Hamza Yusuf: Permissible For Women To Lead Men In Prayer

[hareem01]

Re: Hamza Yusuf: Permissible For Women To Lead Men In Prayer

@Gaia

http://hijabman.com/journal/hamza-yusuf-finally-admits-its-permissible-for-women-to-lead-men-in-prayer/

The Islamic tradition is largely un-read. Even people now that are studying in ‘madrasahs’, studying at Shar’ia colleges do not go deeply into this tradition. This is simply a fact. One of the things – I’ll give you one example. When I wrote a paper on female prayer, because this was an issue a few years ago, years ago when I was a student in Mauritania, I remembered in a book that Ibn Ayman from the Malaki madhab considered female prayers was permissible, and I remember as a twenty-one year old student underlining that; and I actually went back to the book and found my underlining of that statement. When I studied the prayer issue, I was so stuck by the fact that not only was it debated early on, but there were multiple opinions. Imam Tabari considered it permissible for women to lead the prayer if they were more qualified than men – to lead men in prayer. Ibn Taymiyah himself permitted women to lead men in prayer if they were illiterate and she was literate. He just said that she should lead from the back because she might distract the men if she was leading from the front. Ibn Taymiyeh! Permitting a woman to lead men in prayer!

Are we manipulating existing Islamic gender roles?

Do you believe it’s important to distinguish between small details (such as women leading prayer), which our past generations thought to be pointless?

Shaykh Hamza said this in one of his lectures…let me find it on yt.