicate a law

on his behalf, as long as he remains in his place of prayer.

They say oh Allah have mercy on him. Oh ALLAH forgive his sins. Oh Allah accept his repentance. This will carry on as long as he does not break his will.

The main takeaway from this hadith is that

prayer in congregation

is better than praying alone.

Which is something that all of you have probably heard before.

The question I'd like to pose

is that does this how it

applies to everybody?

Or does it only apply to men?

Does it apply to men alone? Or does it apply to men and women?

And

why?

Let's see what our

female scholars inshallah

or future female scholars of our community have to say

mashallah

that's a really nice

cop out

I have the same question. Good. Well, then

you've abdicated Okay.

As one of the sisters says I believe that applies to all but culturally

it seems to apply to men only.

Okay.

Another says it says prayers of a man but I'm not sure if the grammar is correct read correctly okay. So we can go to the Arabic

Yes, in the Arabic

in the Arabic it says a solid.

Solid so much module li

fi Jenna Argent has Edo Allah sadati. He is ope while bathing

based on Shireen Adalja.

So the text of this particular Hadith

says

exclusively men

why would

The reward

of praying

in the congregation, which is in the message to

be more for men than it would be for women.

What possible wisdom could there be behind that?

On the assumption that this is that this is true that this 20 times

discount

bonus, let's say for example, on the argument that it is only for men

what could the potential wisdom behind that be?

Okay, we have it could be unfair to women.

Okay, both similar answers, okay? Because women tend to have responsibilities at home,

and responsibilities with the children. And so if a law were making this reward, specifically tied to the machine, for the women, then it would kind of be dangling something in front of them that would create a conflict or a conflict of interest. Or it might be difficult or women might feel bad because a lot of them can't get to that reward

that's very good. I liked that answer.

There's another Hadith a good question. So the women still get the rewards, meaning if they stay at home

there's another Hadith of the Prophet Mohammed Salah setup where he says specifically, and it's beautiful Subhanallah you know, sometimes you come across a hadith where the Prophet SAW Salem

and answers something or says something that covers all bases.

Right? Which is particularly nice because sometimes you know, people take things out of context or they don't

reconcile one Hadith with another

so the prophesy said um, he said, don't forbid women from coming to the restroom

that's a command or a prohibition technically.

And then he said and their houses meaning prayer in their houses

is better for them.

So,

if prayer for them

is better in their more rewardable in their houses than it is in the masjid?

Is it possible that they are getting this intention or assuming getting this reward? By praying in their houses?

Yes, it is.

Yes, it is.

Similarly to how we have different standards or expectations when it comes to the lines of prayer,

right, we have for the men, it is more rewardable to be in the front.

Whereas, let's say in the messy it's more affordable

to be in the back

right.

There can be different expectations or different will reward attached to

each gender where they perform that perhaps

there can be

prayer can be more affordable for men in the messy

and less rewardable at home.

And the prayer can be more affordable for women at home and less so

in the restroom.

However, this Hadith also has two parts to it.

Right? So we have the first part

which is addressed to men, which was pointed out in Arabic consent. So that's what was really okay. And that's about the 20 times okay. Then if there's a

break

or the problems I said them, he says what Annika and I had at home,

either to what the other accident will do.

And he talks about the whole process of going through. So the next question is all the other things the prophets Allah He was that I mentioned.

Does that apply to men?

only for men and women as well.

This, it's less clear.

If a woman makes will go in her home, and that leaves for example with her husband goes to the machine,

attends the prayer in congregation with the women.

Inshallah, everything else still applies to her as well when it comes to the angels and

all of these things

one of the important parts of so we have here, we have something that's between two extremes, and one of the sisters mentioned this about cultural. Right? I'll qualify a couple things here because we have the texts of the Hadith. It's significant to me, that the first thing that Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam said, is, this is the other Hadith that we're not going over right now, but it's related, don't prevent the women from the messenger

if the prophets always spelled it out, so clearly,

do you think it is likely that he was addressing

a tendency that some people were going to have or already had,

when it comes to trying to

control or limit women's attendance of the minister?

Yes, it was addressing a reality.

That was a reality that and is a reality now

that it is forbidden to prevent women from coming to the masjid.

And at the same time, the Prophet salallahu Salam encouraged them

to conduct their prayers at home.

Now, we have to say a couple other things about this.

Putting this hadith in context now, okay.

This situation

assumes a dichotomy,

right? It assumes that we are

choosing between two options,

the home or the mystery.

What if the reality of the situation,

the way most people maybe live their lives is that we're not necessarily choosing between the home and the machine, but we're choosing between the mall and the mesquite

or outside in some other place in the restroom.

Right.

This is speaking to some of the cultural attitude that one of the sisters is bringing up.

Sometimes

men in a community

do discourage women

from going to the messy whether for prayer for other reasons.

Without realizing

that, in reality,

they are not

influencing them to stay at home or like they thought they were they are turning them out to other places that are even worse for them.

Such as the malls such as

other sorts of venues.

It also doesn't take into account

the nature of

in 2020 and the United States of America, how Islamic education happens.

The time of the Prophet salallahu Alaihe Salam and the time of the companions.

The female companions had female scholars to go to

and they could avail themselves of those female scholars whenever they wish.

Or they could attend lessons in person they could have access to people that could answer their questions that could teach them their religion, in the privacy of their own homes without having to do any

is that the situation that we find in many Muslim communities in

North America today.

Regretfully, it's not

regretfully you have a couple people, a handful of people in a community that are capable of providing qualified religious programming and for the most part that religious programming is happening in the messenger.

So

when it comes to Hadith like this, of course this is an authentic hadith in Sahih Muslim as zakat, Makati

when it comes to the other worldly rewards of the prayer, yes 100% truth, this is common. This is something that is a theological truth.

However, we also have to put it in context with other

goals

and concerns of the scenario

such as Islamic education, such as Quranic literacy, such as the environment you're able to raise your children in.

So nobody can use

these sorts of Hadith as a cudgel

to keep women

out of the masjid, or their children out of the mess up.

And so they remain ignorant of their religion. And so this becomes an intergenerational problem, which is honestly the situation that we find ourselves in today.

So we talked about the burden that it might pose on women, if the reward had been the same for women,

to pray in the masjid, and quickly in the one minute remaining for this segment of the class, we'll just talk about what's the positive thing that's happening

for the men? Why is what are some of the aspects of wisdom behind getting the men in the messy together, and particularly

one of those things is having accountability.

Right?

When you're unknown,

you are less likely to fulfill the rights of other people. We see this on Twitter, anybody who's on Twitter,

somebody is a random person.

They don't feel bad, using abusive language to you, harming you and your reputation at all. However, if you're face to face with that person, there's sort of there's more accountability, and so people behave better.

We can also draw an analogy between how people act in cars versus how people act with shopping carts. Right? Especially,

maybe not here, because in America, people tend to draw to drive fairly politely. But in the Middle East, for example, in Medina, I can speak specifically from Medina.

Nobody would act in a grocery store, with their shopping carts the way they do on the street with their cars. People are extremely aggressive

when it comes to driving their cars, cutting people off winning, weaving in and out of traffic,

falling closely behind tailgating people trying to get them to speed up. Nobody, the vast majority of people would not do such a thing with their shopping carts in the grocery store, that taking away the glass and the distance creates more accountability. And so the more that the men are together, and they see each other and know each other, the more accountability they feel towards each other.

Also, studies show that women tend to be more religious than men.

In families, usually, women care more about their religion, their faith than men do. And so requiring the men to be in a single place to pray,

is also establishing a different type of accountability, where they are accountable for their worship.

Right, everybody is observing who made it to the prayer and who didn't. And there were expectations that the companion the male companions have for each other, and they would hold each other accountable with according to those expectations.

Finally, because of some of the financial aid that has to happen between families, some of the knowledge that has to do with

potential spouses or children and things like this, these are all reasons why it's encouraged to

have the men

either as often as possible in the mesh sheet

to make the prayer together, because when they are, together, these sorts of conversations and these sorts of things can happen. Everybody is known to each other. So when something goes wrong, the community can step up and fill in. And a lot is best. Good. Okay, so that's the Hadith section of the of the class and if anybody has any questions

okay, so we have one comment. In all seriousness, I was truly wondering about women being allowed in the mystery, because of the Convert is very confusing. I have stories that are both amusing and frustrating.

I'm certain that you do.

I am glad that that was that you found that clarifying?

Even myself, when it comes to

I'm not going to

throw anyone under the bus, but even

establishing the small place that we have now. And keeping the door unlocked and all these little things to make sure that nobody feels turned away.

is even a struggle. From my side. There are certain forces, some of them are active, some of them more forces of inertia.

Right? Usually, when it comes to the system is it's a, it's an afterthought. Oh, what are we going to do about the systems? Right, and this is a, this is a chronic problem in Muslim communities all over North America. And this is something that we have to fix. And we could do a whole series of classes on what should be done about that. But it's good to bring, you know, we have to talk about these things, right? If we don't talk about them, then they have power over us. And that as a suffocating power. If we start to talk about it, then we can work towards solutions. Because you know, nobody's perfect. I make mistakes, you all make mistakes, everybody makes mistakes. And so

everybody has a blind spot. And our attitudes of community should be, Hey, have you thought about doing it this way? Let's try this. And then if it sounds good, and it meets the goals of the city, then we should be doing that thing.

Good. Okay. So we were in the fifth of marriage, America. And so we were talking about the essentials, I had a really good text message someone sent me I'm not even sure who sent it to me. But they had tried to tell their daughters or their nieces or something about this section of the class. And they were like,

you know, women's rights or responsibilities in marriage. And the young ladies kind of even

told us told off their mamas that I don't understand why we have to be told about they assumed that we were talking about like all the things that the women have to do

in marriage, all their kind of like responsibilities and stuff like that.

And so they were like, what's the point? It's like when men are usually the ones who are crossing the limits, and transgressing the bounds.

And so she was like, the assistant was like, What should I tell them? I said, you know, you should tell her that our primary focus here is empowering women with what are their rights in the city, so that they're not taken advantage of, because they cannot rely on men to act, right?

You shouldn't Yes, in a perfect world, all the men would act exactly according to the city and there would be no oppression. But that's not the world we live in.

Men take advantage of women all the time, every religion, every continent every day, every second. And so the quickest way to write this situation, is for me to sit with the women and tell them what they need to know about their rights, so that no one takes advantage of them. And then I have a separate audience with the men and tell them what they need to be doing differently. Right. So this is the spirit in which we've been proceeding with the fifth of marriage, we talked about what to do before marriage, we talked about slowing down, and that it's not a requirement for Congress to get married. And this is a

really bad thing that is forced on a lot of converts. As soon as you get married. It's like, Well, hey, let's get you hitched. I do not recommend that Congress get married within the first two to three years of converting, except in extraordinary circumstances. Maybe they were already married or something like that.

But General, you're changing everything about your life. And so

you know, you need to kind of let the dust settle and find out who you are. So he talked about the ruling of marriage. It's not an obligation for women to get married. Don't let anybody tell you that it is. Okay. I mean, right. There are exceptional circumstances but that's

The default rule we talked about the three things that have to be present for a marriage contract to be valid.

Who can tell them who can tell me what they are?

Guardianship Yes.

dowry? Yes.

Witness Yes. Excellent good. Guardianship dowry witness. Each of these is a mechanism The city has placed to protect with the guardianship, the institution of guardianship is there to protect women from deceitful men.

Okay.

We talked about who the Guardian is, if the father and other male relatives,

we talked about when the Guardian is needed and when he's not, okay. According to a strong opinion, The Guardian is not needed with a woman who has failed, who has sexual experience, whether that's from a marriage or some other some other

form.

And how even the bigger the woman without sexual experience does require a guardian to have a valid marriage contract, we talked about the limits of that guardians power,

which the city of places, the guardian does not have absolute control, it still has to go through the permission and agree at the agreements of the of the bride, she is able to refuse the marriage when it comes to

the actual proposal. Okay. We also talked about dealing with the Guardian when it comes to two extremes. So we can imagine to two extremes a guardian could fall into a guardian could be oppressive, in the sense that he's never going to let or try to prevent or sabotage his daughter from getting married. In which case we talked about how

the Sharia says that his guardianship is not absolute, it can be removed.

And the prophets of Allah holiday was salam. He actually said that if a man comes calling for your daughter, and you like his Konak, his his his matters, his upbringing, and you like his Deen, then marry and he uses Zhu Zhu. He says with a command then marry your daughter to that man. Then he says, Do you want there to be corruption on earth?

Right, so there's a threat from the province of the likes of them to a guardian figure who abuses his guardianship to prevent or sabotage

his daughter from getting married.

Okay, so that's the one extreme and that can be taken away from him that guardianship passed on to a different male relative or even go to the man or this Athan depending on the scenario. Okay. So there's the other extreme

where a guardian could try to marry his daughter off to somebody who is not suitable.

Okay. And we talked about how the kind of mechanism that the city places in order to prevent this is the removal, the permission or the acceptance, consent, better word of the woman. Good.

Back over here real quickly, what are the valid conditions or the valid situation in which a guardian can refuse a proposal? Okay, so we have this one extreme where the Guardians refusing everything, because he just can't stand the idea of his daughter getting married, and that's oppression. But what are legitimate grounds that a guardian can turn down a marriage proposal for his inexperienced

daughter? The scholars agree that if there is an unsuitability, this is the concept of kappa. There's an unsuitability of religiosity. Okay, so the daughter prays the the room doesn't pray

refuse valid, that is a valid refuse.

Right. Um, and we talked about the others, like so what if it's a difference of

ethnicity, or race? We talked about how the stronger opinion is that that is not a valid criteria to refuse a proposal. We talked about economic situation and how that pretty much split the different legal schools down the middle, if the Guardian could refuse based off of

economic means, right? Or not. And then the

and then that was pretty much it. That was it as far as the idea of kappa or suitability. Today, we're going to talk about the dowry.

Okay, so we're crossing over from number one, which is guardianship into number two, which is dowry. And we've time we'll go to witnesses. So is it. So what's the idea behind the doubt? Okay. The dowry is another mechanism that is placed to protect the rights of women within a marriage contract. How does it protect the rights of women in a marriage contract? Because the man has to give up something

in order to have intimacy with this woman,

okay. It's not a business contract. It's not a trade. You're not he's not buying you. Okay? But if he wants to divorce you, he's going to think twice.

Because if he divorces you, he has to let you keep that.

Right, you see how that works?

So this is the reason why and we're getting to the mess. And now the issue the scholars different is it required

to stipulate

that the dowry be

an appropriate level

for that type of woman her age her you whether she has previously been married or not her education, things like that, basically, is a woman allowed to accept a dowry that is less than what she's worth?

And the fact that this is even a question shows you the concern that the scholars had for the woman having a way out and having a sort of insurance plan.

Because the scholars and it's Abu Hanifa spilled the beans as Al Khalifa, who said that she's not allowed to take less than what she's worth,

was thinking about this, was thinking about what's going to hold that man back when he's angry from threatening to divorce or divorce in here.

If he has paid exactly what he should have paid up front, he's going to think twice.

Right.

The other the other three schools of law, they said, Yes, that's true, but it is permissible, it's permissible for a woman to accept less if she wants to. Right, because there's examples of that the prophesy said I'm married off married somebody who gave the dowry of simply an iron ring. And there was other similar scenarios.

Though,

though, most scholars say that the preferable situation

is that the dowry is substantial.

Allah says in the Quran

in surah, 70 says

that

it is permissible to charge a lot of money for a doubt.

Right? So this isn't something in and of itself.

That is wrong. It can become wrong, right? Okay. So we have, again, always to extremes, it can become wrong, if it's prohibitive, or an excuse to prevent or sabotage a woman from getting there. So if we have a guardian, and he's asking for

10s, and 10s, of 1000s, hundreds of 1000s of dollars, this is prohibitive

for a lot of people.

And if it's set that high, and this person is having a hard time getting married, they're in the 30s, they're

well into their 30s.

And they're getting less and less desirable, quote unquote, or they're, they're having less prospects with every passing year than this is oppression. Right. So there has to be a middle ground.

Similarly, no woman should be guilted into taking less than she thinks she thinks she deserves. Because again, the institution as a whole is meant to make that guy think twice

when he is thinking about divorce.

So what happens with a lot of conferences, is that

guys that marry them, kind of pitch it like the more pious thing to do, is to have a cheap, super cheap dog.

Not necessarily the case. Not necessarily the case. In certain circumstances.

That might be what's called,

there was one situation where I was going to marry

two people who had been girlfriend and boyfriend for years. Right, not doing something that's permissible. And so when it came to the dowry, I've made that thing what Listen, whatever you guys say, let's get you into a valid Islamic relationship as soon as possible. Right? That's something different but

If we're talking about young woman educated in her 20s or early 30s, converted to Islam.

And some guys trying to come and tell her Oh, no, you should, you can't ask for that much like, this is whatever, you know, it's like you shouldn't accept something less. She's not under any requirement to accept less than what she thinks she's worth. But this is something that returns to culture at the end of the day, what's the going rate, like? What's typical for people in a particular area? Because the cost of living differs from place to place and from time to time?

Good. Okay. Next issue. Okay. So now we're on to witnesses, and we only have about two minutes. So our witnesses

a condition to the validity of a marriage contract vast majority opinion, yes, they are. Marriage without witnesses. It's like he didn't do anything. It's not valid.

And that's actually happened almost where some people approached online and they said, look, we got married, but we only had like, one person. And he's like, Nope, doesn't work that way. You guys never gotten married?

What if okay, what is the ruling of announcing

marriage? Okay, the wisdom behind witnesses

is so that there's accountability, just like we just talked about when it comes to the prayer. Because the prophets always said I'm prohibited in the caste system. Right? Secret marriages.

Right. This isn't something that

we do in Islam. We're known the Prophet saw, I saw him. He was walking at night with his wife, I believe it was Sofia. And it was dark.

And there were two companions that were far off. And he brought them close. He said, Listen, this is Sofia. He wanted to clear their doubts that anything

shady was going on. So witnesses are so that the community knows everybody's on clear terms. Oh, did you hear so and so married so and so they're now married?

So the witnesses are in necessity? Is it possible to tell the witnesses to not tell anybody?

Is that a secret marriage? Scholars differ. Some of them said that is a secret marriage. You can't tell the witnesses to not tell anybody. It has to be announced. There's a hadith the prophesy son where he says, announced the kneecap. And other scholars said no, they can not announce it if they don't want to. That's not what the problem was talking about. We're out of time. Sorry about that. We it's going to shut off any second. If anyone has any questions. They can send it to me personally or through the women's chat. Thank you very much, everybody. I hope this is beneficial all the time to Adam. Most of the law has been set on one second off