Women As Imams - Mixed-gender Congregations

Mixed-gender Congregations

This is so that the men do not have to look at a woman ahead of them, which might make them aroused. According to Imam an-Nawawi, “If a woman leads a man or men in a congregational prayer, the prayer of the men is invalid. As for her prayer, and the prayer of the women praying with her, it is sound.”

Within the household, if no qualified man is present, is the one exception for women to lead men in prayers. Modern Islamic scholars such as Dr. Yusuf Al-Qaradawi, based on the Umm Waraqah hadith mentioned above, consider it permissible for a knowledgeable woman to lead mixed prayers within her own household, as he considers this to largely obviate the danger of the men being aroused by her presence.

In the early years of Islam, the Haruriyyah sect, a branch of the Kharijites movement, founded by Habib ibn-Yazīd al-Harūrī, held that it was permissible to entrust the imamate to a woman if she were able to carry out the required duties. In 699 A.D. (77 A.H.), the founder's wife, Ghazāla al-Harūriyya, even led her male warriors in prayer in Kufa after having controlled the city for a day, following the example of Abu Sufyan's daughter Juwayriyya at the Battle of Yarmuk. Not only did she lead Muslim men in prayer, she recited the two longest chapters in the Quran during that prayer.

Well-known early jurists — including Al-Tabari (838–932), historian, exegete and founder of a now defunct juristic school; Abu Thawr (764–854), mufti of Iraq; Al-Muzani (791–878); and Ibn Arabi (1165–1240) — considered the practice permissible at least for optional (nafl salat) prayers. Al-Muthani (d. 878), student of Shafii and contributor to the establishment of the Shafii juristic school, allowed women to unconditionally lead men in prayer. However, the views of these scholars are not accepted by any major surviving group.

A few fatwas exist permitting women to lead a mixed gender congregation regardless of familial relationship. For instance, Dr. Khaled Abou El Fadl recommends that the placement of the imam be made with greater modesty in mind for a female imam. Some traditional scholars caution against Yusuf Qaradawi's methodology and regard him as excessively lenient as he does not limit himself to the positions of the four Sunni schools of fiqh'.

Adding to the arguments in favor of woman-led prayer of mixed congregations, Laury Silvers and Ahmed Elewa recently published a detailed article in the Journal of Law and Religion arguing that female imams are permissible in all circumstances. Their abstract reads:

This paper, written five years after the Wadud prayer, presents a survey and analysis of the various responses to female led mixed-gender congregational prayers as well as a legal argument for its default permissibility. We show that, in interpreting the Hadiths on woman-led prayer, Sunni schools of law hold a range of opinions on its permissibility. We discuss how Muslim jurists consider historical needs in their rulings, the role of female modesty in this debate, and the nature of juristic consensus. We present our own argument that unrestricted female prayer leadership is legal by default rather than an innovation as many critics have charged. Finally, we set out our own different positions on the propriety of Muslim women asserting their inclusion in the current situation.