Yasmin Mogahed ( IV Sept 2008) need not be apologetic and remorseful about Ms.Amina Wadud leading Friday prayers for a group which also consisted of men.
The guidance on who should lead prayers is clear from the following Hadith from Sahih Muslim (Book No 004, Hadith No 420) which does not specify preference of an Imam based on gender or age.
“Abu Mas’ud al-Ansari reported Allah’s Messenger (may peace be upon him) as saying: The one who is most versed in Allah’s Book should act as Imam for the people, but If they are equally versed in reciting it, then the one who has most knowledge regarding Sunnah; if they are equal regarding the Sunnah, then the earliest one to emigrate; if they emigrated at the same time, then the earliest one to embrace Islam. No man must lead another in prayer where (the latter) has authority, or sit in his place of honour in his house, without his permission. Ashajj in his narration used the word,” age” in place of” Islam”.
When a group of people at Madina requested the Prophet of Allah to choose a person who can lead the prayers for them, he chose a young boy to the surprise of the people. The Prophet justified it saying that he was the best in the knowledge and recitation of Quran amongst those who he was supposed to lead. In later centuries, when Islam was a state religion and trained Imams were aplenty, many scholars opined that an adolescent or a woman cannot lead prayers for a congregation of men, thus making the Prophet’s choice of a teenager itself an exception rather than a rule. While respecting the scholar’s opinion, it can also be said that such exceptions may repeat in history especially in countries in which Muslims are a miniscule minority. E.g. it is reported in the media that in the year 2006, at the Islamic Community Center of Northern Virginia, two teenagers who had memorized Quran lead the Tarawi prayers since the Islamic center could not find a suitable cleric. By the same token, if Amina Wadud was the only person who qualified according to the aforesaid hadith to lead the prayers, then she was certainly not trying to equate herself to men or trying to be one up over men. That the men accepted her as their Imam also speaks of her authority on Quran and Sunnah. To the credit of men in that group, they did not show male chauvinism and try to run down her credentials as Imam which, in all probabilities,would have happened in some other parts of the world.
Dr. A Ahmed
Bangalore
dr.a.ahmed@sify.com
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OCTOBER 2008 |