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Recordings › Monday Nights with Mufti #197 | Q&A Unscripted & Unrestricted! 😉 | Mufti Abu Layth · 12 Jan 2021 › Segment 24 of 43

Can a woman lead the prayer or give the khutbah?

salah salat salaah namaz salaat namaaz as-salah al-salah salawat azan azaan athan adhaan call to prayer imaam imams prayer leader khutba khutbas sermon muftis haraam forbidden salam as-salamu alaykum assalamu alaikum assalamualaikum salaams salam alaykum wa alaykum as-salam peace greeting

Can women lead the prayer, give the adhan or the khutbah?

QuestionLive chat · questioner not identifiedAnswered 12 Jan 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth Segment 24 of 43 in the recording2021-01-12-S24

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This segment1:34:44 to 1:37:49 · 3 min 05 sGeneral teaching

The answer in brief

machinesummary, machine-written

Yes, he says a woman may lead the prayer, give the adhan or the khutbah; it is not invalid, it is just generally not done.

In more detail

After thanking super chats, Mufti Abu Layth reads a question asking whether women can lead prayer, make the adhan and give the khutbah. He says they can, but that it generally does not happen, for reasons he calls obvious: men are very visual creatures. He jokes about countering his own argument, since attraction is subjective. He says he does not believe it is haram or invalid for a woman to lead the prayer, give the khutbah or be the imam, but that it is not done so as not to make a thing of it, and repeats that in his understanding it is definitely not invalid.

Question as read aloud · questioner not identified
Can women lead prayer, make adhan, give khutbah, etc.?

Position stated

correctedChecked by two independent reviews, not by the channel

Mufti Abu Layth says he does not believe it is haram or invalid for a woman to lead the prayer, give the khutbah or be the imam.

In his words

“i don't believe it's haram i don't believe it's invalid for a woman to lead the prayer um or for her to give a khutbah or to be the imam”

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Transcript

machine1:34:44 to 1:37:49 · click a time to seek · dotted terms open the glossary

so long all right so now getting back to uh us salaam sir can you please shout out your super fun atik irfan professional serial kisser [Laughter] ah i think you're doing it you're doing it so let's see what are the super chat um mahmoud abdul baki has sent in a question you're doing it with the super chat

are women allowed to lead pris these are the mosques we're all looking for [Laughter] there's got to be a an imam the best you know talent talent [Laughter] right can women lead preg make hazan give khutbah etc they can they can okay does it generally happen no and the

reasons i think are quite obvious you know this is not men very visual creatures you know but one could say what if the woman is not physically appealing then when i counter my own arguments get stuck it's a good point actually what if one could argue that but then one could argue attraction is subjective [Music]

so it's not haram though i don't believe it's haram i don't believe it's invalid for a woman to lead the prayer um or for her to give a khutbah or to be the imam but generally it isn't done and you know it's quite honestly not done for those reasons because it would it would just become a thing you know they don't want to make a thing out of it it's like like [Laughter] everybody's trying to it's the first time everybody's trying to make front row like ah

do you know the edger for being in the softball oval it's like so yeah but it is uh it is definitely in my understand not invalid to do so let's take a look at some of the facebook questions as well uh fushi saying you can literally watch it i don't know what that's about there's a talk that mufti has already on this topic

Paragraphs overlapping 1:34:44 to 1:37:49. Full text on the recording page.

Cite this segment

Stable id, transcript version and tier are part of the citation. Every change to a transcript is logged.

Mufti Abu Layth Archive, segment 2021-01-12-S24, auto-transcribed, may contain errors. https://muftiabulayth.org/r/1zghntbmpis/s/24/ (accessed 1 November 2026)

APA 7

Mufti Abu Layth. (2021, January 12). Can a woman lead the prayer or give the khutbah? [Video, segment 2021-01-12-S24, auto-transcribed, may contain errors]. Mufti Abu Layth Archive. Retrieved November 1, 2026, from https://muftiabulayth.org/r/1zghntbmpis/s/24/

Chicago author-date

Mufti Abu Layth. 2021. "Can a woman lead the prayer or give the khutbah?" Video, segment 2021-01-12-S24, auto-transcribed, may contain errors. Mufti Abu Layth Archive. Recorded January 12, 2021. Accessed November 1, 2026. https://muftiabulayth.org/r/1zghntbmpis/s/24/

BibTeX

@misc{abulayth-2021-01-12-S24,
  author = {Mufti Abu Layth},
  title = {{Can a woman lead the prayer or give the khutbah?}},
  year = {2021},
  month = {1},
  date = {2021-01-12},
  howpublished = {\url{https://muftiabulayth.org/r/1zghntbmpis/s/24/}},
  url = {https://muftiabulayth.org/r/1zghntbmpis/s/24/},
  organization = {Mufti Abu Layth Archive},
  urldate = {2026-11-01},
  note = {Segment 2021-01-12-S24, auto-transcribed, may contain errors}
}

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