Fatwa, - Hanafi & Shafi抜 Positions on Females Praying in Congregation

Question:
I know that it is very important for men to pray in jamat. I was
wondering if this is the same case with women. I know a lot ofpeople
who understandably support the idea that ifthere are more than one
woman together then you should pray in jamat. But I have also heard
that many women believe that it is disliked to pray in jamat. When I
say jamat I don�t necessarily mean inside the masjid. I mean jamat at
home just amongst women. If you could please give both Hanafi and
Shafi�i positions.
Answer:
In the Name of Allah, Most Merciful & Compassionate
Wa Alaykum Assalam wa Rahmatullah wa Barakatuhu,
Please see the following links relating both the Hanafi and Shafi�i
positions on women-only congregational prayers.
The Hanafi Position
From a previous questionanswered by Shaykh Faraz Rabbani:
As for praying in a congregation of women,the Hanafi position is that
it is prohibitively disliked (makruh tahriman), because it is not
established from the practice of the female Companions except through
a couple of narrations, which are understood either as being from the
early period of Islam or done to teach others how to pray.

Fatwa, - Women Leading Prayers and the Way of the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him)

Question:
Women Leading Prayers and the Way ofthe Messenger of Allah (peace and
blessings be upon him)
Answer:
In the Name of Allah, Most Merciful and Compassionate
May Allah's peace and blessings be upon His Messenger Muhammad, his
folk, companions, andfollowers
Wassalam

SARS & bird flu: two messages from God to mankind

During the first half of the year 2002, people would have understood
any reference to cars, bars, or Mars, but not SARS - a disease which
emerged at the end of 2003. They would have asked for the meaning
ofthis strange word, because Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome,
orSARS, had not yet emerged.
Similarly, before the emergence of AIDS)Acquired Immune Deficiency
Syndrome(, had one spoken about this disease his audience would have
undoubtedly understood him to mean nothing other than relief,help,
assistance, etc. Therefore, at that time, if poverty-stricken
countries like Somalia, Ethiopia and others weretold that they would
receive it from the rich and 'civilised' countries, they would have
been joyful and grateful.
Hence, dictionaries have to be regularly updated to include new words
like SARS, and to add newmeanings to words like AIDS.
The birthplace of SARS was southern China, from where it began to
spread more than a year ago. With thousands of infections and hundreds
of death cases to date in at least twenty-six countries, this disease
has rocked Asian markets, ruined the tourist trade, almost driven
airlines to bankruptcy, and spread horror through some of the world's
largest countries. It began to vehemently sweep through the mammoth
country whose gigantic dragon, with his horrific fiery breath, proved
helpless and confounded in face of this disaster.
In Beijing, hospitals and schools were shut down and thousands of
people were put under quarantine. Martial law, as the rumours went,
wasabout to be imposed. Onecould hardly imagine the extent of concern
and the uncountable sums of money spent to curb this furious epidemic.
This year, 2004, came to strike people with another arduous
disease,from the same part of theworld from which SARS spread, namely
South east Asia; it is called 'Bird Flu'.
It is noteworthy that the media, even in Muslim countries, devotes
much time and space to such diseases and tackles themfrom many
perspectives; scientific, medical, economic, social, and even
political, but never religious or moral. This is also applicable to
the coverage of all other natural catastrophes like floods,
earthquakes, fires, hurricanes, volcanoes, epidemics, etc.
People might talk about the scientific reasons behind these events,
the economic losses they inflict, the material preventive procedures
ofescaping, or at least reducing, their effects, and their
repercussions on tourism and trade. Butthey usually forget about the
moral causes, and themorals and wisdom induced from such dilemmas.
Concepts like 'morality', 'spirituality' and 'wisdom' are to be found
nowhere better than the supreme infallible divine constitution: the
Holy Quran, which is the sole intact source of guidance. It is the
Quran and only the Quran which has the loudest word about mankind)and
other creations( and how it should live. It is this Muslim Scripture
thatgives the direly needed regulations for man: howto live, how to
behave, do's and don'ts, the reasons behind tribulation and distress,
and how to look at bliss and torment both in this life and the life to
come, among other things.
Through all kinds of diseases and other natural infections that befall
man, there are great lessons and principles for the wise to infer.
They could be inflicted as punishments from Allaah for those who shun
the right path by spreading mischief and crooked behaviour. A
clear-cut instance of this in ancient times was the flood which
devoured the people of Nooh )Noah(after they rejected his call to
worship Allaah, their Creator, and shun idolatry. The Quran records
this event, sayingwhat means:"Becauseof their sins they were drowned
andput into the Fire, and they found not for themselves besides
Allaah]any[ helpers."]Quran: 71:25[
In our time, to take contemporary examples, AIDS and syphilis are two
diseases that have spreadpanic throughout the entire globe. What is
the reason behind these two killer diseases? Is it the consumption of
too muchcoffee or fruit? Does it evolve when one sleeps less than is
required? No. They are the outcome of perversion and immorality, when
man immerses in pornography and descends to the rank of beasts.
Prophet Muhammadwarned us, more than fourteen centuries ago, of the
unprecedented diseases that break out as a consequence of
illicitsexual intercourse; He said:"….If ever immorality)adultery and
fornication( spreadsin a community and there is no sense of shame on
its occurrence of mentioning it, diseases which were not present in
the lives of their predecessors will spread among them…."]Ibn Maajah&
Others[
Do we need a clearer reference to AIDS and syphilis than this prophetic warning?
Despite all the unimaginable sums of money spent all over the world to
spare humanity,has illicit sex, as the core reason, been fought or
atleast condemned? Can a disease be prevented without eliminating its
causes? What about the widespread motto doctors commonly chant:
"Prevention is better than cure"? Has it proved senseless? If not,
then let us adhere to the prevention, which costs no money and effort
- virtue and morality, which Islam provides freeof charge.
Allaah says in the Holy Quran what means:"And We send down of the
Quran that which is healing and mercy for the believers, but it does
not increase the wrongdoers except in loss."]Quran: 17:82[
Inflictions may befall believing people as a test. Allaah may test His
servants with distress, sickness, poverty, or anything else in order
to strengthen their faith, expiate their sins, and increase their
ranks in the Hereafter. Almost all prophets, may Allaah exalt their
mention, and other righteous figures endured one or more of the above
means of being tested.
These inflictions can also serve to act as reminders or precautions of
Allaah'sOmnipotence. They serve as messages to man reminding him of
his reality, his ability, and hisdestiny. In this context, let us take
tornadoes or earthquakes as two examples.
Allaah has subjected nature and all its sources and potentials to the
disposal of mankind. Through his God-given mind, man dominated the
land, sea, and space; armed with all the material aids Allaah has
provided him through nature. To achieve almostanything, there is a
machine made by his own hand, ready for his service. But is this
genius a credit and privilege for man to be a god? Is he in a position
to control but not to be controlled, and to subjugate everything to
his disposal, but not tobe subjugated to a Higher Authority?
Let us imagine man, with all his strength and shrewdness in killing
his own brother with the most destructive weapons, in confronting
mountains, and in conquering space, yet he is helpless before an
invisible microbe that could strip him of his life,to say nothing of
tornadoes and earthquakes!
Superpowers dominate the whole globe, with all other countries as
their states and cities. They determine their policies, economy, and
education,among many other things. In other words, they behave as they
werea god on earth. But why does their strength surrender to a tornado
ora hurricane? With their highly advanced technology, they may predict
the coming of a sweeping tornado, for instance, but can they stop it
or divert its courseto Afghanistan or Iraq?
Thus, a tornado, or any other catastrophe, is but a message from the
Supreme Matchless Power, Allaah Almighty, saying to those who
bragabout their muscles: 'Know your limits and remember that there is
an Omnipotent Hand reigning supreme.'
Allaah says what means:"Say: 'He ]i.e. Allaah[ is the ]one[ able to
send upon you affliction from above you or from beneath your feet or
to confuse you ]so you become[ sects and make you taste the violence
of one another.' Look how We diversify the signs that they may
understand."]Quran 6:65[
Thus, for man to know his reality and live in peace of mind in a world
full of discipline and stability, he has to surrender to the will of
Allaah, his Creator and Sustainer, and abide by the Quran, the source
of cure and guidance.

A fishy tale: transition from water to land

Evolutionists assume that the sea invertebrates thatappear in the
Cambrian stratum somehow evolved into fish in tens of million years.
However, just as Cambrian invertebrates have no ancestors, there are
no transitional links indicating that an evolution occurred between
these invertebrates and fish. It should be noted that invertebrates
and fish have enormous structuraldifferences. Invertebrateshave hard
tissues outsidetheir bodies, whereas fish are vertebrates that have
hard tissues inside. Such an enormous "evolution" event ought to have
been supported by billions of transitional forms displaying the
intervening changes.
Evolutionists have been digging fossil strata for about 140 years
looking for these hypothetical forms, they have found millions of
invertebrate fossils and millions of fishfossils; yet nobody has ever
found even one thatis midway between them.
An evolutionist paleontologist, Gerald T. Todd admits this fact in an
article titled "Evolution of the Lung and the Origin of Bony Fishes" :
"All three subdivisions of the bony fishes first appear in the fossil
record at approximately the same time. They are already widely
divergent morphologically, and they are heavily armored.How did they
originate? What allowed them to diverge so widely? How did they all
come to have heavy armor? And why is there no trace of earlier,
intermediate forms?"
The evolutionary scenario goes one step further and argues that fish
evolved from invertebrates, then transformed into amphibians. But this
scenario also lacks evidence. There is not even a single fossil
verifying that a half-fish/half-amphibian creature has ever
existed.This fact is confirmed)albeit reluctantly( by a well-known
evolutionist authority, Robert L. Carroll, who is the authorof
Vertebrate Paleontology and Evolution as: "We have no intermediate
fossils between rhipidistian fish)his favourite 'ancestors' of
tetrapods( and early amphibians." Two evolutionist paleontologists,
Colbert and Morales, comment onthe three basic classes of amphibians –
frogs, salamanders, and caecilians:
"There is no evidence of any Paleozoic amphibian combining the
characteristics that would be expected in a single common ancestor.
The oldest known frogs, salamanders and caecilians are very similarto
their living descendants."
Until about fifty years ago, evolutionists thought that such a
creature indeed existed. This fish, called a Coelacanth, which was
estimated to be 410 million years of age, was put forward as a
transitional form with a primitive lung, a developed brain, a
digestive and a circulatory system ready to function on land and even
a primitive walking mechanism. These anatomical interpretations were
accepted as undisputed truth among scientific circles until the end of
the 1930s. The Coelacanthwas presented as a genuine transitional form
that proved the evolutionary transition from water to land.
However, on December 22, 1938, a very interesting discovery wasmade in
theIndian Ocean. A living member of the Coelacanth family, previously
presented as atransitional from that had become extinct 70 million
years ago, was caught! The discovery of a "living" prototype of
Coelacanth undoubtedly gave evolutionists a severe shock. The
evolutionist paleontologist J. L.B. Smith said that he could not have
been more surprised if he had come across a living dinosaur. In the
years to come, 200 Coelacanths were caught many times in different
parts of the world.
Living Coelacanths revealed how far the evolutionists could go in
making up their imaginary scenarios. Contrary to claims, Coelacanths
had neither a primitive lung nor a large brain. The organ that
evolutionist researchers proposed as a primitive lung turned out to be
nothing but a lipid pouch. Furthermore,the Coelacanth, which was
introduced as "a reptile candidate getting prepared to pass from sea
to land," was in reality a fish that lived in the depths of oceans and
never approached a distance of less than 180 meters from the surface.
Why Transition From Water to Land is Impossible
Evolutionists claim that one day, a species dwelling in water somehow
stepped onto land and was transformed into a land-dwelling species.
There are a number of obvious facts that render such a transition impossible:
1. Weight-bearing: Sea-dwelling creatures have no problem in bearing
their own weight in the sea.
However, most land-dwelling creatures consume 40 percent of their
energy just in carrying their bodies around. Creatures making the
transition from water to land would, at the same time, have had to
develop newmuscular and skeletal systems )!( to meet this energy need,
and this could not have come about by chance mutations.
2. Heat Retention: On land, the temperature can change quickly and
fluctuates over a wide range. Land-dwelling creatures possess a
physical mechanism that can withstand such great temperature changes.
However, in the sea, the temperature changes slowly and within a
narrower range. A living organism with a body system regulated
according to the constantsea temperature, would need to acquire a
protective system to ensure minimum harm from the temperature changes
on land. It is preposterous to claim that fish acquired such a system
by random mutations as soon as theystepped onto land.
3. Water: Since it is essential for metabolism, water needs to be used
economically due to its relative scarcity on land. For instance, the
skin has to be able to permit a certain amount of water loss, while
preventing excessive evaporation simultaneously. That is why
land-dwelling creatures experience thirst, something the sea-dwelling
creatures do not do. For this reason, the skin of sea-dwelling animals
is not suitable for a non-aquatic habitat.
4. Kidneys: Sea-dwelling organisms discharge waste materials,
especially ammonia, by means of their aquatic environment. On land,
water has to be used economically. This is why these living beings
have a complex excretory system comprising the kidneys and other
organs. Thanks to the kidneys, ammonia is stored by being converted
into urea and the minimum amount of water is used during its
excretion. In addition, new systems are needed to support the kidney's
functioning. In short, for the passage of organismsfrom water to land
to have occurred, living things without a kidney would have had to
develop a kidney system all at once.
5. Respiratory system: Fish "breathe" by taking in oxygen dissolved in
water that they pass through their gills. They cannot live for more
thana few minutes out of water. In order to surviveon land, they would
haveto acquire a perfect lung system all of a sudden.
It is most certainly impossible that all these dramatic physiological
changes could have happened in the same organism at the same time, and
all by chance.