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Building Prophetic Communities for Women
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The Prophet (S) once critically said, “O people! Some of you scare people away [from faith].” He was addressing the best generation of Muslims when he said this, so it certainly still applies today.
Are Muslim communities pushing women away today? What do we lose when women are disengaged from Islamic institutions? How can we improve access and connection to the tradition for Muslim women?
Earlier this season we talked about The State of Masculinity. This week, join host Mohamad Zaoud in conversation with Ustadha Lobna Mulla and Ustadha Maryam Amir as they discuss how we can make our communities better for women.
Make sure to sign up for our DoubleTake companion email to receive exclusive content every week and a sneak peek of the upcoming episode here: https://yqn.io/doubletake-email-signup
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Transcript
This transcript was auto-generated using AI and may contain misspellings. Assalamualaikum warahmatullah. A disclaimer before we start this episode. If you're a brother, a father or a husband, today's episode is absolutely required listening. I sat down with Ustazah Lubna Mulla and first time Double Take guest Ustazah Mariam Amir to answer a few serious questions about our community. Are our communities pushing women away today? What do we lose when Muslim women are disengaged from Islamic institutions? And how can we improve access and connection to the tradition for Muslim women? Welcome to a new episode of Double Take, a podcast by Yaqeen Institute about the questions and ideas around Islam and Muslims that give us pause. Remember to subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts, YouTube, Spotify, or wherever you get your favorite podcasts. Check out the links in the show notes if you want to share feedback with the team or if you'd like to join our new email newsletter. Ustazah Lubna Mulla is a board member at Yaqeen, a Muslim chaplain at UCLA with the Institute of Knowledge and the former National Tarbiyah Director for the Muslim American Society. She has a bachelor's in business admin and a master's of fine arts in screenwriting. She spent three years studying in Egypt under Azhari scholars with her husband Sheikh Suhail Mulla. She recently hosted the Yaqeen series Upheld by Allah about women in the Quran. Ustazah Mariam Amir received her master's in education from UCLA. She holds a second bachelor's degree in Islamic studies through Al-Azhar University. She has studied in Egypt, memorized the Quran, and has researched a variety of religious sciences for the past 15 years. Ustazah Mariam is host of the Quran Champion series on Islam Channel and featured in a video series on faith produced by
GoodCast called the Mariam Amir Show. She holds a second degree black belt in Taekwondo and she is also the creator of Qari'ah, the women Quran reciters app available for free on iPhone and Android. Enjoy the episode. Ustazah Lubna, Ustazah Mariam, As-salamu alaykum and welcome to Double Take. The Prophet ﷺ said, the best people are those of my generation, then those who come after them, then those who come after them. When we think about where we should be as a community, we look at the example of the Prophet ﷺ and the early generations of believers. Now Ustazah Lubna and Ustazah Mariam, you've spent a lot of time on the ground serving and leading American Muslim communities and you have particularly unique insight into the experiences of Muslim women. So I want you for the beginning of this episode to imagine something for me. Imagine for a moment that you're both at a conference with 40,000 people and thousands tuning in. The audience exclusively, fathers who all came to answer one question. What are the challenges facing my daughters or that are about to face my daughters in the Muslim community? What are the biggest challenges facing our community? There's many, so Panalan will definitely hone in on a few insha'Allah. But I would say one of the biggest challenges facing women in our community is the feeling of being valued in society, in Islam, and feeling that they're valued by Allah ﷻ. I would say that's the biggest
challenge that they face. Ustazah Lubna, I completely agree with you. The idea of a woman's value and her worth in the way that Allah ﷻ sees her and in the way that she is seen in the community and that includes in the family space and it starts oftentimes in the family space. Knowing that this is a conference of fathers asking about their daughters is very exciting because that shows an investment in how fathers feel about their daughters and how they can be there to support them in that process. Realistically, that's not the case in a lot of families, unfortunately. Many women who speak with me, and I'm sure Ustazah Lubna as well, one of the reasons why they struggle is because when they have been a survivor of, for example, assault, or they have gone through doubts in faith, or they have walked into a masjid space and been told there is no space for a woman, that they don't have the support of their fathers or their communities to navigate what that means for their faith as a woman, particularly in the West, who has access to so many different spaces but not her religious space. Or if she does have access, what does that access actually look like? How is she made to feel in the masjid when she walks in? Or how does she feel when she has a question and she doesn't know where to go with that question? And of course, women struggle, Muslim women struggle with issues that women in general struggle with in a particular society. They're not separate from those stats. So when it comes to all of the types of struggles that women face when it comes to access in general, not just in the Muslim space, but at the same time, finding it outside of the Muslim space, it really impacts the way a woman can see her faith. You mentioned them feeling valued. What does that mean? How does that manifest itself in the day to day lives of Muslim communities? I'd like to answer that by sharing an anecdote of an ustada who was speaking with me about when she
was going to give a lecture in a masjid, the imam and her were going to give lectures to middle school and high school girls and boys. And the imam sat at the very front of the masjid. And he did not allow for the ustada to sit in the front and instead said that she and the girls should sit in a separate room. This ustada is a grandmother. She has multiple grandchildren, masha'Allah. And when she's sitting in this room, listening to the imam speak about Quran and salah and things related to spirituality, he ends his lecture to these middle and high school boys by saying, and women, excuse me, and to girls, he ends by saying, and women, don't forget, women are the majority of hellfire. And that's it. That's the end of his lecture. Now, this grandmother who's an ustada is sitting and wondering how she's going to address the middle and high school girls who are surprised by that statement, who are looking at her confused at what the implications of that is supposed to mean, while the imam tells the boys to stand up and walk to another room, even though they're already in separate rooms. And then he doesn't turn off his mic, perhaps accidentally, most likely, but he starts to play football with the boys while the ustada is trying to discuss with the girls how to grow their faith as American Muslim woman, as Muslim American high school and middle schoolers, when he has ended with this statement. Now, I want to share this anecdote for a number of reasons. The first being that we have amazing imams in our communities. So simply one example of an imam who used a hadith in a way that was completely inappropriate and is not reflective of the context of the hadith or the commentary of the hadith itself does not imply that we have imams who are not incredibly invested in their communities and women in our communities. I myself have been taught almost 100% by men's
scholars. And it's one of the reasons I'm so passionate about women's issues, because I have seen what it looks like when men invest in women's issues and amplify women's voices. So when we're talking about this particular imam, he's not necessarily a reflection of all imams, but we can look at the example of how an imam who chooses to make a decision like this impacts the way women experience Islam in the Muslim community and then from such a young age. And then how would that impact their idea of worth? I have been asked by women who are in their 30s, if Allah sees women somewhere between the status of an animal and a man, like she's not quite the level of a man, but she's not exactly as, you know, it's not exactly an animal. So is she somewhere in between? I have been asked by women constantly. And when I say constantly, this is like weekly on a weekly basis. In the hundreds, women have asked me, why does Allah hate women? Or why am I worthy of Allah answering my da'a when I'm a woman and he doesn't love women? And I wish I could say that this is maybe one or two women in their particular community who don't have access to a masjid, who've never met people of knowledge, who don't have any sort of resources. But the reality is that these questions come from all over the United States, all over the West, Muslim women in the West, in Australia, in the UK, in Sweden, in Canada, and in Muslim majority countries as well. And so this is not simply one person who's had one negative experience and therefore assumes that Islam does not support women. Rather, I've been contacted by women who have left Islam. And afterwards, they're willing to talk to me
about it. And they say they just could no longer live with hating themselves anymore, simply because they were born woman and they had no choice to be born but a woman. When we have these emotions, constantly coming up by so many women, and of course, not all women experience these experiences. So many women have an amazing experience when they walk into a masjid space, an institution, an organization, and they feel cherished and loved. And they see how Islam honors and nurtures that growth as a woman specifically. But when we have so many of these stories, it's telling us something else. And that it's not necessarily just about one random imam making a decision, but about policies that we may need to reevaluate when it comes to women and access to worship spaces. JazakAllah khair for sharing that. Ustadha Lubna, help me understand the damage done by a situation like that. What goes through these kids minds when they hear a hadith put out of context, or that they are pushed away by kind of religious leaders, for example, like the example that we just heard? What happens to those young people? The furthest extreme is leaving Islam completely. But even before that, it's, you know, having a negative experience in the masjid and not coming back for 10 years. It's undergoing, withstanding something that's abusive, whether it's within the home or within the community, because maybe that's what I'm supposed to do. Maybe because I'm not as worthy, I should just take on this injustice, and I should just be patient. And unfortunately, if that's not the case, then these young girls, and as Ustadha Marie mentioned, we're talking about women and even older women. I'm talking,
this spans a lifetime of feelings that I'm just not worthy in Islam. So there's always this self doubt. And imagine a woman who's questioning her place in Islam, let alone she's already struggling with the overwhelming pressure of womanhood in society in general. And then add on top of that to be a person of color, if that's her case. And then on top of that, a Muslim woman. And then on top of that, if she's a Muslim woman wearing hijab, so more identifiable in public. And then you're struggling with this question, does Allah even love me? Is this the value of women in Islam? That's a lot. It's a lot to bear. SubhanAllah, I think of these scenarios, and Alhamdulillah, as Ustadha Marie mentioned, and yourself, Ustadha Lubna, that there are huge strides being made in Muslim communities across the globe, not just in the West, and even kind of the Middle East and in Asia, where I see Muslim women leaders, I see Muslim women fully engaged in Islamic institutions. I see that and there are positive kind of experiences all across the globe. But equally, maybe even more, there are those negative instances, and I've seen them myself. I've seen even during the heights of COVID, when the doors were open to the masajid, only a select few men were able to experience taraweeh, the women were staying at home. And so, you know, a lot of women around me asked me the same question, you know, why am I pushed away from my local mosque? How did we get here? Is my question. Who's to blame? SubhanAllah, I think just, you know, generally speaking, we've moved away from As-Sunnah. We've moved away from the prophetic model. And as time goes on, there's always going to be periods where we forget our
tradition, we forget certain aspects of our tradition. We move away from it. And there's always going to have to be renewal in all aspects of Islam, right? Not just in terms of women and their value in Islam. So moving away from the tradition, and as some people, especially in the West, as we try to represent Islam publicly, we definitely try to build our institutions, not everyone necessarily who's involved in propagating Islam in the institutions are learned. And when that happens, and they come up and they give a khutbah, or they are, you know, putting policies in place that define what a masjid will look like, or what programming will look like. And if they're not necessarily educated in Islam, or have the proper background, they, due to their gaps in knowledge, they can unknowingly further propagate some of these misunderstandings and put bad practices in place. Or at the very least, they're not putting the best practices in place. And so that's my take on how we got here. So, I completely agree with you that we have, you know, wonderful individuals who are invested, but maybe not trained. And I think that's part of our gap, that sometimes we even have people of knowledge who are trained in filth, but they're not trained in therapy. And someone who comes needs the support of therapy to be able to process what they're going through from a religious perspective, even, because it's not about the fiqh of the issue, it's about the self-worth and the understanding of what that means in our relationship to Allah subhana wa ta'ala. But also, talking historically, there are so many political reasons why we are where we are at this time as an ummah, and particular aspects of our ummah. And also, going back to when scholarship was flourishing, when there were women scholars who were teaching some of the greatest scholars that we know who are men, Imam Malik, Imam Ahmed, Imam al-Shafi'i,
Ibn Taymiyyah, Ibn Hajar, all of them, and so many more were taught by women scholars. We can look at the impact of colonialism, and we can also look at the impact of translation. So, for example, Dr. Akram Nadawi, who is a hadith scholar, speaks about how the translation of Greek philosophy and the ideas of women in Greek philosophy started seeping into Arabic, what, excuse me, not seeping into Arabic, it was translated into Arabic, and they started seeping into the idea of Islamic scholarship. And so, when those who ascribe, when those scholars who ascribed to this idea of Greek philosophy then became the rulers, and in this concept of Greek philosophy, at the time, there was, there was an understanding that women should not be educated. They questioned whether or not women are the same in receiving an education. That impacted the policies that were enacted by the rulers who then took rule. So, we as an ummah went from a time in which women were scholars, and they were teachers in madadis, that they were teachers of men scholars and students of men scholars, and we went to a time where in, within less than a generation, women were no longer able to go to school. How is that going to impact the entire ummah's understanding of whether or not a woman can study or whether or not a woman can teach just one or two generations later? As we notice the political impact of the way that our ummah has made decisions because of what we've taken from other, you know, religious traditions or other cultural traditions, we can start navigating what that actually looks like for our faith. So, I'll give you an example. Women often ask me if they're cursed when they get their period in Ramadan or in Hajj. I was in Hajj and a woman who was in her old, old, old, maybe, maybe in her late 40s, she came to me and
she started crying, and she said that she had gotten her period and the woman in the group told her, you're in Hajj, what did you do? What did you do that Allah is punishing you? And she was bawling, just weeping to me, like what did I do in Hajj that I deserve to get my period as a punishment? And subhanAllah, the fact that this woman saw her period as a punishment, the fact that all these other women saw that her period was a punishment, is not specific to that group of women. I get this question all the time for women all over the world, but within our tradition, there is nowhere in our books of fiqh, there is nowhere in the Quran, there is nowhere in our hadith that could even, even indicate that a period would be a punishment or that it would be because of a sin. It's obviously something that's so natural that Allah has blessed women with for the sake of humanity. Yes, there are fiqh rulings that come into place, but with the Prophet ﷺ saw Aisha radhiAllahu anha crying when they went for Hajj and the Prophet ﷺ asked, perhaps you got your period? And she said yes. What did he say ﷺ? He affirmed that this is something that is written for the daughters of Adam. He connected her to a Prophet ﷺ. And we have a number of narrations like this, where the Prophet ﷺ is in the presence of someone who asks about a period, or for example, one of the girls of a tribe, Ben-Rifa' who came and asked if they could be nurses and help with the sick and the wounded in a battle, she actually started her menses in front of the Prophet ﷺ on a riding camel. And she was so embarrassed and the Prophet ﷺ helped her understand the rulings of fiqh of how to clean that from the luggage that it spilled on. And then he gave her a necklace from the spoils of war from Khaibar, put it on and she
wore it and she put it stipulated that she wanted to wear it when she was buried because she didn't want to remove something the Prophet ﷺ put on her. Now this beautiful, beautiful interaction with with menses is not one that a lot of women are aware of one but two, the idea of a curse actually is something that comes from a particular understanding of Christianity, that in the time of the Tudor class, who was the beginning of modern day colonialism, and they were very CAD can almost immediately tell you to hover your head over here because if you look there they saw it as the curse of Eve. They saw that which is you know it's considered blasphemy for Muslims and this is you know with all respect to you know those those who are Christian and that doesn't necessarily mean Christians today are being taught this. There's you know there's so many different denominations or different understandings of what this looks like today but in this particular point we can say that there was a policy that was imported into Muslim majority lands that were colonized where the Tudor class who was ruling from England saw women who were on their periods as part of experiencing the curse of Eve for God forbid, for tempting Adam to eat from the tree and so women until the end of time are given a taste of that punishment. In that time they were not even allowed to have medicine to help with the cramps because women were supposed to feel the full punishment. Now this concept is completely foreign to us as Muslim women. I mean foreign to us in Islamic law, completely complete blasphemous in Islamic law but why do so many women have that idea? How does colonialism impact the way Muslim women see ourselves when sometimes those messages are being passed on by Muslim families or communities or the ways that sometimes misajid, the infrastructure, the architecture of misajid are actually created including when it comes
to women in this space? So what I'm hearing Ustadh Maryam, Ustadh Lubna is that there are specific issues facing Muslim women in the West and across the globe that at its worst are leading Muslim women to potentially leave Islam or at least doubt their faith and even have negative thoughts of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and if I'm to summarize some of those issues or what's leading to some of those issues, it's three things and correct me if I've misinterpreted what you're both saying. One is that there's a lack of access to religious institutions and that Muslim women in certain circles are not as welcome as Muslim men. That's number one. Number two, that where there's a hadith specifically about women, like women being the majority in hellfire for example, that they're taken out of context and not given their proper context and they're not explained properly and then number three, I guess linked to number two, is the misinterpretation of our religion and so we might take something and actually completely warp it. That's from lack of training, lack of understanding, lack of scholarship. Have I summarized that correctly? Yes, absolutely. Sure. So then I want to hone in on the masjid and institutions within the masjid. Muslim men, it's an obligation for us to pray Jummah in the mosque. It's not the same for Muslim women. I grew up hearing over and over that the best prayer for a woman is at home and in the quietest part of the
home for that matter and so I can see how Muslim women are not frequenting the masjid or not playing big roles in Muslim institutions because of that insinuation that women should be at home and frankly, maybe call it culture, maybe call it my kind of, the way I was taught Islam, that's what I was taught. That men are kind of foreign ministers, women are interior ministers in the home and everyone has their role and men are in the public and women are at home. Help me kind of understand how that dynamic interacts with what you're saying and the challenges that Muslim women are facing. Okay, so I will just answer it to begin with inshallah. You know, that hadith that you just mentioned is a perfect example, generally speaking of taking something subhanAllah that was supposed to make things easier for women that yes of course Jummah is obligatory for men and not obligatory for women. So that is alhamdulillah, that's an ease for a woman if they have, whether it's young children or whether they're expecting and it's difficult for them to come to the masjid or they're on their menses or whatever the situation may be or taking care of elders, whatever the situation may be, that is alhamdulillah, Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala out of His mercy has made it not obligatory for women. But that being said, subhanAllah, that's where I think things get mixed together. That does not mean now that women should not be attending the masjid, that they should not be coming and benefiting from the congregation, whether it's on Friday, on Friday prayer or throughout the course of the week with all the programmings
and all the different salawats. That particular hadith again was for those women that they wanted to be in the masjid and they weren't able to for whatever reason, some of the reasons that I had just mentioned, and during Tarawih for example, and Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala or Prophet Muhammad Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam is guiding them and telling them that their prayer is just as good. It is that they could even be getting more reward because they're taking care of whatever they need to be taking care of. So that is important that we don't take those two concepts and mix them together and just say, you know what, women don't, we don't need women's spaces. We don't need to make them as beautiful or as plentiful and we don't need to include them not only in the masjid space, but also in the institutional space, which is extremely important in gaining the women's voice and perspective in all of our institutions. And that way we can serve the Muslim ummah in a much better capacity because we're getting both perspectives. Also to add to that, what you mentioned brother Muhammad is a discussion in fiqh. It is the majority opinion that it is better for a woman to pray in her home than to pray in the masjid as long as they are not barred from going to the masjid. And Israel Al-Ubna mentioned so many beautiful aspects of some of the reasonings why a woman may not be able to make every prayer and the awareness of that in Islam and the honoring of her being able to navigate what her reality looks like with particular responsibilities that make going to the masjid very difficult for her. And at the same time, there is also a minority opinion, Ibn Hazm's opinion, which discusses a woman praying in the masjid being more rewarded than for her to pray at home. And Ibn Hazm and the scholars who follow this opinion look at the narrations which speak on the woman's prayer being better in her home and the context for that. You mentioned actually perhaps, you didn't mention the exact hadith, but one of the statements you made was the second part of a hadith that was actually an addition, not specifically
going back to the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam. And so we have Ibn Hazm talking about and the scholars who follow the minority opinion, who make up the minority opinion, speaking about how these ahadith sometimes work for a particular context, or there's a discrepancy in the authenticity of their narration. For example, the hadith of Um Humaid, which is often the most famous one known for a woman's prayer being better in her home. Dr. Jasser Aouda, who's a contemporary scholar, speaks about this being for a family reason, pertaining to her marriage and trying to protect her marriage. Sheikh Al-Shinqiti mentions that this hadith that talk about this are for particular circumstances, not for all women until the end of time. Ibn Dhaqiq Al-'Aid, he speaks about how the reward of praying in the masjid is 27 times more for men and for women. And Ibn Hazm then says, what are we going to say? That a woman who goes through all of this effort just to go to the masjid is actually not going to be rewarded and in fact, perhaps not sinful, but there was no point in the first place and it would have been better for her not to do it at all. And so scholars who discuss this issue, they look at the women companions, radhiallahu anhun, and they look at how frequently they would attend the masjid. And the women companions were not just women who were like, you know, I love the masjid and so I want to be there. But you know, I know that it's better to pray in my home because that's going to be what gets me closer to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, but I'm not going to do that. Like, audhubillah, like they would never do that. The women companions wanted the best. They're the women companions, they are surrounding the Prophet ﷺ. And so when they're going to the masjid and they're praying, they are seeking that reward and closeness to the Prophet ﷺ. Umm Hisham bint al-Harithah, she talks about how she memorized surah Qaf by listening to the Prophet
ﷺ recite it. Umm al-Fadl talks about the same thing with another surah that she memorized it, excuse me, that she said she remembers it as the last surah she heard from the Prophet ﷺ. We have the narrations of women who would come to the masjid for obligatory prayers and also extra prayers. The Prophet ﷺ saw Zaynab's ropes tied up and he asked like, what it was for, excuse me, and they said that this is for Zaynab when she gets tired, she has these ropes to hold her up. And the Prophet ﷺ didn't comment on it would be better for her to pray at home, even though she put ropes in the masjid ﷺ. There's a narration of one of the mothers of the believers, this is in Bukhari, that she was in istihadah, which takes different rulings from mensis, but it's still a type of bleeding. This was a time without any sort of, you know, the type of sanitary tools that are available now. And she would put a tray underneath her. And this was a time where there were no barriers in the masjid. I'm mentioning all of these examples to show that the women companions, and of course, with all modesty, this is the mother of the believer, she's covered completely, of course, like no doubt. But the point is, they saw something about being physically present in the masjid. The Prophet ﷺ, when he heard a baby crying, he would make his prayer shorter. Why? When you look at the reward of a long prayer, that is so rewarded. But why would the Prophet ﷺ cut his prayer short? Just to ensure that a mother would feel comfortable, just to ensure that woman came, a mother would be able to come back, have access to the masjid, knowing she can bring her child, and that she felt comfortable coming with her children. When we look at the Prophet ﷺ holding his granddaughter up, he would hold his granddaughter in salah. And Imam Fakihani talks about how
the Arabs of the time, they were still going through, you know, this is just barely two decades from the time when they used to bury their daughters alive. This is a cultural shift. This is a generational shift. Umar, رضي الله عنه, when he said that they used to think of woman as nothing. So when we're talking about the Prophet ﷺ setting up the policy in the masjid space, in the infrastructure, in the architecture, we're looking at the Prophet ﷺ creating an entire cultural shift where women then became a central part of the space. So that Imam Fakihani talks about the Prophet ﷺ holding his granddaughter to emphasize, to emphasize the importance of little girls in the space of the masjid, to show by action to the men who are learning what it means to have little girls in this space. And subhanAllah, you know, all of this to say that this is a minority opinion. Ibn Hazm's opinion is the minority opinion. It's not the majority of scholars. And what we as a community, when we're talking about women in the masjid, women seeking access, we need to look at what works best for our community. Perhaps the majority opinion is the right, is the right opinion for our community, where women feel like they can choose and they have the choice whether to stay home if they have little kids. It's very difficult to pray in a masjid when we have little kids running around. Or maybe they're working outside and they want to pray in the masjid because it's close to their work. Whatever the case is that there is the space to choose which is going to work best for her worship. And why this is so critical, in addition to a million other reasons, is because the brunt of child rearing really does fall on women. And that's of all religious spaces. It's not specific to Muslims. But as Muslims, one of the things I'm sure Asadah Lubna can speak a little bit on this, and many of us experience as Muslim women, we've heard for a very long time in the masjid space that one of our greatest roles
is to be a mother. And many women will never be mothers. Many women struggle with infertility. Many women are going through a lot of reasons why they cannot or do not enter that space of motherhood. But at the same time as us saying that the most important role for women is motherhood, which is so important and so beautiful, and also such a struggle for so many women. At the same time, we're not giving her the access required for her to be able to help those children love Islam. There's a recent study by Iman Abdul Hadi, and she talks about 50% of women leave the Muslim community, American Muslim women, 50% of American Muslim women leave the community. 50%. That means if we're talking about our concern, Islam in the West in three generations, if a mother right now doesn't feel comfortable in the masjid or doesn't feel she has access to the masjid, I don't feel comfortable in the masjid. I've had people tell me that they want to go into a masjid space, and it's an empty space. It's completely empty. There's no one there. It's at a time that's not a particular prayer time. She just wants to go pray. And there's been a guard standing in the front saying, you cannot enter. This space is only for men. This is in the UK. It's not in like a place there's no, there's not enough space. There's not enough tools. There's not enough resources. Another woman said that she was told to pray outside. She walked to the church down the street and she prayed in the church. These sound shocking to some and unnecessary to some, but for a woman who wants to ensure that she is firm on her salah, and as a community for us to want to ensure that Islam is passed down to the future generations, should we not take all of these anecdotes seriously, look at the research that's being put out about them, and reconsider
what our role needs to be when it comes to access and policies surrounding women and accessibility. I think there is a sincere intention from Muslim communities to engage Muslim women. I do see it. I see it around me here, even in Australia, but I see it across the globe. As I said, in the West, Middle East, in various other places, I do see that. I would say the skepticism or the challenge in some people's mind is, where does this stop? Or how far does this go? If we're advocating for Muslim women to be part of all the Muslim institutions and in the masjid, is this kind of feminism rearing its head in secret? Or is this going to lead our community to having Muslim women imams? I know I'm sounding like an angry man, but that's a genuine concern. But we've heard it before, so that's okay. That's good that you're expressing it. Yes, we want Muslim women to feel proud that they're Muslim. We want them to be part of wider society and the Muslim institutions. But how far does this go? Brother Mohamed, I have a question for you. I really appreciate you mentioning all of these points because they are questions I'm asked by men and I'm asked by women as well. I think they're really important ones to consider in the lens of how we want to preserve our Islamic tradition and Islamic law. My question to you is, where did the jump go from women having access to the masjid to women leading Salah? I mean, it's just one thing leads to another, right? And Muslim women being part of it,
having positions on the boards. Look, I'm asking for a friend here just to be very clear. I feel like the two guests are about to leave the meeting room, but I want to hear it. I'm asked this question so often and I appreciate that it comes from a place of us as a community and our literacy in Islamic topics in general as a general community is not very high. As a general community. Then we have, of course, students of knowledge and people like taking classes and people going to the masjid and being able to listen to lectures. And so we also have a little literacy and then we have people who are actual full-time students of knowledge and it's a lifelong journey. What I've noticed in that journey is that women's issues and understanding women's issues is not often highlighted when someone is not specifically studying that point. So, for example, if we're talking about the fiqh of, you know, Saltul Jumaa, we're talking about aspects related where women could be discussed, they're often not. And actually, Dr. Asma Ziada, she talks about this. She has a book that's it's in Arabic, but the general translated title is the political role of the women companions and the time of the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam and the Khulafa al-Rashidun and the righteous guided rulers. And she mentions that when she looked at contemporary curriculums and contemporary books speaking about different aspects of the seerah, that women were simply not mentioned, even though women were the ones narrating the hadiths that were described, which means women were the ones present because they were the ones narrating the hadith that took place. For example, SubhanAllah, we have so many narrations where we talk about a particular incident in the seerah that we only know because a woman was the one who was supporting the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam in that time or supporting the dawah in that time, like Umm
Salama radiyallahu anha and how she describes what happened at the court of Najashi. So we have, we have, we haven't, it's like we haven't mentioned women and they're because we haven't mentioned them. We don't know very much about women's spaces. Now, also to clarify, this is obviously, as I started with, not al-Imams, not institutions, not, we have such, such an incredible, we have such an incredible community who is deeply invested in women's issues, but also can, although they're confused, asking questions like this. But when we look at Islamic history, Dr. Akram Nadoo, Sheikh Akram has put out so much research on this issue and he has completed the work that followed up, I should say, on the work that is already there by our scholars like Ibn Hajar and As-Sukhawi and As-Subki and so many of our scholars who have outlined how women were playing critical roles of scholarship in their own time periods. So for example, Imam Malik, his teacher, one of his teachers was the daughter of Sa'd Ibn Abi Waqas, RadhiAllahu Anhuma, Imam Al-Shafi'i, one of his teachers was Sayyidina Fisa, the great, great, granddaughter of the Prophet, Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam. We have Kareem Al-Marwaziyya, who was the greatest Hadith scholar of Suheikh Al-Bukhari, who taught Al-Khateeb Al-Baghdadi. And we have Ibn Hajar and a number of other scholars speaking about not just one or two of their teachers, but in the 50s and the 60s, like, I believe it was 53 for Ibn Hajar and 68 for Imam Al-Sukhawi. Ibn Al-Qayyim was taught by Fatima Al-Khair. And Fatima Al-Khair, Shaykh Fatima Al-Khair, there's a narration of her coming to Medina with a Syrian caravan. And you know where she sat to teach Hadith
was actually where the Prophet, Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, is buried. If you go now to visit the Rola, you can see that there's like a gate that covers the area of the grave of the Prophet, Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam. The description mentioned is that she sat with her back on there, which now, unfortunately, Ustadhah Lubna and I cannot even visit. The restrictions for women, we cannot even see that part of the masjid. It's closed off for us. And that's not always the case. I spoke to someone who grew up in Saudi. She's in her 60s now. She said that when she was a young girl, she could run through the whole entire masjid. There was not a single barrier up. And so even when we talk about what that looks like, and this is not a discussion of barriers versus non-barriers, Alhamdulillah, both are amazing and both are wonderful, depending on the community and what is needed. But the point simply is that this sheikha was teaching from this spot, and a woman today would not even know what that spot looked like, simply because of whatever reason, that's not necessarily Islamic law. It's simply the practice right now. But the point is she would teach from there. And Asupki talks about how his son and a number of other scholars received their ijazah from her by hand. Umm Darada al-Sughra, she was teaching in Masjid al-Aqsa, like it's talked about as the Dome of the Rock, that she was sitting there teaching, and then she would walk with the khalifa at the time, Abdul Malik al-Marwan, and go to pray the salah. We have Sittul Wuzara who was invited from Syria to Cairo to lecture hundreds of men and women. And these stories are constant. I mean, al-Wafaa bil-Asmaa, the volumes upon volumes that Dr. Akram Nadowi has published, takes all of these from all of our sources, our traditions of the past, and puts them into an easy way for us to read
that there were so many thousands of women who were scholars in our history. So when we're talking about women becoming those who speak about these issues, women teaching, women learning, we're not, this is not a quote unquote progressive liberal feminist call, this is a return to our tradition. And how that looks like needs to be discussed within each community. If a community only wants women, and including the women of that community, only want women to teach women, that is what should be done. We need to look at the specific community and see what that community would most benefit from. But when we're looking at the numbers of women leaving, and they cite their reasoning back to the fact that they don't see women in the masjid space, that they don't feel like their needs are being addressed, that they feel the burden of judgment and shame and guilt for simply existing as women, we know we are very far from the sunnah of the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, in which the scholarship of Aisha, Radhi Allahu Anha, and the women companions around her, was the basis for which we have women teachers all the way until today. Thank you. Astaida Lubna, what needs to change? First and foremost, having women involved in all of our institutions is extremely important because you have half of the entire world's population. How would you want that excluded from your narrative when you're trying to make programming, when you're trying to provide services, when you're trying to understand how Islam needs to move forward in America, in the West, in the entire world, right? So you need to have women representation. It doesn't have to be forced. It doesn't have to be something that's awkward, but really understanding with intention and making it an inclusive space in all of our institutions, I think that's very important because with that extra perspective, you'll say, okay, and these are some of the services that we need with the lens of what girls, young women,
and what women need. This is what a space should look like. This is what programming needs. When we have something really basic, like if you want men and women to come to a particular program about something important that's going on in the community, whether it's family related, whether it's political related, one way to make it facilitate for women to come is to provide childcare or to provide a youth program at the same time. This is just a super small example. So first and foremost, we want to expand inclusiveness in all of our institutions, having women come in and leadership. Second, something that I think is very powerful, look at all the amazing things that Ustadh Maryam just mentioned about our history. Most of us don't know, including myself, didn't know to that level of detail. SubhanAllah, there's one thing about misrepresenting aspects of women in Islam that's damaging to young girls, but by extension, by not mentioning, by not mentioning the amazing role that women have had in Islam and in the variety of aspects of society that they were involved in, the variety of aspects in Islamic history that they were involved, by extension, you also are not uplifting girls, their view of themselves, their value, not only in society, but specifically in Islam, but actually they get a sense of devalue, a sense that they are something lesser than. A lot of times when we hear stories of the seerah again, or we hear in khutbahs, again, maybe somebody who's not always the most learned is the one that takes the stand. And that's not a diss on all of our amazing learned scholars, both male and female, but sometimes what happens, those people take up those positions, they're giving a speech, they're giving a lecture. And if we're constantly being excluded from Islamic history, if we're constantly being excluded from the seerah, that's going to have a big impact. So what's the positive on that? We need to remember to always try to include,
yes, do more research, bring in speakers and scholars that have a deeper understanding of translation of ayats, of context with ahadith, so on and so forth. So expanding our knowledge is something that's really important. Those are the first two that come to mind. I'd love to hear more from Ustadh Maryam. One of the things that I really learned in the journey of making Qariyya, which is the Women of Qur'an Reciters app, which I'm giving a shameless plug for, it is for free, you can download it. It's for women, a Women of Qur'an Reciters app. One of the reasons that, one of the things that I learned in the process is that I started interacting with women in a lot of other countries who are professional Qur'an reciters. And these women in Malaysia, Indonesia, in Singapore, in Morocco, Algeria, in Yemen, in the Gambia, in Nigeria, in different parts of either Muslim majority countries, or sometimes not necessarily Muslim majority, but has a large Muslim presence. Something I realized is when women were seeing themselves as professional Qur'an reciters publicly, there was never a question of whether or not the Qur'an was for women. And so like women in these countries, the scholars of these countries, they support women reciting publicly. Now that discussion is a totally different fiqh discussion, not one for today. And you can read a full fiqh discussion on the difference of opinion of scholars on our website, Q-A-R-I-A-H.app. But the point of the statement is that there are scholars who are in these countries who recite with and who teach women and who are taught by women that women can recite the Qur'an in these ways where they are seen by other women very accessibly. Now I'm talking about on television and in competition. So this is their norm. Now, when I'm speaking with women here, when I'm speaking with little girls,
and they're asking, why can't women be Qur'an reciters? Or telling me as a 50-year-old grandmother that she drove four hours away from another city because she heard from one of her friends who attended the event in the city that I had been in the night previously in the UK, that for the first time in her entire life, she heard a woman reciting the Qur'an, so she should go to the event. And as a 50-year-old grandmother, she came, she listened to me reciting, and she wept and said, I had no idea a woman could even recite the Qur'an like this, and how do I start memorizing it now? How do I start at 50? What do I do? Those stories are stories I hear constantly. So these are not just two, they're not two examples. These are the stories of Muslim women in the West that I hear from all the time, from their daughters who have been asking, why do we never listen to girls reciting the Qur'an, mom? Like, why don't we ever hear them? And what I noticed when we created Qari'ah is those same women have come to me and told me, now their little girls who are 10, who are 12, are telling them, I want to be a Qari'ah. I want to memorize the Qur'an, and I want to recite the Qur'an. And for me, this shift tells me that we hear, when we're able to see ourselves as women in these spaces, just for women here, in the West, we could just, events of women reciting the Qur'an for women, qiyams of women praying with women, competitions of women with women, when we are able to create those alternative spaces, if we're not going to have the normative spaces that they have in these Muslim majority countries where women, this is simply their norm, and it's not a big deal in any way because they're scholar supported, it's what they've grown up with. Those Qari'ahs that I've spoken with, those Hafizahs, those Shaykhs who I've spoken with in those other countries, when I asked them, when did they start? They all tell me, oh, when I was three years old and my dad would teach maqamat. Oh, when I was in elementary school and I went to school and we had the choice between home ec or Qur'an and not just Qur'an, Qur'an for competition,
Qur'an for like recitation. It's not simply a memorizing quietly in my room and then I'm gonna recite to my Shaykh. This is a different form of perfection with the power of the recitation. Why am I mentioning these examples? Because when we look at other countries who have historically been Muslim majority countries for hundreds of years, we can see the impact of how this model looks like on a population. And then we can look at us in the West as a more budding Muslim minority, particularly in the immigrant community and look at what aspects of this practice of Islam can we bring to our community that we think and our scholars feel and we talk about with our fiqh councils would be best for our sisters. How do we create these alternative spaces so that sisters feel like they have a space where they feel like they are loved and centered and nourished and nurtured while at the same time rebuilding trust in our incredible men's scholarship? I've heard a lot of women say, well, we just don't trust men scholars. I don't believe those rulings because men made them in the first place. No, as we talked about, men and women were taught by one another throughout history. What we see now is a compilation of centuries of men's scholarship who were also taught by women and who also taught women. So our voices have been a part of these rulings from the time of the Prophet, salallahu alayhi wasalam. And now what we can do is acknowledge that we have a very serious crisis of faith and we can see that perhaps what we've done in the past is not working for our current generation. So what do we need to do to reassess and do so completely within the boundaries and the standards of Islamic law? We have that example already there. And Alhamdulillah, we have that example in so many spaces which have their own issues, of course, too,
when it comes to Muslim women and access and all of that. But what about in scholarship? What about in women seeing themselves in these spaces? So if I'm hearing you correctly, Ustadha Mariam and Ustadha Lubna, what needs to happen within our communities at the very, very least is representation of Muslim women within our institutions. And if that can't happen for whatever reason, then at least they're involved in the decision-making so that they can facilitate, so communities can facilitate an engagement and inclusion of Muslim women. That's at the kind of bare minimum. Is that a fair kind of summation? The bare minimum, I would say, that's fair, the representation, but then also making sure to present the holistic view of Islam, which always includes women, what happened in history, the fact that they were teachers, a holistic view of what marriage looks like, all of those kinds of things. And finally, seeing women leaders, like Ustadha Mariam was mentioning, seeing women Qariya, seeing women speakers, giving space for women to show that, yes, there is a place in Islam for their scholarship and their leadership. Honestly, we could speak for many more hours on this topic. And I have to say, as a father of two Muslim women, your passion, your enthusiasm is contagious, and I'm glad that they're gonna have role models like yourselves, and inshallah male role models who propagate the inclusion of Muslim women. Normally we ask a very simple question at the end of every episode, and that is if my nine-year-old niece, she usually has a question for our guests. I'm gonna do something a little different this time. My nine-year-old niece and my nine-year-old nephew, since we have two guests, they rock up and they ask you both. We'll start with you, Ustadha Lubna. My nine-year-old niece asks you,
how am I to be ready for the challenges facing Muslim women? Very good. I would tell this young lady that know that your value comes from Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la first and foremost. There's going to be so much noise in this world, family judgment, societal judgment, community judgment, all kinds of noise that's going to interfere with how you view your value. And when we look to Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la and look that our value comes from Him first and foremost for both men and for women, it puts us at ease. Inna akramakum ainda Allahi atqaakum That the most noble of you in the eyes of Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la is the one who has most taqwa, is the one that's most God conscious. So I would tell her, look to Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la as you look for guidance and that you'll be able to push all that other noise that will cloud your way, inshallah. JazakAllah khair. And Ustadhah Miriam, my nephew comes to you and says, what role do I play in helping facilitate an Islamic environment for my sister? May Allah bless you so, so much. I would love for you to ask your sisters, how they feel when they go into a masjid or maybe your cousins or maybe your mom and ask them what are ways that you can help the masjid even nice, being even nicer and even better for them when they go to the masjid. You're nine, so mashallah, you are starting to pray a lot and inshallah, you're going to the masjid with your dad or your uncle or someone who is with you. And you might be seeing that the masjid looks a certain way that maybe you wanna be able to help with but you can ask for the advice of the girls in your family or the women in your family to see what specifically would help them because you might come and visit me in California and it might be very different from you in Australia. So being able to ask the sisters around you,
your actual sisters, what you can do to help them is so wonderful and please make dua, always make dua that Allah helps our ummah, that Allah protects our ummah and may Allah bless you so much. And I just realized that I spoke to you as if you were actually nine, so I apologize for that. Yes. You know, we're trying to really play the part here. I'll clip that and send it to my nine-year-old nephew. Alhamdulillah, I have enough nephews and nieces to last me a lifetime. So sometimes when I say, Jazakallah khair. So we're gonna change gears, a very different rapid fire segment now. What I'll do is ask a very quick question, expecting a very, very quick answer, inshallah from you both, we'll toggle between the two ustazas. And if you'd like to pass, you're able to pass. You're able to hand one question over to the other guests, okay, if you're stuck, but only one. I'll start with ustaza Mariam, because this is her first double take, first of many, inshallah. Your favorite qarit, reciter of the Quran? Abdul Basit. I mean, yeah, I saw that coming. Ustaza Lubna, what's the last book you were reading? The last book I'm reading is on emotional intelligence. And ustaza Mariam, the last book you were reading? I've been working on a manuscript and so I'm reading like 15 books at a time. They're all in Arabic about Islamic law, so the general genre. You both lived in Egypt. So any one of you can answer this question. Foul or falafel? Foul. Falafel. We lived in Egypt together. Together, oh Akbar, this is amazing. Actually, I'm not sure if I'm gonna be able to answer this.
But actually, we saw each other during the time. We are true companions. She was considered her mom. May Allah bless us all. Allahu Akbar, Allahu Akbar. It's an honor, an honor, inshallah. Ustaza Lubna, what was the most difficult episode of Upheld by Allah, the series that you just recorded? Ooh, yes. The most difficult one was the one, Subhanallah, Asya, alayhi salam. It was the first one. And I had to get out the jitters, maybe for like 45 minutes, just kind of messing up and fumbling along. Ustaza Mariam. But it was truly an honor, Alhamdulillah. It was a pleasure. If you could have dinner with anyone in history who is not the Prophet, salallahu alayhi wa sallam, who would it be? Asma bint Amees, radhiAllahu anha. Why? I have to ask why. Asma bint Amees, radhiAllahu anha, for so many reasons. She made hijrah during the first hijrah to Abyssinia, and then she made hijrah again to Medina many years later. And there's this narration of her sitting with the daughter of Omar, radhiAllahu anha, and Huma and Hafsa. And Omar walks in and he doesn't recognize Asma, and so he's like, who is this? And then Hafsa explains that, who she is. And then he realizes, oh, it's Asma bint Amees. And so then Asma steps in, because they're talking to each other at this time, and she steps in and she's like, yes, that's who she is. And then Omar, radhiAllahu anha, walks in and he's like, he basically says something to the effect of, we got here first, we were with the Prophet, salAllahu alayhi wa sallam, first, and therefore we have more of a right to the Prophet, salAllahu alayhi wa sallam, than you do. Because it had been years, about seven years, from the time that they made the initial hijrah with the Prophet, salAllahu alayhi wa sallam, and then she came from Abyssinia many years later. She was, she, she became angry with his response, and then she went to the Prophet, salAllahu alayhi wa sallam,
after telling Omar, radhiAllahu anhu, that she's, that you were here being fed and protected, like taught by the Prophet, salAllahu alayhi wa sallam, and I'm gonna tell him what you said, while we were in that faraway land, I'm gonna tell him what you said without taking away any or adding anything to it. And then she went to the Prophet, salAllahu alayhi wa sallam, and this is when the Prophet, salAllahu alayhi wa sallam, said that not for Omar and his companions is one migration, and for her and her companions there's two migrations. I'm making the hadith super short, just because I know we're at the end. And then Abu Musa al-Ash'ari and a number of other companions, excuse me, kept coming to her, asking over and over for the narration of this hadith. This is one of many instances of Asma bid'a Umays's life. She was married to Ja'far, who was martyred, radhiAllahu anhu, then she was married to Abu Bakr, radhiAllahu anhu, and then after his passing, and she took care of him in his passing, and she washed his body after his passing, then she married Ali, radhiAllahu anhu. So her story, which honestly parallels the incredible woman, companions are so amazing, subhanAllah, like that many, many, many aspects of her faith, her early conversion, the strength to be able to speak back to someone who Shaytan was intimidated by, and we love Umar, radhiAllahu anhu, he is promised paradise, he's one of our greatest examples. But even in that moment, like knowing who he is, I mean, me, I would have ran the other way, like, please make dua for me, I'm so sorry for offending you for my presence. But like, subhanAllah, may Allah bless her, the way that she spoke brought so much comfort, so much comfort to the entire community of, the entire community of migrants who came from Abyssinia. Like this small community now came back to this hadith, and it was glad tidings for them, and it's the basis of so much understanding in our loss, so subhanAllah, I just loved that moment, and yeah, that's why. One final question for you, Ustada Mariam, you're a second degree black belt in Taekwondo, what led you to that? Okay, I got started because my mother has a second degree black belt, my aunt does, my uncle has a ninth degree, my other uncle has a black belt, we have many, many black belts in my family, so you could say this is a family thing,
I got started because my family was into it, I started very young, and subhanAllah, I trained with my family for a very long time after receiving the actual black belt. Okay, Ustada Lubna, I've been in media for the last 10 years, and when I read your bio and realized that you have a master's in screenwriting, and you have a YouTube channel called Double Shot Mocker Productions, let's just say I was very curious, so question one, why the name Double Shot Mocker Productions? Good question, so in all of my drinks, I love to have a double shot of coffee, of espresso in my drinks, I had a partner as well in the beginning, when I started, or after I started, and so we both, the double means that as well, we're both mocha colored, so all of that is behind Double Shot Mocker Productions. And as I said, you have a master's in screenwriting, if there's one story from Islamic history that you would love to screenwrite, what story would it be? Oh, I was just thinking that recently, subhanAllah. And since you're on the board of Yaqeen, how are you gonna facilitate it? Yeah, I would love to do that. Oh, subhanAllah, it recently came to my mind that this would make a really good movie. For lack of that memory at the moment, another one that comes to mind is the Battle of the Trench. I think that would be an amazing, amazing visual and story. SubhanAllah. JazakAllah khair. Ustada Lubna, Ustada Maryam, thank you very much for your time today. You are very passionate advocates of the inclusion of Muslim women in the community, I appreciate it, and I'm sure many Muslim women are in doubt about the importance of Muslim women are indebted to your work, jazakAllah khair, and Muslim men and Muslim families. So thank you so much for your time, and inshAllah we'll see you again on Double Take. JazakAllah khair for highlighting the topic. BarakAllahu feekum.
JazakAllah khair.
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