Women led prayer of mixed gender congregations
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Salaam Arnold
That hadiyth you mentioned sounds quite interesting. Can you quote or type the entire hadiyth here or send a copy to my email? I would like to use that hadiyth and present it to some of the Sunni Muslims I come across from time to time.
Salaam
Peace,
There is even a hadith about women leading prayers
Reported About Umm Waraqah, that the Prophet commanded her(Umm Waraqah) that SHE(yes, a woman) should act as imam of the people of her house, and she had a mu'adhin(who was a male) and she used to act as imam of the people of her house.
VI, 405, Musnad of Ahmad.
The Quran clearly shows men and women are equal in the Deen on all fronts, so no need for this hadith, but it is so funny to see what they ignore on purpose. This one will probably be called 'weak', but i'll doubt it will be called weak because of it's chain of narrators...
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Peace,
That is the whole hadith, and also the book number. If i find more, i'll let you know. Plus there is a whole history of female imams in the first 2 centuries of Islam which is purposely hidden. They led the prayers and gave the gathering/jumaah-speech/gutbah. There is a book about it, i'll give the title later.
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Peace,
A whole list is mentioned here
http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_as_imams
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Peace Bro Al Khidr
I guess where we differ on this issue is very slight. I agree with you that entire group and herself especially are very courageous souls. I also agree that we must stand up and fight against opression. What the Nation of Islam as a movement has done for the Muslim community is highly commendable. What brave men and women sacrificed in the United States so that we can all have the freedom to vote is something that goes down in history as one of the greatest feats mankind has achieved for his/her fellow people, even those never born yet. You mentioned Malcolm X and it reminded me of all the ideals you rightfully pointed out on your last post. I think these are all people we need to use as our role models to begin to heal this ummah.
The only thing I have an issue with is that there are so many problems women face in this world today. Women are highly opressed in sunni communities, in western societies, on a state level, family level, the list goes on and on. I don't view a woman not leading salat as opression. I view it as something we really are allowed to do, but that we can't because of alot of other problems plagueing the muslim mentality today. I think dealing with the root cause in order to aleviate all of the other major grievences women have today, would just be more beneficial. Eventually the idea wouldn't be so crazy and this brave Muslimah and her group wouldn't have to deal with unnecessary harrassment.
Salat to me is just this one place we need to all be at peace in and really focus on God Alone instead of fighting external fights. To me, there are better and more fertile battle grounds we can find to re-establish the dignity of our mothers, sisters, wives, daughters.Bro Al Khidr, I respect your opinion alot and I'm not taking it as anything negative or even a debate. It's good to hear others' opinions on this issue so that I don't get stuck inside a box so thank you )
Peace All
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Salaam S2S, all
The only thing I have an issue with is that there are so many problems women face in this world today. Women are highly opressed in sunni communities, in western societies, on a state level, family level, the list goes on and on.
I strongly agree with you, but I also do not see that one person should tackle all these problems. We usually feel the problem that hurts us, or our beloved, most. A married woman's concerns are focused on different issues than an unmarried one, or a mother, or an employee..etc.
Dr Amina Waduud, the woman in question, is an Afro-American university lecturer, who converted about thirty years ago. She does not see that Muslim women are particularily discriminated against in the states. If there is any discrimination or subbordination against women in the USA, this is not her domain, and there are specialized organisations for that. What concerned her most as a Muslim woman in the USA, is to see that she, and her fellow Muslim sisters, are subbordinated by muslim men and clercs they are , e.g, let into the mosque through a side door, have to listen to poor khutbas that have nothing to do with their peoblems and which lack a lot of reasoning and qur'aanic reference. She is a knowledgeable woman and an expert in Islamic studies, philosophy and Jurisprudence. She wrote one book in the early ninties entitled (Qur'aan and Woman), derived from her PhD thesis, and was a big hit in the USA, Far East and Europe, but was banned in the Arab world. This was not the first time she lead prayers, the first time was after the launch of her book in S. Africa, early ninties, when she was invited to lead the prayers. She says in her book that she embraced Islam, but she was not comfortable with the status of women in Muslim societies, so she learned Arabic and started reading the original Text, when she found an enormous difference. She ultimately became a qur'aan aloner, and I think that was what brought all this onto her. I think that inspite of the anger she provoked, people, in the Arab world, started thinking more positively about the issue. I remember hearing some women speaking very angrily, because this incident was the opportunity to make them know, for the first time, that women can lead the prayers, which they believed before was a man-only- domain. They would wonder what else is being hidden from them. Also, the sheikh of l'azhar declared, under pressuring questions, that women can be head of states, because he could not deny that they could lead the prayers. In fact no one could.The ban on her book was lifted, and it was translated into Arabic.
So you see, it was not just leading prayers, but many other decisions were linked to it, and they fell like pieces of a jig-saw.
Salaam
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Salaam Soul2Squeeze and Samia
Wonderful information, Masha Allah. I have read her book a long time ago and I thought it was very well written and much needed in the Islaamic world. She was also one of the first to address that one verese 434 where many Sunni Muslim mistranslate to say either "beat or hit" your wife and I thought her insight was an eye opener in that area.
Salaam
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Peace All
Sis Myr You have your reasons for deleting your post but without going into details, Masha Allah wallahy you made me so proud to have a sister like you in deen.
Sis Samia Thank you for providing more info on her. Interesting indeed! As I said before, in anything else I believe being vigilant and fighting the good fight is excellent. In salat I believe it just needs to come more natural and be brought forth at a stage when everyone can naturally accept it without any hostility, physical or otherwise because in the end, it is solely for worshipping God.
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Salaam
I want to say that I am fully in support of women leading prayer of mixed gender.
SalaamSalam.
Yes, i agree, i agree totally, i say"dear sisters, get united, stand fast and lead the prayer. Men are obviously too busy fighting. Those same men who want their "Paradise" here and the REAL Paradise."
Women should lead a prayer, i support women who want to lead a prayer, i would be delighted, if a woman would lead a prayer, because it would show that we have made progress, afterall, today is 31. July, 2006 and not 6. February, 0713 B.A.
Salam.
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I actually went to that prayer in New York city with Amina Wadud leading. I wil write more on it later as I am very tired right now, but it was one of the most beautiful prayers I have ever attended. More later after some sleep.
Alhamdulillah, I can't wait to here your experience. I wished that I could have made it there myself. That event was history in the making and Insha Allah I pray to see more like that in the future to come.
Salaam