Male Conscience
\r\nWomen have always been present among the ranks of the ulama, but their role has almost always been invisible. Of the inestimable library of books produced by scholars of the Shariah before the twentieth century, no more than a handful issue from the hands of women. As one fourteenth-century (male) jurist observed with more pride than disapproval, it was surely the Shariah’s emphasis on female modesty and protecting women’s honour that prevented them from a greater role in scholarship, though he notes that many of the greatest scholars would issue fatwas with their learned wives’ or daughters’ signatures attached in approval. Women won respect as Sufi ascetics, and continue to be sought out as transmitters of Hadiths and the Quran to this day. But the urge to keep them from the pulpit has only grown stronger as Muslim communities and Islam’s global religious universe feel ever more encroached upon by outsiders. Muslims seek instinctively to guard a sense of authentic tradition by staking out the ground of women’s bodies and voices.
\r\nClearly, woman-led, mixed-congregation prayers are not established practice in the Islamic tradition. But they are not unprecedented or as controversial as many think. The Hadith of Umm Waraqa proves that the Prophet commanded at least one woman to lead a mixed congregation in prayer. A woman-led Friday prayer, with the sermon delivered by a woman, is clearly a novelty. But none of the ulama’s objections to it rest on any firm, direct scriptural evidence, and solutions exist to the concerns they raise. Muslims today thus find themselves faced with a question: in the absence of opposing evidence from scripture, does simply adhering to how things have always been done justify denying half of the population the right to public religious leadership? It is revealingly plain that if this issue did not involve the knot of gender and power, the evidence for permitting it would carry the day without controversy.
\r\nThat fact casts light on a dark and unworthy place in the male conscience. A humbling reminder of this is found in the life of Ibn Taymiyya, a learned and conservative Hanbali don but also an iconoclast unintimidated by mainstream censure. He used to admit how impressed he was by one Fatima bint Abbas (d. 1315), a female Hanbali scholar who had mastered the greatest works of law and took to the pulpits of Damascus mosques to harangue and inspire a sinful public with her preaching. Despite his respect for her, Ibn Taymiyya recalled that he had marked reservations about her speaking in the mosque pulpit. He intended to put a stop to it. Then the Prophet came to him in a dream. ‘This is a righteous woman,’ the Messenger of God counselled him. The inimitable scholar, who had stood unperturbed before sultans and had smashed idols, held his tongue.
\r\nCompiled From:
\r\n \"Misquoting Muhammad\" - Jonathan A.C. Brown, pp. 197-199