Women in the Mosque: A History of Legal Thought and Social Practice

This chapter surveys the discussions of women’s mosque access in the major Sunnī schools of Islamic law. Later chapters will examine connections between legal doctrine and social practice; this chapter approaches legal debate as an autonomous discursive field whose construction and disputation of gender ideologies are significant and revealing in themselves. Because legal manuals are often quite repetitive in their formulations over time and because important shifts in assumptions and categories can be signaled by quite subtle changes in terminology and argumentation, this chapter does not attempt to reproduce the rules on women’s mosque attendance as presented in each of the major legal sources. Instead, the chronological survey of each school focuses on specific thematic nodes and temporal points of transition that illuminate the underlying issues under negotiation.

In a section titled “Chapter on women’s going out to mosques,” the Muwaṭṭaʾ of Mālik ibn Anas (d. 179 AH/796 CE) presents four reports. In the first, transmitted through ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿUmar, the Prophet straightforwardly declares (presumably to the men of the community), “Do not forbid the maidservants of God from [going to] the mosques of God” (lā tamnaʿū imāʾ allāh masājid allāh).1 In the second, he admonishes women directly: “If one of you attends the evening prayers, let her not touch perfume.”² The third report shifts the scene from an (at least imagined) encounter with the Prophet himself to the tensions experienced by his Companions in the years after his death. It recounts that ʿĀtika bint Zayd, the wife of ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb, used to ask the latter’s permission to go to the mosque. He would remain silent, upon which she would declare, “By God, I will go out, unless you forbid me”—and he would not forbid her.³ In the fourth report, again clearly set after the Prophet’s death, his widow ʿĀʾisha is said to have declared, “If the Messenger of God had lived to see what women have innovated, he would have forbidden them from visiting the mosque, as the women of the Israelites were forbidden.”⁴

These four reports encapsulate, in a concentrated and rather perplexing form, the ideas about women’s mosque attendance that informed Islamic juristic discussions of the issue. It was nearly universally assumed (even among those who later opposed the practice) both that women attended public prayers in the mosque in the Prophet’s lifetime—an assumption supported by the wide range of ḥadīth reports that mention women’s presence in incidental and nonpolemical ways⁵—and that the Prophet explicitly forbade the exclusion of women from mosques. More restrictive statements attributed to figures speaking after the Prophet’s death quite consistently address this assumption and attempt to neutralize it in one way or another. Not only does the anecdote about ʿUmar and ʿĀtika assume the fact of women’s attendance, but also the wording of the prophetic ḥadīth presented at the beginning of the section: ʿUmar’s evidently reluctant refusal to “forbid” ʿĀtika implicitly reflects his awareness that he is himself forbidden to prohibit her attendance. The ʿĀʾisha report, destined to be the most widely cited authority statement condemning women’s mosque attendance in later centuries, invokes the swiftly deteriorating moral standards of the women of the community as grounds for divergence from the assumed practice of the Prophet’s time.

The text of the Muwaṭṭaʾ does not contain any statement about Medinian practice or any indication of Mālik’s juristic preference. However, the early Mālikī tradition did attribute to him more than one statement on this subject, primarily in the Mudawwana, believed to be compiled by Saḥnūn ibn Saʿīd al-Tanūkhī (d. 240/854) chiefly from material transmitted by Mālik’s disciple Ibn al-Qāsim (d. 191/806).6 In a report suggesting a continuing female presence in the mosque in Medina, Mālik is asked about the situation of men who arrive at prayers to find that the mosque itself is full of men and the courtyard (raḥba) is full of women (he affirms that the men’s prayers are valid even if they stand behind the women).⁷ Indeed, visiting the mosque appears to be one of the most routine and acceptable reasons for a woman to leave her home; in the Mudawwana, early authorities mention the mosque as an acceptable destination even for a divorced woman awaiting the expiration of her waiting period (ʿidda), who is generally expected to remain in her home.⁸

The most programmatic and legally influential statement about women’s mosque attendance in the Mudawwana is one in which the authorial voice (traditionally identified as Saḥnūn) asks his informant (traditionally identified as Ibn al-Qāsim), “Did Mālik disapprove of women going out to the mosque or to the two festival prayers or the prayer for rain [both of which would be held on an outdoor prayer ground, muṣallā]?” Ibn al-Qāsim replies, “As for going out to mosques, he used to say, ‘They should not be forbidden to go out to mosques’; as for the prayer for rain and the two festival prayers, we are of the opinion that it is not a problem for any mature (mutajālla) woman to go out.”⁹ The first half of this statement reflects the distinctive wording of the first report presented in the Muwaṭṭaʾ—although the saying is here not explicitly identified as a prophetic ḥadīth, Mālik knows the rule that women are not to be forbidden from attending mosques. The second half of the statement, which appears to be framed as a statement of juristic opinion from Ibn al-Qāsim, represents something new: a categorization of women in which only one type, the mature or elderly woman (al-mutajālla), is permitted without reservation to go out for public worship.¹⁰

Saḥnūn’s somewhat younger contemporary Muḥammad al-ʿUtbī al-Qurṭubī (d. 255/869) transmitted in his work al-Mustakhraja (known as al-ʿUtbīya) another statement attributed to Mālik: “He was asked about women’s going to attend prayers at mosques; he said, ‘That varies with respect to the mature women (al-mutajālla) and the young woman (al-shābba). The mutajālla goes out to the mosque but does not frequent it often, and the young woman goes out to the mosque once in a while.’”11 Here the distinction between old and young women is apparently attributed to Mālik himself. There is no reference to the prophetic ḥadīth or juristic dictum condemning women’s exclusion from mosques, although there does seem to be some tension between an affirmation that both old and young women may go to mosques and a desire that they do so infrequently.

The word mutajālla is an odd and distinctive one, occurring very rarely outside of Mālikī legal discourse; there are several other words that would ordinarily be used to refer to a woman of advanced years. Indeed, outside the classical Mālikī legal context, both premodern manuscripts and modern editors not infrequently get it wrong.¹² Outside of Mālikī fiqh, the locus classicus (cited, for instance, by the lexicographer Ibn Manẓūr¹³) is a report in the Kitāb al-ṭabaqāt al-kubrā of Ibn Saʿd (d. 230/845). In it, the Companion of the Prophet Umm Ṣubayya Khawla bint Qays recounts,

In the time of the Prophet, Abu Bakr, and the beginning of the caliphate of ʿUmar, we used to be in the mosque, women who had grown old (niswa qad tajālalna). Sometimes we would spin, and sometimes some of us would work braiding palm leaves in it [i.e., the mosque]. ʿUmar said, “I will surely make you into free/noble women again! (la-arudannakunna ḥarāʾir),” and he expelled us from it, except that we used to attend the [obligatory] prayers at the [set] time.¹⁴

The women in this anecdote appear to be enjoying a privilege of their seniority, engaging in productive labor in the public space of the mosque. It is unclear whether they have chosen this space for its commercial potential (conceivably, they hope to sell the products of their craft) or for its social pleasures. ʿUmar, in a recognizable (although not necessarily nonhistorical) trope,¹⁵ asserts a different form of social differentiation among women: as free women, they should not linger in the mosque, although they may frequent it on a limited basis for obligatory prayers.

Even beyond the context of women’s mosque attendance, the mutajālla is an important category in the gender discourse of early Mālikī legal texts. In another report, Mālik declares that it is incumbent upon the ruler to instruct craftsmen not to allow young women (al-shābba) to sit with them (presumably to negotiate over their wares). “As for the mature woman (al-mutajālla) who does not arouse suspicion by sitting, and the low-ranking servant (al-khādim al-dūn) sitting with whom arouses no suspicion, there is no harm in that.”16 Like low social status (which was presumed to render subservient males either unattractive as sexual partners or unworthy of social concern), advanced age carried at least partial exemption from the social pressures and restrictions that applied to young women. Mālik is also said to have affirmed that a woman who is mutajālla may travel to Mecca for the pilgrimage without a male guardian (walī) as long as she is accompanied by a group of trustworthy people.¹⁷

The complex structure (and the disputed authenticity) of the earliest sources makes it difficult to determine whether the term mutajālla—and the fundamental age distinction among women that it signals—originates with Mālik himself or represents the terminology of the following generation. Sometimes the age division is clearly superimposed on Mālik’s opinions. Thus, whereas Mālik affirms in the Muwaṭṭaʾ that a woman may eat with an unrelated male within the limits of custom, Ibn al-Jahm (d. 323/934) “explains” that he is referring to the mutajālla.¹⁸ Although it is difficult to date the usage of this term precisely, its meaning is clear; the mutajālla emerges as a woman who is nonsecluded by virtue of her age, one whose prescribed personal behavior (including public worship activities) diverges sharply from that envisioned for the young and nubile shābba.

The opinions attributed to Mālik also address one more scenario that might involve a woman’s venturing forth to a mosque, this time in the context not of public worship, but of legal procedure. Mālik is reported to have recommended that a judge hold court in mosques, in part because this would make him accessible to “powerless persons and women” (yaṣil ilayhi al-ḍaʿīf wa’l-marʾa).19 A judge might preside in any convenient public location; however, some specific procedures demanded the solemnity of the mosque setting. According to Mālik, judicial oaths in significant cases (in financial matters, only for cases involving at least one-fourth gold dinar) were to be taken in the mosque. The objective was to ensure an appropriate attitude of awe (and, presumably, of veracity).²⁰

Of course, giving an oath at the mosque involved leaving the home and appearing in a public place, which raised the question of whether some women might decline to do so. In the Mudawwana, the voice identified as Ibn al-Qāsim reports, [Mālik] said, “As for any important matter, for it they are made to go out to the mosques. If she is a woman who goes out in the daytime, she is made to go out in the daytime and give her oath in the mosque. If she is one of those who do not go out, she is made to go out at night and give her oath there.”²¹ Other early authorities are similarly reported to have stated that “a woman who does not go out in the daytime, should go out at night [to swear in the mosque] regarding a quarter dinar or more.”²² These comments suggest that in the cultural milieu of early Mālikism, some women—implicitly, one assumes, elite women—secluded themselves by remaining at home in the daylight hours.

Interestingly, there is independent evidence that staying home during the day was a genuine cultural practice, at least in the Ḥijāz. In a report preserved in the Muṣannaf of ʿAbd al-Razzāq al-Ṣanʿānī, Ibn Jurayj (d. 149–51/766–68) asks the Meccan scholar ʿAṭāʾ ibn Abī Rabāḥ (d. 115/733–34) whether “a woman who goes out during the daytime” is obligated to go to congregational worship if she hears the call to prayer. (ʿAṭāʾ replies firmly that she is not, although she may do so if she wishes.²³) A century later, the littérateur al-Jāḥiẓ remarks in passing that the women of Mecca and Medina exchange visits at night and are never seen in the daytime; in contrast, the women of Egypt exchange visits during the daytime and are never seen out at night.²⁴

The reason women went out (to attend prayers at the mosque or for other purposes) only during the nighttime hours seems to have been that darkness would conceal them from the eyes of strangers, or at least obscure their individual identities. In a ḥadīth transmitted by al-Bukhārī, ʿĀʾisha recounts that the women of the Believers would wrap themselves in their outer garments to attend dawn prayers with the Prophet and then return to their homes while still unrecognizable in the gloaming.25 Overall, ḥadīth reports mentioning women’s mosque attendance in Medina during the Prophet’s lifetime tend to suggest a preference for the dawn and nighttime prayers, the two times when congregational worship was not held during full daylight. Some versions of the anecdote about ʿĀtika bint Zayd specify that she used to frequent the mosque “at night.”²⁶ A version of the same story transmitted by al-Bukhārī, where the woman involved remains unnamed, states that “a wife of ʿUmar’s used to attend the dawn and nighttime prayers in congregation in the mosque.”²⁷ Both al-Bukhārī and Muslim also transmit a ḥadīth in which the Prophet declares, “If your women ask your permission to go to the mosque at night, allow them.”²⁸ Regardless of the ultimate authenticity of these ḥadīths (i.e., whether they represent actual statements by the Prophet or the practice of his lifetime), they reflect an image of Medinian practices that circulated during the early centuries of the Islamic era. A preference for attending the dawn and nighttime prayers in the mosque is also associated with Medinian women of a somewhat later generation.²⁹

Although issues of status and timing played a role, the most significant category distinction in the minds of Mālikī scholars of subsequent generations remained that of age. Ibn Abī Zayd al-Qayrawānī (d. 386/996) notes in his Risāla, one of the central teaching texts of the Mālikī school, that “a young woman (al-shābba) should not go out to [Friday prayers],”³⁰ as well as noting that, for instance, a man could look at the face of an unrelated woman unrestrictedly if she was of mature years.³¹ By the time of Ibn ʿAbd al-Barr (d. 463/1070), the division between mature and young women with respect to mosque attendance was so well established among jurists of all regions and schools that he was able to declare, “The scholars consider it unobjectionable for mature women (al-mutajāllāt min al-nisāʾ) to attend congregational and Friday prayers, and they consider it objectionable for young women to do so.”³² Sind ibn ʿInān al-Azdī (d. 541/1146) even speculated that the age distinction must have been followed in the time of the Companions of the Prophet: “It is not known that their virgins and those similar to them used to go out to the mosque. If all women had gone out, they would have filled the mosque and equaled the men in that respect.” Certainly “customary practice proceeded in this way continuously (wa-mithlu dhālika kān yattaṣil bihi al-ʿamal fī’l-ʿāda)”—that is, in his opinion only older women went to the mosque.³³

By the fifth century AH/eleventh century CE, legal scholars were increasingly concerned with providing detailed textual rationales for the established doctrines of their schools. In particular, the distinction between older and younger women lacked strong textual support from the Qur’an or sunna. The Mālikī scholar most responsible for integrating distinctions among women of different age cohorts into a rigorous interpretation of the textual sources of the law was Abū’l-Walīd Ibn Rushd (d. 520/1126), a judge and imam of the Great Mosque of Cordoba. In his commentary on al-ʿUtbī’s Mustakhraja, he makes a fresh attempt to harmonize and rationalize the received doctrines of Mālik both with each other and with the statements attributed to the Prophet Muḥammad. As we have seen, the Mudawwana quotes Mālik as stating that women “should not be forbidden from going to mosques,” although the statement attributed to him in the ʿUtbīya specifies that a mature woman should not frequent the mosque excessively and a young one should go only on rare occasions. Though not strictly incompatible, the two statements certainly display a sharp contrast of emphasis, one stressing that women should not be denied access to mosques and the other insisting that their attendance should be sharply limited. Ibn Rushd explains,

Having identified fitna as the implicit rationale behind Mālik’s limitations on young women’s mosque attendance, Ibn Rushd can use it as the basis for an entire taxonomy of women based on age.

In his typology of women, Ibn Rushd makes overt and systematic a concern with sexual temptation that is at most implicit in earlier formulations of school doctrine. Although it is plausible to assume that the mutajālla was considered less sexually alluring than a youthful woman, issues of life cycle, social role, and mature moral development also seem to be implied in earlier discussions of her role. Early usage of the term mutajālla arguably suggests a stage of social life rather than a perceived degree of erotic magnetism. Similarly, the statements attributed to early figures such as Mālik and Ibn al-Qāsim make no reference to the woman’s physical appearance or to the sexual desires of men. In specifying the mature woman who may appropriately deal with craftsmen, Mālik describes her as someone who “is not subject to accusations” (lā tuttaham). Such a statement, rather than focusing attention on the woman’s physical allure, suggests implicit reliance on social conventions according to which young women were more vulnerable to gossip than mature matrons.

Ibn Rushd’s overt invocation of the concept of fitna—a potent term designating the sexual temptation and chaos assumed to result from the interaction of unrelated men and women—thus reflects an innovative development in the Mālikī discussion of women’s mosque access. The ḥadīth that he cites is well authenticated and widely attested,37 but does not feature in legal discussions of women’s mosque attendance before this time. Indeed, overall fitna does not serve as a central concept for the analysis of gender roles in the earliest Mālikī texts. In the Mudawwana, for instance, the term fitna refers either to political strife and religious schism or to the “testing of the grave” (fitnat al-qabr).³⁸ (Similarly, in al-Shāfiʿī’s legal compilation al-Umm the word fitna refers overwhelmingly to political strife, temporal or other-worldly punishment, or general “testing.”³⁹) In contrast, fitna becomes the central concept in the Mālikī discussion of women’s presence in mosques from the fifth/eleventh century. For instance, Ibn Rushd’s contemporary Ibn Baṭṭāl remarks that the ḥadīth forbids a husband from preventing his wife from going to the mosque only “if he does not fear fitna to her or from her.”⁴⁰ It is certainly the case that concerns with women’s mobility and visibility figured in legal debates long before the time of Ibn Rushd. The early development of the concept of fitna among ḥadīth specialists will be discussed later in this chapter. Nevertheless, it would be rash to infer that by invoking the concept of fitna, Ibn Rushd was merely labeling the concern that had tacitly shaped the legal debate over women’s mosque attendance all along. Ibn Rushd’s typology of mosque-going women proved enormously influential in the Mālikī school, and one might see in it the increasing sway of a more sexualized, fitna-based, and perhaps essentializing attitude toward women, their mobility in general, and their public worship in particular.

Ibn Rushd also comments on another important issue related to women’s mosque access. Were men—whether rulers or husbands—obligated to allow women to go to the mosque, or was it merely recommended that they do so? To phrase it somewhat differently, did women have a right to go to the mosque? Despite the Mālikī school’s deeply rooted and ḥadīth-based affirmation that husbands should not forbid their wives to go to the mosque, most Mālikīs approached this as a moral exhortation rather than as an enforceable rule. The early Mālikī scholar Yaḥyā ibn Ibrāhīm ibn Muzayn (d. 260/874) wrote in a commentary on the Muwaṭṭaʾ that “if a young woman (al-marʾa al-shābba) asks permission from her husband to go out to the mosque, he is not legally obligated to let her go out; he is entitled to discipline her and detain her.”⁴¹ In fact, many questioned whether the wife had an enforceable right to go to the mosque even if she had a stipulation to this effect in her marriage contract. According to the ʿUtbīya, Mālik himself was asked about the scenario of a man who married a woman on the condition that he not forbid her from going to the mosque; he replied, “He ought to fulfill what he promised to her, but he is not legally compelled to do so (lā yuqḍā bi-dhālika ʿalayhi); if he declines to allow her he is entitled to do so, and he is entitled to prevent her.”⁴²

Some Mālikī scholars did ponder the possibility that women had an enforceable right to go to the mosque.43 However, the comments of Sind ibn ʿInān suggest the extent to which some jurists placed moral responsibility for a wife’s behavior upon the husband. He writes that “the situation depends on the nature of the woman; if the man knows her to be characterized by piety and propriety (in ʿarafa minhā al-diyāna wa’l-ṣiḥḥa), there is no harm in his permitting her to do that.” The situation is different, however, “if he knows her to be characterized by deviousness and he is not sure it is true that she wants to go to the mosque until he verifies it.”⁴⁴ Nevertheless, it is notable that the underlying fear in this passage appears to be not the disruptive potential of the woman’s presence in the mosque, but the possibility that she will use a supposed trip to the mosque as a pretext for some less savory outing.

Ibn Rushd himself regards a woman’s entitlement to go to the mosque as completely contingent on the permission of her husband. Even if her marriage contract contains a condition affirming her right to do so, in his view it constitutes a moral rather than a legal obligation upon the husband; it is preferable, but not mandatory, for him to allow her to go whether or not this is specified in the contract.⁴⁵ He supports his conclusions with the story of ʿĀtika bint Zayd and ʿUmar (apparently because the fact of her asking permission suggests his authority to make the choice).⁴⁶ He argues that Mālik’s statement that women are not to be forbidden to go to mosques refers not to individual husbands, but to a general prohibition on women’s mosque attendance (al-manʿ al-ʿāmm) imposed by the authorities. Basing his conclusion on Mālik’s doctrine that young women should not go out to festival prayers or prayers for rain, Ibn Rushd holds that the authorities should prohibit them from doing so. In contrast, the ruler should not bar young women from the mosques because they are allowed to go there on some occasions. In contrast, with respect to the women themselves it was religiously undesirable (yukrah) to do so often, and then only with the permission of their husbands.⁴⁷ Despite Ibn Rushd’s formal commitment to grounding legal doctrine in ḥadīth, it is notable that his arguments here consistently subvert the surface meanings of the relevant texts.

Another formative contribution to the Mālikī discussion of women’s mosque access was provided by ʿIyāḍ ibn Mūsā al-Yaḥṣubī (al-Qāḍī ʿIyāḍ, d. 544/1149), who lived in North Africa and Spain. Commenting on the ḥadīth “Do not forbid the maidservants of God from [going to] the mosques of God,” ʿIyāḍ comments that it is “an indication that it is permissible for them to go out, an exhortation that they not be forbidden [from doing so], and a proof that they may not go out except with the husband’s permission.” Rather than seeing women’s mosque-going as completely at the discretion of individual husbands, however, ʿIyāḍ presented a set of criteria for the permissibility of a woman’s venturing out to the mosque.

Lists of conditions for women’s mosque attendance appear to be a new element in the discussion of this issue. A later Mālikī scholar astutely observes that ʿIyāḍ’s vague reference to “the scholars” avoids any implication that his list of conditions derives from the authorities of the Mālikī school;⁴⁹ rather, it appears to originate within the tradition of ḥadīth commentary. Furthermore, in his commentary on the Mudawwana (a more strictly legal work) ʿIyāḍ himself does not add any conditions or modifications to the Mudawwana’s statement that “women should not be forbidden from going out to mosques.”⁵⁰ Thus, his interpretation of the relevant ḥadīth apparently did not shape his understanding of the established content of Mālikī legal doctrine. Nevertheless, lists of conditions like those presented in ʿIyāḍ’s ḥadīth commentary were to appear in Mālikī works quite regularly in subsequent centuries.

Muḥammad ibn Khalīfa al-Ubbī (d. ca. 828/1425) regards the conditions enumerated by al-Qāḍī ʿIyāḍ as new limitations imposed in view of the decadence of women living after the time of the Prophet. He observes:

Indeed, the early authorities of the school had not subjected women’s mosque-going to specific conditions. Nevertheless, this development does not reflect growing reservations toward mosque attendance in particular; it is notable that among later Mālikīs the conditions for women’s going out to the mosque were essentially identical to those for their leaving the home for any purpose. For example, ʿUmar al-Fākihānī (d. 731/1256) states that a woman should leave the home only on five conditions: first, that her going out should be in the early morning or late evening (lit., “at the two ends of the daytime,” ṭarafay al-nahār) unless there is a pressing need to go out at some other time; second, that she wear her humblest clothing (adwan thiyābihā); third, that she walk at the edges of the path and not in the middle, in order to keep her distance from men; fourth, that she not smell of perfume; and fifth, that no part of her be visible that [unrelated] men are forbidden to look at.⁵² Despite its completely independent wording, this list of conditions parallels that of al-Qāḍī ʿIyāḍ with remarkable fidelity—save the glaring omission of any reference to the woman’s age, which completes the transition from an emphasis on age cohort to one on dress and behavior.

It is notable that both ʿIyāḍ and al-Fākihānī seek to limit women’s public mobility to the hours of darkness or of dusk, one specifying that she may venture forth only “at night” and the other referring to the early morning and late evening (the “two ends of the daytime”). Whereas in the earliest Mālikī sources staying home during the day appears to be an elite practice or prerogative, by the fifth/eleventh century the limitation of mosque-going to the nighttime hours is held up as a normative ideal for all women. Ibn ʿAbd al-Barr argues that, although most versions of the ḥadīth in which the Prophet instructs, “Give women permission to go to mosques” do not add the specification “at night,” as this is an addition to the text reported by a reliable transmitter (ziyādat ḥāfiẓ), it imposes a valid limitation on the Prophet’s general command to allow women to attend mosques.53 Ibn Baṭṭāl (d. 449/1057) makes similar arguments, further inferring that the Prophet’s command to allow women to attend the mosque “at night” implies that “daytime is different from night” (i.e., women should not go to the mosque during the daytime). Ibn Baṭṭāl attributes this qualification of the permission for women to go to mosques directly to Mālik.⁵⁴

The comments of Ibn ʿAbd al-Barr’s contemporary Sulaymān ibn Khalaf al-Bājī (d. 474/1081) suggest that the limitation of women’s mosque attendance primarily to the nighttime may have been not only a juristic preference but also a practical reality. He remarks that “in general the prayers that [women] attend [at the mosque] (ghālib mā yaḥḍurna) are those that are in the hours of darkness, like the evening and dawn [prayers], because that better covers them and better conceals their appearances (aḥwālihinna).”⁵⁵ However, the limitation of women’s mosque attendance to the nighttime hours remained contested among later Mālikīs. Surveying the legal literature from the vantage point of a far later age, the Egyptian Mālikī ʿAlī al-ʿAdawī al-Ṣaʿīdī remarked that “the scholars have set the condition that her going out [to the mosque] be at night, and some [others] of them said that [women] should not go out at night, but only during the daytime; this is something that may differ with differences in the times.”⁵⁶ As we shall see in chapter 3 of this study, the expectation that women should limit their public appearances either to the discreet darkness of night or to the decorous safety of day could be deeply entrenched in specific times and places.

Khalīl ibn Isḥāq al-Jundī (d. 767/1366), the most influential Mālikī jurist of the Middle Period, perpetuated both the standard legal doctrines rooted in the statements attributed to Mālik and the newer tradition of behavioral conditions for women’s mosque attendance associated with al-Qāḍī ʿIyāḍ. In his Mukhtaṣar, which became the most important statement of school doctrine for later generations of Mālikīs, he states in the section on congregational prayer (al-jamāʿa) that it is permissible “for a mature woman (mutajālla) to go out to [prayers] for a festival or for rain, and a young woman (shābba) [to go out] to the mosque; and her husband is not legally compelled to [allow her to go].”57 In the section on Friday prayers, he states that it is undesirable for a young woman to attend (kuriha…ḥuḍūr shābba).⁵⁸ In his work al-Tawḍīḥ, he enumerates the conditions established by “the ʿulamāʾ,” concluding that “some of them have added to the conditions that it must occur at night.”⁵⁹ In the same work, Khalīl expresses a surprising new conviction, declaring that “what is appropriate in our time is that [women] should be prevented [from going to mosques]; this is indicated by ʿĀʾisha’s famous statement, ‘If the Messenger of God had seen what women have innovated.’”⁶⁰ It is unclear what force or scope Khalīl intended for his statement that latter-day women should be prevented from going to the mosque; its juxtaposition with a list of conditions very similar to those of al-Qāḍī ʿIyāḍ suggests that he did not propose the exclusion of all women without exception. His terse formulations in the Mukhtaṣar are similar to the positions established by earlier authorities of the school and suggest no radical departures from school doctrine. Perhaps, then, the force of his statement that latter-day women should be forbidden from going to mosques is largely rhetorical.

In any case, Khalīl was neither the first nor the last Mālikī scholar to express the sentiment that his female contemporaries should be forbidden from going to mosques (although he may have been the first to incorporate it into a legal work). Ibn Abī Jamra, an Andalusian scholar and Sufi who settled in Egypt and died at the end of the seventh/thirteenth century, made a similar point in his commentary on the Ṣaḥīh of Bukhārī. The report in question states that if the Prophet heard a child crying while leading congregational prayers, he would make his recitation brief to avoid burdening the child’s mother. Ibn Abī Jamra writes that the ḥadīth “contains an indication (dalīl) for the permissibility of women’s praying with men; however, today that is forbidden. That was forbidden in the time of the [early] caliphs.”⁶¹ Another Mālikī authority who emphasized that contemporary women should be discouraged from going to mosques was Ibn al-Ḥājj al-ʿAbdarī (d. 737/1336), perhaps not coincidentally a devoted disciple of Ibn Abī Jamra (and also a resident of Egypt).⁶² Having argued that it is acceptable for women to bring young children to the mosque, Ibn al-Ḥājj declares,

Ibrāhīm ibn ʿAlī ibn Farḥūn (d. 799/1397), a Mālikī qāḍī of Medina, endorses Khalīl’s statement that women should be prevented from going to mosques. After enumerating the conditions for their doing so, he concludes, “Refraining from going out is more conducive to soundness in religion, even if [she] has correct intent and the conditions—or some of them—are met.”⁶⁴ Another prominent Egyptian Mālikī authority, ʿAbd Allāh ibn Miqdād al-Aqfahsī (or al-Aqfāṣī, d. 823/1420), writes in his commentary on the Mukhtaṣar of Khalīl that “in our time neither an old woman nor a young one, whether beautiful or not, should go out because of what we have seen (li-mā raʾaynāhu).”⁶⁵ (Unfortunately, he does not appear to have elaborated on this ominous allusion.⁶⁶)

The sentiment that times had changed and that latter-day women ought to be discouraged from attending the mosque altogether clearly existed among prominent Mālikī scholars by the thirteenth century CE, although its force appears in context to be more exhortative than legal. Both the growing sentiment against women’s public worship and the degree to which it diverged from existing practice are reflected in a fatwa by the North African Mālikī jurist Rāshid ibn Abī Rāshid al-Walīdī (d. 675/1228). He writes,

As for zealous women’s (al-mujtahidāt)67 praying behind unrelated men at night or in the daytime, that is something that women ought not to do, because women are not among those who should pray in congregation (lasna min ahl al-jamāʿa) for the obligatory prayers, so how could that be appropriate for them in a supererogatory prayer? It is better for them to perform the obligatory prayers in the depths of their homes (fī qaʿr buyūtihinna), and it is better for them to sit at home at their spindles than to go out for any kind of public worship (al-ʿibādāt al-ẓāhira). If you know that, you must inform all of the zealous women of it; it is the sign⁶⁸ of their sincerity in their zeal that they refrain from going out for such a purpose.⁶⁹

The evolution of Mālikī attitudes over time is particularly clear when one examines the relatively rare discussions of mosque-based activities other than canonical prayer. The great Mālikī jurist and theologian al-Bāqillānī (al-Qāḍī Abū Bakr ibn al-Ṭayyib, d. 403/1013), who spent most of his life in Baghdad, is reported to have stated that women

may go out to hear preaching, to acquire knowledge (taʿallum al-ʿilm), and [to perform] a meritorious action such as prayer or the like. It is permissible for those from whom no temptation is feared, old women and those who are equivalent to them, to attend Friday and festival prayers while remaining apart from the men. As for the young women, it is obligatory to censure their mixing with men in mosques and in the gatherings of storytellers, unless they are behind a barrier (ḥijāb) so that the men cannot see them.⁷⁰

It is notable both that al-Bāqillānī envisions a wide variety of mosque-based activities as accessible to women and that he advocates only that young women be prevented from mixing with men at the mosque (rather than from going there in the first place). In contrast, Ibn ʿArafa (d. 803/1401) held that young women should be forbidden to go out to sessions of study, dhikr, and preaching, even if they were separated from men, on the grounds that the dispensation for their attendance at the mosque applied only to prayer.71 Once more, there appears to be a hardening of attitudes after the thirteenth century CE—although here again it seems likely that Ibn ʿArafa addressed this behavior precisely because it was occurring.

Much of the subsequent Mālikī discussion on women’s mosque attendance takes the form of commentary on the Risāla of Ibn Abī Zayd and the Mukhtaṣar of Khalīl. Although framed as glosses and commentaries on these authoritative manuals, however, the remarks of later scholars often significantly modified the apparent meaning of the texts. Because the authoritative early sources of the school usually did not explicitly assign women’s mosque attendance to one of the five legal statuses (aḥkām)—obligatory, desirable, neutral, repugnant, or forbidden—commentators could superimpose these judgments on their remarks. It was often possible to interpret the same statement as establishing mosque attendance by a certain category of women as an absolute right or a limited dispensation, as a positive religious good or an undesirable alternative. For instance, Muḥammad ibn Ibrāhīm al-Tatāʾī (d. 937/1434) glosses Khalīl’s text by stating that it is undesirable to attend Friday prayers for a young woman who is not feared to cause fitna (ghayr makhshīyat al-fitna); if it is feared that she will cause fitna, it is forbidden (yaḥram).⁷² Here the threat of fitna escalates mere disapproval to actual prohibition. Although Khalīl implies that it is permissible for young women to go to mosques on occasions other than the Friday noon prayer, al-Zurqānī (d. 1099/1688) glosses the text to say that “it is permissible as a sub-optimal alternative (jāza ʿalā khilāf al-awlā)”—again on the condition that no fitna is to be feared.⁷³ Commenting on the Risāla of Ibn Abī Zayd al-Qayrawānī, Aḥmad ibn Ghunaym al-Nafrāwī (d. 1125/1713) writes of Friday prayers: “As for a woman, it is not desirable for her to attend them … even if she is mature (mutajālla); the legal status of attending is prohibition (al-ḥurma) for a tender young woman (al-shābba al-nāʿima), undesirability with respect to a young woman to whom people are generally not attracted (lā tamīl ilayhā al-nufūs ghāliban), and permissibility with respect to the mature woman; so there are three categories.”⁷⁴

However, the later commentarial tradition does not uniformly emphasize the negative aspects of women’s mosque attendance. The Egyptian Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd Allāh al-Khurashī (d. 1101/1690) glosses Khalīl’s statement that it is permissible for a mature woman to go out to festival prayers or prayers for rain by saying “meaning that it is permissible and desirable for an old, mature woman (al-mutajālla al-musinna) for whom men have no desire to go out to festival prayers or prayers for rain, and even more so to [daily] obligatory prayers (wa-aḥrā li’l-farḍ).”75 This judgment was perpetuated by later scholars such as Aḥmad al-Ṣāwī (d. 1241/1825).⁷⁶

Later Mālikī texts also bring up more regularly than their pre-sixteenth-century CE predecessors the issue of mosque-based activities other than prayer. Al-Khurashī states that a young woman may go out to the mosque “for obligatory prayers and the funerals of her family and relatives, but not for dhikr or teaching sessions (majālis ʿilm), even if she is located separately (inʿazalat),” attributing this opinion to Ibn ʿArafa.⁷⁷ Al-Khurashī’s contemporary and fellow Egyptian Ibrāhīm ibn Marʿī al-Shabrakhītī (d. 1106/1694–95) elaborates somewhat that a young woman ought not to go out to the mosque for “sessions of teaching, dhikr, or preaching, even if she is far away [from the men], and even if she is separated,”⁷⁸ a statement that is produced verbatim by ʿAlī ibn Aḥmad al-ʿAdawī (d. 1189/1775–76).⁷⁹ Although these parallel statements express disapproval of women’s presence in mosques for purposes of learning and dhikr, it is significant that they apply exclusively to young women; the tacit implication appears to be that these activities are acceptable reasons for mature women to frequent mosques.

This implication is made explicit by the Egyptian commentator Muḥammad al-Dasūqī (d. 1230/1815) in the context of a strikingly divergent rendition of Ibn Rushd’s categorization of the different age cohorts of women. He quotes Ibn Rushd regarding the old woman who is no longer attractive to men:

It thus appears that among the Egyptian Mālikīs of the seventeenth to nineteenth centuries, there is a tendency not only explicitly to mention study and dhikr as activities that women might pursue in mosques, but also to accept them as legitimate for all but the youngest and most problematic category of women. As usual, it is difficult to determine the degree to which this trend in the legal manuals reflects the tendency to reproduce a statement once it has been introduced to the tradition rather than the practical mores of the surrounding society. Nevertheless, it is striking that this pattern is associated specifically with Egypt, a place with (as we shall see in the next chapter) a well-documented history of women’s presence at sessions of teaching, preaching, and dhikr in mosques (although perhaps less so for this particular period). It contrasts with the overwhelming emphasis on congregational prayer in earlier Mālikī sources associated primarily with North Africa and Spain (although again this pattern may be largely an artifact of the conventions of legal writing).

Overall, one notable feature of the Mālikī discussion of women’s mosque attendance as compared with other madhhabs is the pervasive (if muted) assumption that women’s participation in public congregational prayers is inherently meritorious, even if other conditions make it inadvisable. Al-Bājī comments that ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb’s wife asked his permission to go to the mosque “because she wanted to earn the merit of going out [to the mosque] if she went, or even if she did not go, because of her intention (nīya).”82 Sind ibn ʿInān argues that the Prophet had prohibited men from preventing their wives from going to the mosque “because reports [from the Prophet] state that performing the obligatory prayers in congregation has great merit (faḍl kabīr), as does walking to mosques; and women are in the greatest need of that [merit], as are men.”⁸³ Ibn al-ʿArabī (d. 543/1148) writes disparagingly that femininity is a deficiency of the intellect (al-unūtha nuqṣān mukhill bi’l-ʿaql), which is why women are forbidden from mixing with men at congregational prayers. However, he goes on to say that God has permitted them to participate in congregational worship on a basis secondary to men “out of compassion to them and to provide them with more abundant reward.” He proceeds to praise the regular attendance at Friday prayers of the women of Nablus.⁸⁴ Al-Ubbī questions whether it is merely neutral (mubāḥ) for a woman to go out to the mosque, on the grounds that attending congregational prayers is either a sunna (recommended action) or a farḍ kifāya (communal obligation), and it is unlikely that this applies only to men.⁸⁵

The assumption that (in the absence of counterindications such as fitna) it was meritorious for a woman to pray in the mosque was not universal among Mālikīs. Ibn al-Ḥājj, who inveighs against women’s presence in Cairene mosques, claims that the authorities of the school (ʿulamāʾunā) hold that “a woman’s prayer at home by herself is superior to her prayer in congregation in the mosque, her prayer in an inner chamber in her home is superior to her prayer in [an exterior room of] her home, and whatever increases her coverage and concealment is superior for her prayer.”⁸⁶ However, not even Mālikīs who fervently wished that women would stay home from the mosque necessarily agreed with him. Despite his hostility to women’s presence in the mosque, Ibn Abī Jamra assumes that it would be the more meritorious place for a woman to pray in the absence of public corruption. He observes that when ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb’s wife chose to stay home because of the corruption of the people, “she refrained from the more perfect way of performing her prayers, which is to go out to the mosque” (tarakat al-akmal fī ṣalātihā, wa-huwa al-khurūj ilā al-masjid), because of the new rationale that had emerged.⁸⁷

The prevalent Mālikī assumption of the underlying meritoriousness of women’s prayer in the mosque is rooted in part in the fact that ḥadīth asserting the superior value of women’s prayer within the home were largely transmitted by Iraqi authorities and were not included in the corpus preserved from Mālik. Also relevant is the Mālikī rejection of women’s worship in single-sex groups, which left male-led prayer in the mosque as the primary opportunity to gain the merit of congregational worship—if one subject to many reservations and conditions.

One of the most potent and lastingly influential responses to Mālikī doctrines on women’s mosque attendance was the product of Ẓāhirī thought. Characterized by a rejection of school authority (taqlīd) and an emphasis on direct reference to the texts of the Qur’an and ḥadīth, Ẓāhirism was most notably represented in Andalusia by Ibn Ḥazm (d. 456/1064). In the Andalusian context, overwhelmingly dominated by the Mālikī school of law, Ẓāhirism constituted not merely a neutral legal methodology but also “an effective means of opposing and of condemning the tyranny of the Mālikī jurists.”88 Ibn Ḥazm’s discussion of women’s mosque attendance, like that of many other legal issues, is not merely an example of independent hermeneutic activity but also a scathing critique of his fellow jurists’ infidelity to the reported example of the Prophet. Ibn Ḥazm’s textual formalism, although it could potentially render his reading of the law static or disconnect it from the evolving needs of the community, also insulated it from manipulation in light of allegedly changing social conditions; the pristine model of the Prophet’s day, in his view, always remained valid.⁸⁹ The relevance of this latter point to the issue of women’s mosque attendance is obvious. Whereas later Mālikī authorities would advocate further constricting women’s mosque access in deference to the changing needs of the times, Ibn Ḥazm advocated radically expanding it based on the timelessness of the prophetic example.

In general, Ibn Ḥazm’s principles tended to yield rulings that were favorable to the autonomy of women.90 To what extent this reflects a positive attitude toward women or a critique of the gender ideology of Mālikism (as opposed to simply the logical outcome of his fundamental legal principles and of the relative freedom of action enjoyed by women in the Prophet’s time) is not completely clear. Ibn Ḥazm himself represents his conclusions as the inevitable result of the content of the texts, declaring “We say, if [the Prophet] had forbidden [women from going to mosques], we would have forbidden them; since he did not forbid them, we do not forbid them [either]!”⁹¹

Ibn Ḥazm affirms that it is not mandatory for women to perform their prayers in congregation, a fact he states to be undisputed. However, “if a woman goes to pray with the men it is good (ḥasan), because of the well-authenticated fact that [women] used to attend [public] prayers with the Messenger of God with his knowledge.”⁹² He considers the ḥadīth “Do not forbid the maidservants of God from [going to] the mosques of God” to be a binding command as long as the woman’s husband or guardian knows that she is actually intending to pray. If the woman in question is wearing perfume or is attractively dressed, however, he may forbid her.⁹³

In contrast to most members of the established schools of law, Ibn Ḥazm explicitly and forcefully affirms that the ḥadīth setting out the greater merit of congregational prayer applies to women as well as men, whether they pray in single-sex or mixed-sex congregations.⁹⁴ He argues, “If it were more meritorious for women to pray at home [than in the mosque], the Messenger of God would not have let them wear themselves out with an exertion that yielded them no increase in merit, or that [even] detracted from their merit.”⁹⁵ Going out to the mosque involves effort (kulfa), particularly when it involves facing unpleasant weather or other adverse conditions. If praying in the mosque yielded no additional merit for women, then their effort in going to the mosque would be frivolous and futile; it cannot be assumed that the Prophet allowed the female Companions to squander their energies in this way. What is more, any action that actually detracts from the merit of prayer must necessarily be forbidden. However, “all the people of the world agree that the Messenger of God never forbade women to pray with him in his mosque before he died, nor did the Rightly Guided caliphs after him.”⁹⁶

Ibn Ḥazm indignantly rejects the argument that women’s public prayer was a temporary or strategic dispensation during the lifetime of the Prophet. As for ʿĀʾisha’s statement that “If the Prophet had seen what the woman have innovated, he would have forbidden them to go to the mosque” Ibn Ḥazm argues that it is not legally relevant for a number of reasons. The first is that the Prophet did not, in fact, see what the women innovated and thus did not forbid them; for anyone else to do so is an innovation (bidʿa) and an error. It is absurd to use a condition contrary to fact as the basis of a legal ruling. Second, even if the Prophet did not see what women innovated, God certainly knew about it; anyone who denies this is an unbeliever. Nevertheless, God did not reveal to the Prophet that he should forbid women to go to mosques for this reason. Third, women have innovated nothing in subsequent generations that they had not already innovated in the time of the Prophet. There is nothing more heinous than their innovation of fornication and adultery (zinā); the Prophet had women stoned and lashed for this, but he did not forbid women to go to the mosques. Furthermore, sexual misbehavior is forbidden to men as well; how could it be the rationale for women’s exclusion from mosques, but not for men’s?

Ibn Ḥazm’s fourth reason is that the innovation undoubtedly occurred on the part of some women and not of others; it is absurd (muḥāl) to deny a good to someone who has not committed an innovation because of someone else who has—unless there were a text revealed by God to this effect, in which case we would hear and obey. On the contrary, however, in the Qur’an, God states that no soul will bear another’s burden (verse 6:164). The fifth reason is that, if women’s innovation were a reason to ban women from mosques, a fortiori it would be a reason to ban them from the markets and the roads; however, Ibn Ḥazm’s opponents have barred them from mosques to the exclusion of other destinations. The sixth reason is that even ʿĀʾisha herself did not explicitly forbid women from going to mosques.97

Significantly, the term fitna in the sense of sexual temptation is strikingly absent not only from Ibn Ḥazm’s analysis of women’s public worship but also from his legal work in general.98 It may be that, writing almost a century before Ibn Rushd, he is simply not aware of fitna as a central motif in legal argumentation about women’s mosque attendance. (He does, however, clearly assume that the potential for sexual misbehavior underlies ʿĀʾisha’s reference to “innovation.”) It may also be that his refusal to scrutinize and define the rationales behind the commands and prohibitions in the Qur’an and ḥadīth (taʿlīl) prevents him from identifying fitna as the underlying issue informing the rules on women’s mosque attendance. Unlike his Mālikī peers, as a Ẓāhirī he was also relieved both from the need to explain Mālik’s reluctance to encourage female mosque-going and from the inherited category distinctions between old and young women. Although he notes Mālikī age terminology in passing, he does not even see fit to refute it.⁹⁹

The great Andalusian mystic Ibn ʿArabī (d. 638/1240), although not primarily a jurist, had some affinities with Ẓāhirī legal theory and was inspired by the work of Ibn Ḥazm.¹⁰⁰ He analyzes men’s resistance to the divine decree allowing women to go to mosques as an instance of jealousy (ghayra), arguing that personal animus can lead humans to be jealous even of the rulings of God. Only full establishment of the authority of intellect and faith can prevent such feelings of resentment (ḥaraj) against God’s decree.¹⁰¹ Ibn ʿArabī here implicitly challenges the discourse of fitna. A man who forbids his wife to go to the mosque is not preventing other men from succumbing to her charms, but is himself succumbing to base sentiments of sexual possessiveness. Ibn ʿArabī thus combines a literalist commitment to the word of ḥadīth with a ṣūfī concern with the analysis of subtle egoistic obstacles to achieving harmony with the will of God.

The most substantial discussion of the issue of women’s mosque access attributed to al-Shāfiʿī occurs in a short work titled “Book on Discrepancies Among Ḥadīth” (Kitāb Ikhtilāf al-ḥadīth), appended to his great work of substantive law al-Umm.102 As suggested by its title, this piece deals most centrally with an issue of legal theory (the proper approach to apparent contradictions among statements transmitted from the Prophet) rather than with the substantive question of whether women should frequent mosques. The discussion opens with a challenge by al-Shāfiʿī’s hypothetical interlocutors, who confront him with the legal implications of the ḥadīth “Do not forbid the maidservants of God from [going to] the mosques of God.” They point out that “according to you, a negative command from the Prophet indicates that [the action] is forbidden (taḥrīm) unless there is an indication from the Messenger of God that he did not intend to signify that it is forbidden.” Furthermore, the statement refers generally to the “mosques of God.”¹⁰³ In short, the opponents claim that if al-Shāfiʿī applies his methodology consistently to this text, he is compelled to concede that a woman may never be denied the opportunity to go to any mosque. Implicit in this challenge is the assumption that this result would be unacceptable to both parties to the dispute.

However, al-Shāfiʿī unhesitatingly replies that the ḥadīth is, in fact, specific (khāṣṣ)—that is, it applies only to some (as yet unspecified) instances of women’s mosque-going. In support of this contention, he cites another ḥadīth: “It is not permissible for a woman who believes in God and the Last Day to travel a day and night’s journey except with a close male relative (dhī maḥram).” The relevance of this report becomes clear when al-Shāfiʿī applies it to a woman’s desire to make the pilgrimage to Mecca—here defined as a visit to a mosque, albeit one that is distant and unique. By citing the ḥajj, al-Shāfiʿī selects the most extreme possible example, one in which a woman’s entitlement to visit a mosque might entail a demand to make a long and costly journey. Al-Shāfiʿī adroitly argues that the position that the woman’s guardian may not prevent her from going on the ḥajj entails unacceptable legal consequences, including the necessity of compelling a male relative to bear the expenses of the journey as her chaperone. Because any other position requires that the male guardian be entitled to forbid the woman access to one specific mosque (the Sacred Mosque of Mecca), the ḥadīth cannot be general; there is at least one exception.

Al-Shāfiʿī then shifts his argument to other grounds. He demands, “Do you know of anyone who disputes that a man is entitled to forbid his wife from going to the mosque of her clan (ʿashīra), even if it is next to her house, and to Friday prayers, which are the most obligatory prayers in a city?” The hypothetical opponent concedes, “I am not aware of any.”¹⁰⁴ According to al-Shāfiʿī’s principles, the agreement of the scholars constitutes binding evidence for the correct interpretation of a revealed text, particularly when this interpretation diverges from the apparent (ẓāhir) meaning.¹⁰⁵ In this case, al-Shāfiʿī holds that, because an overwhelming majority of scholars agree that men may indeed prevent their wives from going to mosques, the meaning of the Prophet’s apparent statement to the contrary can refer only to specific cases.

Now that al-Shāfiʿī has demonstrated that the ḥadīth in question does not mean that men are categorically forbidden to prevent the women of their households from frequenting mosques, his opponents demand to know precisely what it does mean. Having just demonstrated the specific nature of the ḥadīth by arguing that men may sometimes forbid women to visit the Sacred Mosque of Mecca, al-Shāfiʿī executes a startling about-face to argue that the Sacred Mosque of Mecca is precisely the one mosque to which the ḥadīth specifically refers. The ḥadīth does not mean that men must allow their womenfolk to visit all mosques at all times; rather, it means that they must allow them to visit one mosque (the mosque of Mecca) one time (for the obligatory pilgrimage). Despite the myriad objections that he had earlier raised to the contention that a man must enable his wife or ward to make the pilgrimage, al-Shāfiʿī now sweeps aside all difficulties. Most men will willingly consent to accompany their female dependents on the ḥajj, and if they do not, the woman can go in the care of trustworthy female companions. Because one ḥajj in a lifetime is a legal obligation, the expenses can be disbursed from the woman’s assets on her behalf if she is not legally independent. Despite appearances, al-Shāfiʿī is not being flagrantly inconsistent here (although he is certainly being creative). The argument that a woman may sometimes be prevented from making a pilgrimage to Mecca (which is all that is required, according to al-Shāfiʿī, to demonstrate that the ḥadīth is not general) is clearly distinct from the argument that she may not be prevented from making the pilgrimage once in her life.

This is an interesting point, given that a myriad of ḥadīth texts refer to the presence of women at congregational prayers in the mosque in the lifetime of the Prophet. It may be that these reports are unknown to al-Shāfiʿī or that he considers them poorly authenticated. It may also be that he is aware of such reports, but that they do not (in general) refer specifically to wives, daughters, or freedwomen of the Prophet. Given that the Prophet’s wives had chambers opening into the mosque and could participate in congregational prayers without leaving their homes, it is conceivable that they did not “go to the mosque” in the technical sense. An early Mālikī source suggests that the Prophet’s wives prayed along with the congregation within their own chambers, which adjoined the mosque.107 Al-Shāfiʿī’s statement that “by virtue of their relationship with the Prophet” the women of his household “were more intent upon what was right and more knowledgeable about it than other women” may implicitly suggest that al-Shāfiʿī was aware of reports affirming the presence of other women in the mosque during the lifetime of the Prophet. Al-Shāfiʿī is also perfectly aware that the women of the Prophet’s household were subject to a standard of modesty and seclusion that did not apply to other female Believers; he responds to this objection by stating that when the ḥijāb was imposed on the Prophet’s wives, “none of their ritual obligations were removed from them.” Even though the women of the Prophet’s family were subject to special constraints, these did not affect their ritual duties, which would have continued to include mosque attendance had this been incumbent upon them in the first place.

Al-Shāfiʿī’s discussion in this passage suggests several things about the overall state of Muslim attitudes toward women’s mosque attendance in his time. First, the ḥadīth “Do not forbid the maidservants of God from [going to] the mosques of God” seems to have been in sufficiently wide circulation that al-Shāfiʿī was compelled to take it into account. He makes no attempt to question its provenance and displays familiarity with several different versions of the report. He also knows a ḥadīth report establishing a hierarchy of merit culminating in the most private and secluded locations for women’s prayer. It is notable that this ḥadīth is cited without an isnād and with the disclaimer that “God knows best”; al-Shāfiʿī appears to be using it as auxiliary support for his argument without actually endorsing its authenticity. Second, there seems to have been an overall consensus—according to al-Shāfiʿī, among both religious scholars and “common people” (al-ʿāmma)—that a man may, in fact, deny his wife or ward the opportunity to visit the mosque and that he allows her to do so at his own discretion.

It has been accurately observed that al-Shāfiʿī takes a relatively negative attitude toward women’s mosque access in this passage.108 However, we must be attentive to the precise points that he is making. His primary objective is to refute the contention that the ḥadīth in question is a telling counterexample to his hermeneutical principles; his opponents believe that they can force him to concede that he denies the legal force of a universally acknowledged prophetic report. To the extent that his discussion addresses behavioral norms rather than legal theory, his overriding concern here is with the authority of the husband or male guardian—and thus with the power structure of the Muslim family. Although al-Shāfiʿī believes that a man may restrict the mosque-going of his wife or ward and that a woman’s prayer at home is more religiously valuable than her prayer in the mosque, he nevertheless says nothing to suggest that he believes women’s mosque attendance is legally undesirable, let alone forbidden. It appears from his discussion that a man may indeed allow his wife or other female relative to go to the mosque, and (other than the possible loss of religious merit accruing to prayer at home) there seems to be nothing to prevent her from going if he does so. Al-Shāfiʿī’s interpretive energies are expended to preserve male authority at home, not to empty mosques of women.

Indeed, even though al-Shāfiʿī offers no general discussion of the legal status of women’s mosque attendance in the body of al-Umm, he does refer to it in passing at several points. It emerges clearly from his remarks that at least some women may go to mosques if they so desire (and perhaps implicitly that some actually do). Like Mālik, he holds that women and slaves need not attend Friday prayers, but that they can validly perform them if they do.¹⁰⁹ He then remarks, “I prefer that (uḥibb) aged women and those who do not have [attractive] appearances attend [congregational] prayers and festivals; I prefer more strongly that they attend the festival [prayers] than that they attend other obligatory prayers (al-ṣalawāt al-maktūbāt).”¹¹⁰ Here al-Shāfiʿī indicates not only the permissibility but also the positive desirability of mosque attendance by old women (al-ʿajāʾiz). In another passage, discussing the Friday congregational prayers, al-Shāfiʿī notes that it is not incumbent upon women, slaves, or minors to attend, but that “I prefer (uḥibb) for slaves to perform Friday prayers if they are given permission, and for old women [to do so] if they are given permission.”¹¹¹ Writing about the prayers performed on the occasion of an eclipse (ṣalāt al-kusūf), which al-Shāfiʿī holds should be performed in the Friday mosque, he states that “I do not consider it objectionable for a woman who does not have a splendid appearance (lā hayʾa lahā bāriʿa), or for an old woman or a young girl, to attend ṣalāt al-kusūf with the imam; rather, I consider it desirable for them (uḥibbuhā lahunna). I prefer that those women who have [attractive] appearances (dhawāt al-hayʾa) to perform it in their homes.”¹¹²

Al-Shāfiʿī’s second category of women who are encouraged to go to congregational prayers—literally, “women who do not have appearances” (ghayr dhawāt al-hayʾa)—is somewhat ambiguous. Al-hayʾa (form, appearance) is a word that is used to refer to dress and grooming, and particularly to the donning of fine clothes and the use of perfume. Thus, al-Shāfiʿī’s chapter in al-Umm on Friday prayer includes a subsection on dress and grooming for Friday prayers (al-hayʾa li’l-jumʿa), in which he advises that men should bathe, trim their hair and nails, perfume themselves, and don white or undyed garments before attending Friday services. He notes that these recommendations also apply to youths and slaves (who are not obligated to attend Friday prayers). However, for women he recommends only that they cleanse themselves to remove any objectionable smells; he considers it undesirable (akrah) for them to perfume themselves or to make themselves conspicuous by wearing white clothes.113

The phrase “those who have appearances” (dhawāt al-hayʾa, which I am translating literally to preserve the ambiguity of the Arabic) was interpreted by some later commentators to refer to the women’s inherent physical charms rather than to dress and grooming. Al-Nawawī (d. 676/1277) glosses women “who have appearances” (dhawāt al-hayʾāt) as “the ones who are desired because of their beauty.”114 Although the two interpretations of women “who have appearances”—as those who are attractively decked out and as those who are themselves attractive—address the same basic concern that women should not attend public worship while displaying excessive charms, they have significantly different concrete implications. If “women who have [attractive] appearances” are those adorned with festive clothing or perfumes, then this particular factor is subject to the control of any woman willing to observe appropriate limits in her self-presentation. (At least one later commentator discerned and rejected this possibility, stating that “the obvious meaning [ẓāhir] is that a beautiful woman may attend if she does not adorn herself. This is not the case.”¹¹⁵) Yet another possibility, reflected in ḥadīth texts that circulated at an early date, is that “people of appearances” are persons of high rank or known public virtue.¹¹⁶ In this case, the restriction on women’s mosque attendance would apply not to women with nice appearances, but to women with appearances to keep up—an option that seems not to have been considered by the later commentators on al-Shāfiʿī’s statement, but that would be a plausible usage for his own time. This would suggest a limitation on the public exposure of elite women—an interesting possibility, but one that cannot be confirmed.

Despite al-Shāfiʿī’s famously passionate and insistent focus on the authority of ḥadīth, his positions on this issue are not directly derived from textual sources. He struggles mightily with a ḥadīth text whose authenticity he apparently cannot deny (the one in which the Prophet forbids men to prevent women from going to mosques) only to eviscerate it of most of its meaning. He rhetorically cites a ḥadīth emphasizing the greater value of women’s prayer in secluded spots within the home, only to affirm that it is desirable for elderly and unadorned or unattractive women to pray in public. His attitudes toward women’s mosque attendance are fundamentally shaped by what appears to be a prior social and scholarly consensus, to which he accords interpretive authority on the grounds that large sectors of the Muslim community cannot be ignorant of the Prophet’s true intent. Most significantly, his two major category distinctions (between the old and the young and between the unattractive and the attractive) have no apparent textual basis. (However, in reiterating his denial that the women of the Prophet’s household attended congregational prayers “in the day or night,” he may be obliquely refuting a widespread cultural and legal distinction with scant textual basis.)

Building on Shāfiʿī’s opinions, scholars of the madhhab in the following centuries broadly conformed to the patterns we have already encountered in the Mālikī school. The textually established prohibition on men’s barring their womenfolk from the mosque was considered a nonbinding recommendation, and a fundamental distinction between older and younger women was assumed without any significant textual support. As in the case of the Mālikīs, these ideas were systematically rationalized around the criterion of sexual temptation (fitna) in the fifth/eleventh century. In this case, however, the implicit equation between age and physical desirability was not unquestioningly accepted.

The Shāfiʿī authority ʿAlī ibn Muḥammad al-Māwardī (d. 450/1058) writes regarding women’s attendance at Friday prayers,

Here al-Māwardī preserves al-Shāfiʿī’s terminology, to a quite different ultimate effect. Al-Shāfiʿī’s concept of “[attractive] appearances” (here explicitly associated with personal beauty, jamāl) is now the sole criterion that determines the appropriateness of women’s going out for public prayer; it presumably subsumes the distinction between old and young women, deemphasizing the older categories associated with the female life cycle. Al-Māwardī was not the only Shāfiʿī authority to elide the distinction between old and young women in favor of an exclusive focus on the capacity to excite physical desire.¹¹⁸

Whereas al-Shāfiʿī had explicitly stated the desirability of elderly and unadorned women’s attendance at public worship, al-Māwardī does not mention the possibility that any woman’s public worship could be positively desirable. Indeed, although at least one classical Shāfiʿī legal manual conscientiously records al-Shāfiʿī’s opinion that elderly women’s attendance at public prayers is positively to be encouraged, the overall doctrine of the school was simply to treat it as legally permissible (lā yukrah, lā baʾs).¹¹⁹ It also seems that the attitude toward younger women’s mosque attendance hardened. Although al-Shāfiʿī clearly denied that it was meritorious for a young and attractive woman to go out to public worship, he left it open whether such an action would be mubāḥ (neutral), or (more likely) makrūh (undesirable), or even ḥarām (forbidden). According to al-Māwardī, an attractive woman should be actively deterred from going to Friday prayers; although the unattractive one need not be deterred, he gives no indication that she should be encouraged.

The criterion of physical allure and the distinction between old and young women appeared both alternatively and in tandem in the classical manuals of the Shāfiʿī school. In his authoritative work al-Muhadhdhab, which was studied and commented upon for centuries, Abū Isḥāq al-Shīrāzī (d. 476/1083) writes,

Here, rather than subsuming the distinction between old and young women, the criterion of physical desirability crosscuts it. Instead of assuming the undesirability of elderly women, al-Shīrāzī makes sexual undesirability an additional criterion for the acceptability of older women’s presence at the mosque. Whereas al-Shāfiʿī states that both old women and unattractive or unadorned (presumably younger) women may attend, for al-Shīrāzī (and other later Shāfiʿīs) the requirement of being unattractive is an additional restriction placed on older women. Whereas al-Shāfiʿī had asserted that it was positively good for all old women to go to congregational prayers, al-Shīrāzī allows only that it is permissible for some of them. Perhaps because al-Shīrāzī is not using age as a proxy for the assumed motivating factor of physical desirability, he also feels obliged to provide textual support for the distinction between old and young women by citing a ḥadīth report. The ḥadīth in which the Prophet condones going out only for the crone became the locus classicus for the distinction between old and young women in Shāfiʿī discussions of women’s mosque attendance, although it was sometimes admitted to be of questionable provenance.¹²¹

Shāfiʿī scholars’ increasingly dubious attitude toward women’s mosque-going culminated in the suggestion that most or all women should not attend in the changed conditions of latter-day Muslim societies. This view appears to have deeper roots in the Shāfiʿī than in the Mālikī school. The Shāfiʿī authority al-Qāsim ibn Muḥammad al-Qaffāl al-Shāshī (d. 400/1010)122 is quoted as saying, “It is objectionable (yukrah) for [a woman] to go out to the [prayer] gatherings of the Muslims (majmaʿ al-muslimīn),¹²³ because people have changed (liʾanna al-nās qad taghayyarū).” He attributes this view to ʿAbd Allāh ibn al-Mubārak (d. 181/797) and Sufyān al-Thawrī (d. 161/778) and also cites the ʿĀʾisha report. He follows up with a version of the story (sometimes associated with ʿĀtika bint Zayd) in which a jealous husband discourages his wife from attending the mosque by tugging her clothing in the darkness when she goes there, prompting her to declare that “the times have changed and people have changed.”¹²⁴

The author who transmits this passage, ʿAbd al-Wāḥid ibn Ismāʿīl al-Rūyānī (d. 502/1025), comments succinctly: “That is good, but it is in contradiction to the doctrine of the school” (wa-hādhā ḥasan, walakinnahu khilāf al-madhhab).¹²⁵ Indeed, al-Qaffāl’s remarks represent a sharp departure from the teachings attributed to al-Shāfiʿī. What is at stake is no longer the authority of the husband to detain his wife at home, but the inadvisability of women’s venturing out (even for prayer) for reasons of public order.

A tension between pious disapproval of women’s presence in mosques and fidelity to school doctrine is evident in the work of al-Rūyānī’s contemporary, the great jurist and ṣūfī Abū Ḥāmid al-Ghazālī (d. 505/1111). In his didactic work Iḥyāʾ ʿulūm al-dīn, which provides a comprehensive guide to Muslim piety extending far beyond the conventional parameters of a legal compilation, al-Ghazālī touches on the subject of women’s mosque attendance in the context of a discussion of the various forms of corruption occurring in mosques. After lamenting the conduct of handsome young preachers who behave flirtatiously as they preach to mixed congregations, he advocates that a barrier be erected between men and women at preaching sessions to prevent them from seeing each other. (Interestingly, al-Ghazālī’s Persian work Kīmyā-ye saʿādat, which largely represents a popularization of the teachings of the Iḥyāʾ, specifies that young men and young women should not sit in the mosque to hear preaching without a barrier between them.¹²⁶) He continues,

It is necessary to forbid women from attending mosques for prayers and sessions of pious invocation (majālis al-dhikr) if it is feared that they will be a cause of temptation (fitna). ʿĀʾisha forbade them; someone said to her that the Messenger of God did not forbid them from congregational prayers, and she said, “If the Messenger of God knew what they had innovated after his death, he would have forbidden them.”¹²⁷

In another passage of the same work, al-Ghazālī states that “the Prophet permitted women to attend the mosque, [but] what is correct now is to forbid [them], except for old women (al-ʿajāʾiz).” He then cites (and interpretively defuses) an anecdote that might seem to impugn the legal validity of ʿĀʾisha’s statement. In it, the Prophet’s Companion Ibn ʿUmar quotes the Prophet’s statement that one should not forbid the maidservants of God from going to the mosques of God. One of his sons retorts, “Nay, by God, we will forbid them!” At this, Ibn ʿUmar becomes angry and strikes his son, exclaiming “You hear me say, ‘The Messenger of God said: Do not forbid,’ and you say, ‘Nay, we will!’?”128 Al-Ghazālī explains that Ibn ʿUmar’s son said what he did because he was aware of the changed nature of the times; Ibn ʿUmar became angry because of the impertinent way in which he expressed his reservation, as an unqualified contradiction of the Prophet’s injunction, rather than because of the content of his son’s statement.

Although he does invoke the classical distinction between older and younger women, al-Ghazālī’s comments in the first passage seem to imply that women in general have become a cause of temptation and should be excluded from mosques. Certainly he has been understood by some later Muslims as advocating general exclusion of women from mosques. However, his advocacy of barriers to separate the sexes at preaching sessions seems to reflect his recognition not simply that women do attend mosques, but also that they will continue to do so and must be accommodated—even if they are sufficiently young or attractive that they would prove alluring to the male gaze. In his strictly legal works, in contrast, al-Ghazālī does not suggest it is undesirable for women in general to attend mosques, but repeatedly emphasizes that it is legally neutral for shabbily dressed and unperfumed older women to do so¹²⁹—which may be regarded as a somewhat negatively inflected reiteration of classical Shāfiʿī doctrine. If al-Ghazālī’s remarks in the Iḥyāʾ are, in fact, intended as a broad condemnation of women’s mosque attendance, the contrast with his legal works suggests that they are intended more as a moral exhortation than as a statement of the law.

Beginning in the seventh/thirteenth century, in tandem with the continued reiteration of the school’s received madhhab doctrine, new elements entered the Shāfiʿī discussion on women’s mosque attendance through the work of the great ḥadīth scholars of the school. Just as al-Ghazālī expressed distinctive ideas in his capacity as a spiritual counselor, while adhering to well-established school positions in his capacity as an expositor of legal doctrine, such authors might cleave to madhhab doctrine in their legal works, while exploring fresh perspectives in their exploration of ḥadīth. The earliest major contributor to this trend was the Damascene scholar Abū Zakarīyā al-Nawawī (d. 676/1277). In his legal compendia, he perpetuated standard school doctrine.130 Most influential for later members of the school, however, are al-Nawawī’s remarks on the ḥadīth “Do not prevent the maidservants of God from [going to] the mosques of God” in his commentary on the Ṣaḥīḥ of Muslim. He writes,

The clear meaning of this and the other similar ḥadīth texts on the subject is that [a woman] should not be prevented from [going to] the mosque, but on conditions mentioned by the scholars that have been drawn from [other] ḥadīths. They are that she not be perfumed or adorned, nor be wearing ankle bracelets whose sound is audible, nor fancy clothes; that she not mix with men; that she not be a young woman (shābba) or the like, such that she would cause temptation; and that there not be anything along the way from which corruption or the like is to be feared. This prohibition on preventing them from going out is interpreted as [indicating] undesirability (karāhat al-tanzīh)¹³¹ if the woman has a husband or master [presumably, if she is a slave] and the conditions mentioned are met. If she has neither a husband nor a master, it is impermissible to forbid her if the conditions are met.¹³²

These comments are not necessarily in conflict with the doctrine of the school. However, the list of conditions as a whole is not derived from the Shāfiʿī legal tradition; it is similar to the list of conditions established by the Mālikī authority al-Qāḍī ʿIyāḍ a century and a half earlier (with the notable exception of the requirement that the woman go out only at night, which al-Nawawī omits). Rather than being distinctively Mālikī or Shāfiʿī, this list of conditions for a woman’s proper attendance at the mosque appears to represent an approach to the problem typical of the muḥaddithūn. It is not coincidental that in this context (like al-Qāḍī ʿIyāḍ in the same context) al-Nawawī refers simply to “scholars” rather than to “the members of our school.”

In some ways, al-Nawawī’s list of conditions for women’s mosque attendance could be regarded as more restrictive than the mainstream doctrine of the Shāfiʿī school. If each item on the list is regarded as a necessary condition for allowing the woman’s attendance at the mosque, then it represents a more exacting standard for women’s presentation and behavior than a simple endorsement of attendance by older and less attractive women. However, by shifting the focus away from the woman’s age and personal appearance to standards of dress and comportment, al-Nawawī’s list of requirements also suggests a new focus on women’s good behavior rather than their physical characteristics. The first five conditions are all functions of the woman’s self-presentation rather than her inherent qualities; a woman who pursued modesty as an expression of piety could easily fulfill them. Although the age terminology used by different scholars is both vague and elastic, it is also notable that, rather than requiring that the woman be old, al-Nawawī here simply excludes the young. If we assume that the shābba is genuinely youthful (and perhaps unmarried), in this passage al-Nawawī opens the mosque door to the modest matron.

This not the only passage where al-Nawawī implies the ability of Muslim women to preserve propriety in situations of public worship. In his commentary on the legal compendium of Abū Isḥāq al-Shīrāzī, al-Nawawī critiques the latter’s statement that women are exempted from attending Friday prayers both on the basis of a ḥadīth and on the grounds that a woman who did so “would mix (takhtaliṭ) with the men; and that is not permissible.” Al-Nawawī rejoins with some asperity, “It is not as he said, because her attendance of Friday prayers does not necessitate mixing [with men (al-ikhtilāṭ)]; rather, she will be behind them.” He observes that ḥadīth texts overwhelmingly demonstrate that women prayed behind the men in the Prophet’s mosque during his lifetime and concludes that in any case “it is not forbidden (ḥarām) for women to mix with men if they do not do so alone (khalwa).”133 Although al-Nawawī’s remarks on this point are brief, his dismissal of al-Shīrāzī’s statement is strikingly categorical. Furthermore, his (textually justified) assertion that it is merely private tête-á-têtes between unrelated men and women that are forbidden by the sunna, rather than all public mixing of men and women, is a sharp repudiation of the broad concerns about women’s mobility and participation that had been expressed by many legal scholars for centuries before al-Nawawī.

Ibn Daqīq al-ʿĪd (d. 702/1302) presents a similar analysis in his Iḥkām al-aḥkām, a commentary on legally relevant ḥadīth. Like al-Nawawī, he was a jurist who also achieved distinction in the discipline of ḥadīth; he spent much of his career in Cairo. He was trained in both the Mālikī and the Shāfiʿī madhhabs, but was known for the independence of his legal thinking. He insisted on the primacy of ḥadīth in the derivation of legal norms and complained that madhhab loyalty led many scholars to conform their interpretation of ḥadīth to the doctrines of their schools rather than vice versa.¹³⁴

The ḥadīth “Do not prevent the maidservants of God,” Ibn Daqīq al-ʿĪd observes, is in itself a general statement applying to all women. However, the legal scholars (al-fuqahāʾ) have limited its application based on certain conditions and circumstances, including the requirement that the woman not be perfumed, which is stipulated by ḥadīth. Perfume was prohibited, he argues, because of its tendency to arouse sexual impulses. Anything else that creates the same effect is treated in the same way, including pretty clothes and visible jewelry.135 The restrictions cited by Ibn Daqīq al-ʿĪd refer to the woman’s self-presentation; the primary limiting factor on a woman’s mosque attendance is her own behavior. Interestingly, he completely disregards any division among women on the basis of age. Commenting on another ḥadīth in which ʿĀʾisha recounts that women used to attend the dawn prayers in the mosque with the Prophet, he remarks that “it constitutes a proof for women’s attending congregational prayers with men, and there is nothing in the ḥadīth to indicate that they were old or young,” although “some [scholars] have disapproved of young women’s going out.”¹³⁶ The great Shāfiʿī traditionist Ibn Ḥajar al-ʿAsqalānī (d. 807/1449) reproduces Ibn Daqīq al-ʿĪd’s comment in a more expansive form (whether the elaboration originates with Ibn Ḥajar or with another recension of Ibn Daqīq al-ʿĪd’s work is unclear):

Ibn Daqīq al-ʿĪd also deals with one of the other major issues relating to women’s mosque attendance: whether it is, under the right circumstances, actually meritorious for women to take part in congregational worship in mosques. The classical doctrine of the Shāfiʿī school held that it was preferable for women, like men, to pray in congregation rather than alone. However, mainstream doctrine also held that the preference was more confirmed (ākad) for men that for women.¹³⁸ Arguably this meant that women’s congregational prayer was less meritorious than men’s, although still more meritorious than individual prayer.¹³⁹ Simultaneously, Shāfiʿīs affirmed that it was more meritorious for a woman to pray at home; some ḥadīth texts widely cited by legal scholars affirmed the superiority of women’s worship at home, preferably in a secluded spot. Unsurprisingly, the combination of these two positions resulted in the classical doctrine that it is best for women to pray at home in a group of women.¹⁴⁰

However, a number of questions regarding the relative religious merit of various forms of prayer remained to be answered. What if praying at home meant praying alone, or at least in a much smaller group than that available in the mosque? (Shāfiʿī scholars tended to affirm that—at least for men—the larger the congregation, the greater the merit accruing to the worshipper.) If women’s prayer within the home was superior to their prayer in mosques, did this mean that no merit accrued to the woman from mosque attendance, or simply that prayer at home yielded even greater merit? Did women enjoy the other forms of merit accruing to worshippers from mosque attendance, such as the reward for walking to the mosque? If so, would this ever outbalance the merits of their praying at home? Ibn Daqīq al-ʿĪd addresses the question of merit briefly, but powerfully. “As for the attribute of maleness (waṣf al-rujūlīya), when it is permissible for a woman to go out to the mosque she should be equal to a man [in terms of merit], because the attribute of maleness is of no legal significance with regard to the rewards of actions.”141

Ibn Daqīq al-ʿĪd’s comments on women’s mosque access were highly influential among later Shafiʿī ḥadīth specialists, who often reproduced them extensively. However, these later scholars were often reluctant to accept the full implications of his arguments, which suggested that women of all ages were permitted to attend mosques if they adhered to proper standards of comportment and that they earned an equal reward from God when they did so. One scholar who drew on his comments was ʿAlī ibn Ibrāhīm ibn al-ʿAṭṭār (d. 724/1324), a Damascene scholar best known as the most distinguished disciple of al-Nawawī and the transmitter of his works. On the issue of merit, Ibn al-ʿAṭṭār appears more ambivalent than Ibn Daqīq al-ʿĪd. He reproduces the latter’s comment on merit and goes so far as to state that a woman’s prayer at home is more meritorious only if she is forbidden to go to the mosque for other reasons.¹⁴² However, elsewhere he states that it is unconditionally superior for a woman to pray at home.¹⁴³ These two statements may be reconciled by the fact that he considered mosque-going forbidden for all—or almost all—women of his own time. Commenting on a ḥadīth referencing women’s mosque attendance during the Prophet’s lifetime, he states:

Like Ibn Daqīq al-ʿĪd, Ibn al-ʿAṭṭār emphasizes piety and good comportment as the primary criteria for women’s mosque access. By deemphasizing a woman’s age in favor of attention to her dress and conduct,145 he perpetuates the tradition specific to the discipline of ḥadīth. However, Ibn al-ʿAṭṭār goes even further than his predecessors in emphasizing that the woman who should be allowed access to the mosque is the one who is knowledgeable and religiously observant. To the prevalent categories of women (the old or young woman, the desirable or undesirable woman), he adds another important class: the learned and pious woman.¹⁴⁶ Nevertheless, for him such a woman represents an exception to a new general rule that latter-day women should be discouraged from going to the mosque at all.

The line of Shāfiʿī muḥaddiths who dealt distinctively with the issue of women’s mosque attendance culminates with the towering figure of Ibn Ḥajar al-ʿAsqalānī, who reproduces many of Ibn Daqīq al-ʿĪd’s comments in his commentary on the Ṣaḥīḥ of Bukhārī. Unlike the latter, however, he emphasizes the idea (which he supports with multiple ḥadīth texts) that it is more meritorious for a woman to pray at home. He continues,

Ibn Ḥajar’s arguments on this point clearly originate with Ibn Ḥazm. Of the latter’s six arguments against the contention that the ʿĀʾisha report establishes a prohibition of women’s mosque attendance, Ibn Ḥajar omits only the one asserting that by committing adultery the women of the Prophet’s generation reached a degree of sinful innovation that could not be exceeded by later women.¹⁴⁸ It is not difficult to guess why this point is omitted; the insinuation that the female Companions as a group were no more virtuous than subsequent generations of Muslim women was potentially incendiary in a mainstream Sunni context, where the moral probity of the Companions was a matter of creedal orthodoxy.

Ibn Ḥajar thus reproduces Ibn Ḥazm’s arguments to a greater extent than would have been possible for a more conventional thinker, although he apparently did not derive them directly from Ibn Ḥazm; they appear to have been assimilated into the tradition of ḥadīth commentary before his time.¹⁴⁹ Although he did not originate these points or even cite them for the first time, his restatement of them led to their wide dissemination among scholars of ḥadīth and fiqh. His choice of these particular arguments from the broad repertoire then available suggests that they spoke to Ibn Ḥajar’s own values and perceptions. In presenting them, he seems to adopt a more optimistic attitude than Ibn al-ʿAṭṭār toward the likelihood or prevalence of good behavior by women; whereas Ibn al-ʿAṭṭār’s learned and religiously observant woman appears to be an exception among the majority who might best be excluded from mosques, Ibn Ḥajar seems to picture the “innovators” as individual wrongdoers. Common to both of them, and to the other ḥadīth specialists on whose work they drew, is the assumption that strictures on mosque attendance do not apply to women in general or to young women in particular; instead, they apply to unacceptable forms of behavior.

A striking element of this list of arguments is the assertion that the mosque is the most desirable destination for a woman’s excursion from the home. Rather than representing a particularly problematic space for women, the mosque is posited as preferable to other public spaces (and perhaps ones more commonly frequented by women). As we have seen, this was a sentiment also expressed by the Mālikī Qāḍī ʿIyāḍ. A similar sentiment is expressed by Ibn Daqīq al-ʿĪd, who critically scrutinizes the widespread argument that the ḥadīth forbidding men to deny their wives the right to go to the mosque implied that his permission was required for her to leave the house for any reason. This line of reasoning, while not completely illogical, had allowed scholars to derive a broad and onerous limit on women’s mobility from a prophetic statement that, on its face, was completely affirmative about one instance of women’s leaving the home. Ibn Daqīq al-ʿĪd offers another line of approach:

It would be possible to argue on this point that men’s forbidding women from going out is well-known and customary, and they have been confirmed in it (qurrirū ʿalayhi).150 The ruling [that women should not be forbidden] was associated [specifically] with mosques in order to make clear the instance in which [women’s going out] was licit, and to except it from the ongoing, well-known prohibition. Thus, all other cases [of women’s going out] remain forbidden.¹⁵¹

In Ibn Daqīq al-ʿĪd’s view, the Prophet’s statement that men should not bar women from mosques serves not to establish that a man allows his wife to go out at his own discretion (a rule that he considers to be an immemorial custom tacitly endorsed by the Prophet), but to emphasize that the mosque is a special destination specifically exempted from this general rule. He goes on to suggest that the wording of the Prophet’s statement “Do not prevent the maidservants of God from [going to] the mosques of God” indicates a relationship of logical association (munāsaba) between the permission for women to go out and its rationale.¹⁵² The women are allowed to go out because (and only because) they are going to act as “maidservants of God” by praying in the mosque. Women’s mosque-going again appears as a privileged exception to the overall rule restricting women’s departures from the marital home, an instance whose uniquely pious character is reflected in their description as “maidservants of God.”

Another Shāfiʿī deeply involved in the discipline of ḥadīth also expresses, with a conviction that is only underlined by the brisk and uncontroversial tone of the comment, the idea that mosques are among the legitimate destinations of women’s (ideally limited) public mobility. Commenting on verse 33:33 of the Qur’an, which was widely understood to counsel the Prophet’s wives to “remain within your homes,” the Damascene Ibn Kathīr (d. 774/1373) elucidates: “That is, keep to your homes, and do not go out without need; among the religiously legitimate needs (al-ḥawāʾij al-sharʿīya) is praying in the mosque, subject to [the applicable] conditions.” He goes on to elaborate on the preferability of women’s private worship within the most secluded parts of their houses, a theme that he also emphasizes in his commentary on verse 24:36.153 However, in that passage he also goes on to state, “Despite this, [a woman] is permitted to attend men’s congregational prayers as long as she does not harm any of the men through the manifestation of adornments or pleasant scents.”¹⁵⁴ Like other ḥadīth-oriented Shāfiʿīs of his time, he accepts women’s presence in mosques provided that they observe the appropriate conditions.

Why did Shāfiʿī scholars with a primary interest in ḥadīth (or who, like al-Nawawī, combined equal distinction in law and tradition) promote such distinctive—and comparatively positive—attitudes toward women’s mosque attendance? Specifically, why did they promote attention to proper standards of dress and behavior, rather than age cohort or simply gender itself, as the proper criterion for women’s access to mosques? Why did they, unlike many other scholars, casually, but confidently represent the mosque as a preferred destination for women’s public mobility? The most obvious argument would be that the contrasting disciplinary commitments of ḥadīth scholars and jurists led them to different conclusions. In this case, the comparatively (and increasingly) restrictive doctrines of the legal schools contrasted with the permissiveness of the most authoritative ḥadīth text on the subject. It might be expected that ḥadīth specialists—who presumably started out by scrutinizing the content and authenticity of ḥadīth reports, rather than by defending prior commitments to school doctrines—might produce different results simply due to the different nature of their methodology.

To some extent, this may be the case. Although jurists often finessed the apparent problems in reconciling school doctrines with their alleged textual foundations, ḥadīth scholars were professionally inclined to take the textual sources very seriously indeed. Thus, for instance, it could not escape them that the ʿĀ’isha report involved (grammatically as well as conceptually) a condition contrary to fact. This willingness to return to the sources and engage in foundational reflections on their meaning and interrelation brought a Shāfiʿī ḥadīth scholar like Ibn Ḥajar astonishingly close to a Ẓāhirī literalist like Ibn Ḥazm. Similarly, the lack (or weak authentication) of ḥadīth documenting distinctions among different age cohorts could not elude the attention of the muḥaddithūn.

However, it is not immediately apparent that the opinions of ḥadīth scholars were directly and unambiguously dictated by the clear meanings of ḥadīth texts any more than were those of the legal scholars. For instance, they usually insisted that women should not attend mosques in nice clothing—based on a process of inference similar to juristic analogy (qiyās) rather than any explicit ḥadīth texts to this effect.155 I am not arguing that either jurists or muḥaddithūn necessarily violated the letter or spirit of the Prophet’s reported statements, about which both of them made conscientious inferences on the basis of voluminous knowledge. Rather, it seems that both groups made plausible (if often debatable) interpretations that strove to harmonize a rich variety of ḥadīth texts with each other and with their own convictions about the values and objectives of the law.¹⁵⁶

Because both groups followed methodologies that might yield a wide variety of concrete conclusions even when scrupulously applied to their textual sources, the differences between the doctrines of legal specialists and those of ḥadīth scholars associated with the Shāfiʿī school might best be sought in the sociological rather than the methodological differences between the two groups. Although legal thought theoretically affirmed women’s ability to study law and to act as muftīs, and some women were recognized for their legal scholarship, overall the legal profession was overwhelmingly dominated by men (and its institutionalized professional positions were limited to males).157 In contrast, prominent female ḥadīth scholars taught large numbers of students (sometimes, as we shall see, in mosques and other public venues). In thirteenth- to fifteenth-century CE Damascus and Cairo, where many of the ḥadīth scholars we have discussed lived, studied, and taught, the importance of female ḥadīth scholars was a notable feature of intellectual life.¹⁵⁸ Gloomy as Ibn al-ʿAṭṭār may have been about the general behavior of women, the image of the “learned woman who acts according to her knowledge” was one that ḥadīth scholars of his period knew and cherished on the basis of their own life experience.

The attitudes toward women’s mosque attendance promoted by Shāfiʿī ḥadīth scholars did not eclipse the standard doctrines of the school, which continued to appear in Shāfiʿī legal compilations. A straightforward distinction between young and old women (sometimes modulated with references to sexual desirability) was restated by scholars including al-Nawawī himself in his legal compendium al-Majmūʿ,¹⁵⁹ Zayn al-Dīn al-ʿIrāqī (d. 806/1403–4),¹⁶⁰ Ibn al-ʿImād al-Aqfahsī (d. 808/1405),¹⁶¹ Jalāl al-Dīn al-Maḥallī (d. 864/459),¹⁶² and Jalāl al-Dīn al-Suyūṭī (d. 911/1505).¹⁶³

Indeed, from the seventh century of the Islamic calendar (the thirteenth century CE), three different tendencies coexisted and intertwined in Shāfiʿī thought. The first, which represented the school’s classical legal doctrine and remained remarkably consistent over time (although it reflected only some aspects of the thinking attributed to the school’s eponymous founder), was that mosque attendance was objectionable for young women and permissible for the old. Authors strongly influenced by the discipline of ḥadīth advanced, often parallel to this doctrine, a view in which the traditional emphasis on age gave way to a new focus on the individual woman’s dress and comportment. Meanwhile, yet another tendency emerged, emphasizing that due to the deterioration of public morals after the death of the Prophet and in later generations, women’s mosque attendance should be discouraged altogether. As we have seen, al-Qaffāl advanced this view as early as the fourth/tenth century. The idea that women should be excluded from mosques due to the decadence of the times was expressed by al-Ghazālī in a paraenetic mode, rather than a strictly legal one, at the turn of the sixth century AH. A similar sentiment (expressed in the context of a discussion of the two festival prayers) was echoed by al-Ṣaydalānī (d. 604/1207), who declared that “it is objectionable for [women] to go out to the gathering place of the Muslims (majmaʿ al-muslimīn), because people have changed,”¹⁶⁴ and Ibn al-ʿAṭṭār invoked it in passing in the first half of the eighth/fourteenth century.

The persistence of this line of thought is suggested by the comments of Ibn al-Naẓẓār (sometimes also known as Ibn al-ʿAṭṭār), an otherwise obscure Shāfiʿī scholar165 who composed a work on the legal rules relating to women in 710/1310.¹⁶⁶ After citing a ḥadīth establishing that it is superior for a woman to pray in a secluded spot within her home, he declares, “It is objectionable for a woman in these times to go forth to mosques and pious gatherings (majāmiʿ al-khayr) because of the violations of the divine law and the practice of the Prophet (al-sharʿ wa’l-sunna) that have occurred in them.” He then cites the ʿĀʾisha report.¹⁶⁷ In another passage, he asserts:

The most influential opponent of women’s public prayer in the later Shāfiʿī tradition is the Damascene Taqī al-Dīn al-Ḥiṣnī (d. 829/1426). In the context of his discussion of the two festival prayers, he writes:

Unlike earlier authors (such as al-Ghazālī and Ibn al-Naẓẓār) who had paraenetically urged that women be discouraged from mosque attendance, while also perpetuating traditional school doctrine on the subject, al-Ḥiṣnī appears to be advocating actual legal change. The asperity of his condemnation of those who would cling to the apparent meaning of ḥadīth suggests that he may have encountered some staunch opposition to his innovative stance. However, his opinions also proved influential among later Shāfiʿīs. The prominent scholar ʿAlī ibn ʿAṭīya al-Hītī, known as al-Shaykh ʿAlwān (d. 936/1530), cites al-Ḥiṣnī’s arguments at length and with emphatic approval.171

Another Damascene Shāfiʿī scholar, al-Ḥiṣnī’s younger contemporary Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd Allāh al-Balāṭunusī (d. 863/1459), argues with similar fervor that women should be forbidden from attending mosques. Rather than invoking the changing mores of the times, he constructs a simple (if novel) inference from the textual evidence. Citing ḥadīth texts, he first establishes that it is more meritorious for a woman to pray in her home than in the Prophet’s mosque, even if a prayer in the Prophet’s mosque is worth a thousand ordinary prayers. “If [praying home] is more meritorious,” he concludes, “then what motivates her to leave her home [to pray in a mosque] is either hypocrisy and the desire for good reputation—which is forbidden (ḥarām)—or some other vain objective, such as recreation or the like, which negates the sincerity of the action [of going to the mosque]. It is not permissible for anyone to issue a legal opinion (yuftī) or give permission for [someone else] to abandon sincerity.”¹⁷²

Ibn Ḥajar al-Haytamī (d. 974/1567) cites (without attribution) a much longer passage denouncing women’s frequentation of mosques that appears to come from a polemic against religious innovations. Based on its references to the author’s school authorities and teachers, its author was apparently a Syrian Shāfiʿī writing in the late ninth or early tenth century AH. (Conceivably it could have originated with al-Balāṭunusī himself, who composed such a work.173) The author begins by denouncing the practice of women’s sleeping in the mosque during Ramadan, which he believes is manifestly forbidden (ḥarām) and should be unacceptable to any self-respecting Muslim husband. After citing several proof-texts for the sinfulness of women’s jostling men in public places, he addresses an imaginary interlocutor:

If you say, “Do you hold that women should be forbidden from going out to mosques and religious lessons (al-mawāʿīd) and from visiting graves except for the grave of the Prophet?” I say, “How could I not hold that, when it has become the object of consensus (ṣāra muttafaqan ʿalayh) because of the absence of the condition for the permissibility of their going out in [the Prophet’s] time, which is piety and chastity?!”

He does anticipate an objection to his argument: “Some people have fancied that holding [women’s mosque attendance] to be forbidden and claiming consensus that it should be forbidden is in contradiction to the doctrine of the school.” However, this is merely a misunderstanding. The valid doctrine in these times is that women should be forbidden to go to mosques, “and no one suspends judgment on that except a simpleton who pursues his vain whims, because legal rulings change with the changing of the people of the times; this is true according to the teachings of the ancient and recent scholars.”¹⁷⁴ The wording of the standard manuals of the Shāfiʿī school, which tend to classify women’s mosque attendance at most as makrūh, must be read either in light of the idea that makrūh actually means ḥarām or in light of an unspoken reservation that women’s attendance becomes ḥarām when there is the slightest fear of fitna.¹⁷⁵

In support of his position, he draws on selective samples of the opinions of classical and postclassical scholars who emphasized that it was undesirable for women to go out to mosques in the changed conditions of decadent times. Somewhat paradoxically, he invokes the established authority of these figures to justify a departure from the apparent meaning of the standard texts of the madhhab:

The passages cited above are preserved in a fatwa by Ibn Ḥajar al-Haytamī (d. 973/1566), probably the lengthiest and most passionate Shāfiʿī legal opinion on women’s mosque attendance. Al-Haytamī was an Egyptian who resettled in Mecca; the fatwa appears to have been generated during a heated conflict over restrictions on women’s access to the Great Mosque of Mecca in 536/1530, which will be discussed in detail in chapter 3 of this book. In addition to (selectively) surveying the opinions of other authorities, both named and unnamed, al-Haytamī offers original arguments of his own. Although the details of this lengthy opinion will be treated in the context of that controversy, al-Haytamī’s major points—which suggest evolving and distinctive attitudes both toward women’s mosque attendance and toward the authority of the Shāfiʿī madhhab—demand discussion within this survey of the opinions of the school.

The essence of al-Haytamī’s lengthy discussion is that it is legally obligatory for the authorities to interdict women’s mosque attendance when there is any fear of fitna. There is no absolute prohibition on women’s mosque attendance; there is no reason to forbid, for instance, an elderly, decrepit, and shabbily dressed woman from attending the mosque.177 Nevertheless, the overall force of his argument seems to suggest that women as a class now habitually attend mosques unacceptably attired and that it is accordingly legitimate to bar them all. As we shall see in a later section of this study, the fatwa was, in fact, elicited by an initiative to exclude women from the mosque altogether, if only at certain times of the day; al-Haytamī’s general intention was clearly to endorse this intervention.

Al-Haytamī cites a number of his most prominent Shāfiʿī predecessors, including al-Ghazālī, al-Nawawī, and Ibn Ḥajar al-ʿAsqalānī. In the case of the latter two authorities, though overtly expressing great deference, he also subtly challenges the permissive implications of their comments. Discussing al-Nawawī’s famous passage on the conditions under which a woman may be allowed to attend the mosque, he sharply changes its valence by emphasizing the difficulty of fulfilling all of them and the necessity of detaining the woman at home if she fails to fulfill a single one. Al-Haytamī emphasizes that the conditions include the absence of any fear of harm along the way and the woman’s ability to avoid any kind of mixing with men (two factors beyond the control of even the most pious and modest individual woman). He then argues that in case of nonfulfillment of one or more conditions, the interdiction of women’s mosque-going is not merely permissible, but obligatory.¹⁷⁸ Al-Haytamī leaves the overall impression that, as ostentatious clothing and perfume (as well as the hazard of temptation along the way) are ubiquitous among the women of his day, women as a group should, in fact, be turned away from mosques by the authorities in any situation where there is a conceivable threat to public order. Although technically compatible with al-Nawawī’s statements, this argument notably shifts the duty of enforcement from the male kin of individual women to the public authorities. The fatwa is striking in its dependence on postclassical authorities and on works from genres other than standard fiqh manuals. It is in part by focusing on material from genres with a more expansive set of hortatory and normative agendas (rather than on standard references for Shāfiʿī doctrine) that he is able to compose a powerful legal statement in favor of the institutionalized limitation of women’s mosque access, while expressing fervent (if somewhat misleading) allegiance to the precedents of his school.

In the context of a legal manual, al-Haytamī adheres more closely to the traditional doctrines of his madhhab, stating that “it is objectionable for a woman with a pretty dress, perfume, or adornment, even if she is old, and for a young woman even if she has a shabby dress, to attend [prayers] with a man in a mosque or elsewhere.”179 However, al-Haytamī’s conviction that it was incumbent on the authorities of his day to regulate women’s mosque access did find a place in his most influential legal manual—and through it in the later Shāfiʿī tradition. In his Tuḥfat al-muḥtāj, he remarks that it is repugnant for a woman to attend congregational prayers in the mosque if she is sexually desirable (even if unadorned) and if she is adorned or perfumed (even if she is undesirable); in such a case, “the ruler or his representative is then entitled to prevent her [from attending].”¹⁸⁰ This statement was cited and commented on by his Shāfiʿī successors; ʿAlī al-Shabrāmallisī comments that, “if it were stated that it is obligatory [for the ruler to prevent her] if he considers it to be in the [public] welfare, this would not be implausible, since he is obligated to preserve public welfare (riʿāyat al-maṣāliḥ al-ʿāmma).”¹⁸¹ Thus, al-Haytamī’s experiences with the women of Mecca may have introduced a new emphasis on the regulatory role of the political authorities into the Shāfiʿī discussion of women’s mosque attendance.¹⁸²

Despite the strong assertions of al-Haytamī and his anonymous source of current consensus on the impermissibility of women’s mosque attendance due to the deterioration of public morals, Shāfiʿī legal sources of the tenth/sixteenth century and later continued to reproduce the classical doctrine with very little change. One shift in tone, if not in substance, is that a new rationale was offered for women’s exemption from public congregational prayer. As we have seen above, al-Rūyānī links the arguably lesser merit of women’s congregational prayer to the Qur’anic statement, “And men have a degree above them” (verse 2:228). The same linkage was drawn by a number of later Shāfiʿī jurists, such as Ibn al-Mulaqqin (d. 804/1401), Jalāl al-Dīn al-Maḥallī (d. 864/1459), Zakarīyā al-Anṣārī (d. 926/1520), and Muḥammad al-Shirbīnī (d. 977/1570).183 In contrast, Aḥmad al-Burullusī (known as ʿUmayra, d. 957/1550) adds that women are exempted “because of the difficulty and hardship involved in their gathering.”¹⁸⁴ Shams al-Dīn al-Ramlī (d. 1004/1596) writes that the preference for congregational prayer is less firm with respect to women than to men, “out of fear of corruption in them, and because of the great difficulty it may pose for them, because [congregational prayer] is usually possible only by going out to mosques.”¹⁸⁵ (In response to this point, ʿAlī al-Shabrāmallisī [d. 1087/1676] remarks briskly that the clear sense of the legal rule is that women are less obligated to engage in congregational prayer even if they can do so easily and without hardship and even if they pose no threat of sexual temptation.¹⁸⁶) Although it involved no shift in substantive doctrine, the idea that women were exempted from congregational prayer out of consideration for their own needs (rather than as an expression of gender hierarchy) reflected a sensitivity among some scholars that long preceded the apologetics of the modern period.

Abū Ḥanīfa’s opinions on women’s mosque attendance can be reconstructed only from scattered reports by disciples.¹⁸⁷ Abū Ḥanīfa’s student Abū Yūsuf (d. 182/798) transmits from him the report that “the Prophet used to give women a special dispensation (yurakhkhiṣ) to go out to the dawn and nighttime prayers (ṣalāt al-ghadā wa’l-ʿishāʾ al-ākhira).”¹⁸⁸ It is significant that the wording here (which appears to be a paraphrase of the Prophet’s position rather than a direct quotation) suggests a limited exception to a general disapproval of women’s participation in public worship.¹⁸⁹ Indeed, a report transmitted by Abū Ḥanīfa’s younger disciple Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan al-Shaybānī (d. 189/805) suggests that the master regarded the Prophet’s permission as a temporary measure no longer valid in his own time. In the somewhat artificial dialogue format of his Kitāb al-Aṣl, he inquires of Abū Ḥanīfa:

I said: Is it your opinion that women are obligated to go out for the [prayers of] the two festivals? He said: They used to be given a dispensation for that;¹⁹⁰ as for today, I consider it objectionable for them to do so. I said: Do you consider it objectionable for [women] to attend Friday and obligatory [i.e., the five daily] prayers in congregation? He said: Yes. I said: Do you give them a dispensation to go to any [prayers at all]? He said: I give a dispensation for a very old woman (al-ʿajūz al-kabīra) to attend the nighttime and dawn prayers and the two festival prayers; as for anything else, no.¹⁹¹

In these two reports, we see both of the main distinctions familiar from the early Mālikī texts: between daytime prayers and those held in full or partial darkness and between young and old women. It is the age distinction that is given most salience in Ḥanafī discussions, where it takes a more restrictive form than it does among the Mālikīs. The phrase al-ʿajūz al-kabīra (“the aged, elderly woman”), which redundantly emphasizes the woman’s advanced years, suggests a contrast with the mature, but still vigorous mutajālla of the early Mālikīs. Indeed, in Abū Ḥanīfa’s hometown of Kufa some authorities opposed any loosening of restrictions for elderly women at all. Abū Ḥanīfa’s contemporary Sufyān al-Thawrī (d. 161/778) is reported to have declared that “there is no better place for a woman than her house, even if she is old.”192 Whereas Mālik and a number of other early scholars held that men could publicly greet mature women, even if unrelated, the Kufans are credited with the opinion that women should never exchange greetings with unrelated men.¹⁹³ By seeking to restrict their mosque-going to the dawn and nighttime prayers, Abū Ḥanīfa is supposed to have placed limitations even on elderly women, although his disciples Abū Yūsuf and al-Shaybānī are said to have held that the old could attend the mosque at any time of day.¹⁹⁴

The statements attributed to Abū Ḥanīfa obliquely suggest that doctrine “today” may diverge from literal application of the precedents established by the Prophet. This argument was explicitly elaborated by Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad al-Ṭaḥāwī (d. 321/933), an expert in ḥadīth who sought to demonstrate the compatibility of Ḥanafī doctrine with the statements transmitted from the Prophet. In this case, however, he posits discontinuity with the prophetic precedent, writing of “the rules for women after [the time of] the Messenger of God (peace be upon him!) relating to going to mosques (aḥkām al-nisāʾ baʿd rasūl allāh [ṣallā’llāhu ʿalayhi wa-sallam] fī ityān al-masājid)” (emphases mine). Citing ʿĀʾisha’s statement that “[i]f the Messenger of God (peace be upon him!) had seen what women innovated after him, he would have forbidden them [to go to] mosques, just as the Israelite women were forbidden,” he declares:

Al-Ṭaḥāwī’s overall argument in this passage is that, despite apparent prophetic precedents to the contrary, latter-day Muslim women may not hold pious retreats (iʿtikāf) in the mosque. It is unclear whether he favored the opinion that women should not visit mosques even to pray; perhaps significantly, elsewhere he cites a divergent report stating that Abū Ḥanīfa did not countenance women’s going out for any prayers other than those of the two festivals.¹⁹⁷

As was the case in other schools of law, early Ḥanafīs seem to have drawn deep distinctions between women of different age cohorts without making explicit the grounds for these distinctions. They differed on the concrete implications of the categorization, with Abū Ḥanīfa maintaining significant limitations on mosque attendance by old women and his two disciples exempting them from such restrictions altogether. Both the category distinction between old and young women and the different approaches of Abū Ḥanīfa and his students were provided with formal (if speculative) rationales by Abū Bakr al-Sarakhsī (d. ca. 490/1097). Much like Ibn Rushd in the Mālikī school, this fifth-/eleventh-century scholar uses the newly explicit concept of fitna as the central criterion structuring his interpretation. Al-Sarakhsī writes,