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Can an Imam Teach Women With No Barrier?

18 January, 2020
Q I live in a non-Muslim country. Can our mosque imam teach women with no barrier?

Answer

Dr. Jasser Auda
18 January, 2020

In the Name of Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful. 

All praise and thanks are due to Allah, and peace and blessings be upon His Messenger.

In this fatwa:

There is nothing wrong if a mosque’s imam teaches men and women without a barrier.

Answering your question about if a mosque’s imam can teach women with no barrier, Dr. Jasser Auda, Professor and Al-Shatibi Chair of Maqasid Studies at the International Peace College South Africa, states:

Yes, a mosque’s imam can teach men and women without a barrier. This is the Sunnah of Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him). That is how he conducted his lessons in his mosque.

The Prophet’s mosque did not have any barriers. It also did not have any floors or balconies for men and women. Men and women were in one space where men made rows in the front and behind them were the women’s rows. This is the sunnah of Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him)

You mentioned in your question the term ‘non-Muslim country‘. Really countries are not Muslim or non-Muslim. A country where you are allowed to have mosques, give adhan, pray and practise the Islamic rituals is an Islamic land. And in that sense is the land where Muslims could live.

Whether the majority 51% is Muslim or not is a political question and has nothing to with the rules that govern the Muslims’ behavior and the mosques and what Muslims do. The rules are the same whether Muslims are a majority or a minority.

Almighty Allah knows best.

can women go to mosques? Men and women in mosques teaching women without barrier women access to mosques
About Dr. Jasser Auda
Jasser Auda is a Professor and Al-Shatibi Chair of Maqasid Studies at the International Peace College South Africa, the Executive Director of the Maqasid Institute, a global think tank based in London, and a Visiting Professor of Islamic Law at Carleton University in Canada. He is a Founding and Board Member of the International Union of Muslim Scholars, Member of the European Council for Fatwa and Research, Fellow of the Islamic Fiqh Academy of India, and General Secretary of Yaqazat Feker, a popular youth organization in Egypt. He has a PhD in the philosophy of Islamic law from University of Wales in the UK, and a PhD in systems analysis from University of Waterloo in Canada. Early in his life, he memorized the Quran and studied Fiqh, Usul and Hadith in the halaqas of Al-Azhar Mosque in Cairo. He previously worked as: Founding Director of the Maqasid Center in the Philosophy of Islamic Law in London; Founding Deputy Director of the Center for Islamic Ethics in Doha; professor at the University of Waterloo in Canada, Alexandria University in Egypt, Islamic University of Novi Pazar in Sanjaq, Qatar Faculty of Islamic Studies, and the American University of Sharjah. He lectured and trained on Islam, its law, spirituality and ethics in dozens of other universities and organizations around the world. He wrote 25 books in Arabic and English, some of which were translated to 25 languages.