Recordings › Can Women Pray in Bikinis? -Mufti Abu Layth · 4 Mar 2019 › Segment 1 of 1
Is my prayer valid if I pray in a bikini or swimwear?
salat salaah namaz salaat namaaz as-salah al-salah salawat al-bukhari imam bukhari sahih al-bukhari sahih bukhari saheeh al-bukhari saheeh bukhari imam al-bukhari maaliki malikite malikiyyah muftis hukm ahkam hukum hukam ahkaam mandub mandoob mustahabb recommended fard farz faraid fard ayn fard kifayah fardh sunna sunnat sunan prophetic practice madinah madina al-madinah madeenah yathrib ahl al-sunnah ahl as-sunnah ahlus sunnah ahl al-sunna sunnis 'alim aalim awra satr salam as-salamu alaykum assalamu alaikum assalamualaikum salaams salam alaykum wa alaykum as-salam peace greeting dhikr zikr zikar dhikar zikir adhkar azkar ibadah ibada ibaadah ibadatPraying in a bikini by the pool: covering as an obligation separate from salah
Watch the answer
Open on YouTube at 0:38The player starts at 0:38, where the answer begins.
This segment0:00 to 10:18 · 10 min 18 sGeneral teaching
The answer in brief
machinesummary, machine-writtenOn the Maliki view of Qadi Isma'il, which he finds strong, her prayer would have been valid, since covering is an obligation separate from salah; it is still not something he recommends. Either way nobody has the right to attack her.
In more detail
Mufti Abu Layth takes up a viral clip of a woman praying her salah poolside in swimwear, which people have asked him about. He first says nobody has the right to tear into her or troll her; in a digression he says he does not use 'brother' and 'sister' for everyone, calling it a recent, synthetic version of Islam developed in the West, before returning to say that people could have advised her kindly. He then cites Qadi Isma'il, whom he calls a Maliki legend and chief judge of Baghdad and Basra, and the Malikis of Baghdad and Iraq who followed him, for the view that covering the 'awrah is a separate obligation unrelated to the conditions of salah, so that a prayer offered uncovered is valid; he sets out the range of opinions within the Maliki school (obligation, obligation with capacity, sunnah, recommendation) and notes that the other schools and most Malikis made covering a condition of the prayer. He says he would not recommend praying in swimwear, but that he personally feels Qadi Isma'il and the Malikis have a strong point, so on that view her prayer would have been valid though she was still obliged to cover. He adds that he admired that she remembered her prayer at all, that harshness will only drive such people away, and that if he spoke to her he would suggest wrapping up in a gown to avoid controversy, telling critics to stop playing God.
Question as read aloud · questioner not identifiedWhat do I think about the viral clip of a girl praying her salah poolside in her bikini?
Position stated
Mufti Abu Layth says he personally feels Qadi Isma'il and the Malikis have a strong point in holding that covering oneself in salah is a separate obligation, not a condition of the prayer.
“i personally do feel that ismail and the malikiah the school of medina have a strong point on what they've said that covering yourself in salah is a separate obligation”
Category: ruling
Kind: general teachingTranscript
machine0:00 to 10:18 · click a time to seek · dotted terms open the glossary
people right okay there's a viral clip i think some of you know what i'm gonna talk about now there's a viral clip that's gone around on social media you know what i'm talking about nothing nothing this basically there's a girl who's praying her salah poolside [Laughter] [Music] and she's in her bikini and a swimwear right so and she's praying her salah and you've all seen this clip don't lie
so people are ripping her to shreds on social media and i've been tagged in this on several occasions and people have asked me what do i think about this right well first of all i think people have no right to rip into her like that it's nobody's business okay like look you can have your opinion but i don't think it's right to kind of destroy people like troll them like you have no like you have no right to just generally be harsh like an evil towards people
i get your right to express your opinion i get your right to say look people look like if somebody said excuse me you know i don't know what her name was i don't know if people knew her name or excuse me sister i don't like using the word sister i do not call girls normally sister okay i don't buy into all this kind of what i call nonsense romanticized kind of version of islam which has only emerged in the last century or so but but there's nothing wrong with people who want to use that you know they want to call everybody their brother and everybody their sister generally muslims in the past didn't do that kind of stuff but okay so you never see
in you know like in the past in the arabic books they say hey brother sister well this is a new synthetic kind of islam that we've developed in the west uh but anyway fine uh people could have said hey sister uh you know it's admirable that you have remembered you know taken out time to worship but i think you should you know generally it is one or two cover when praying salaam things like this okay yeah we are all brothers and sisters in humanity i know i know i know i get i get the whole
evolution thing my friend uh and we are all the the sons and daughters of adam i get that but i'm just saying i don't generally like this kind of i don't i've got no problem with you guys doing it but i'm just saying i don't buy into this whole everybody this artificial synthetic islam of everybody's your brother and sister and just get real and just call them who they are you know you don't need to over hey brother hey sister right anyway so coming back to this point so somebody could have said to her look listen this is the rule but they they don't have a right to tear into her that's what i'm saying
right to start off with you do not have a right to be nasty to somebody just because look at the end of the day she was just remembering god that's what she was doing okay according first of all first of all let me drop the bombshell right did you know according to the maliki method and according to people like qadhi ismail who is a don in islam and had done in the maliki muslim that salah is absolutely valid did you know that isma'il i've answered this before has said that covering the aura has nothing to do with salah
he has made that point absolutely clear early on he he he was one of the major scholar amongst like the teachers of people like bukhari he's a legend in islam ismail and many of the malekia of baghdad and iraq followed him on this understanding he said that covering yourself was a separate obligation in islam it was a foreign islami and was nothing to do with shara's salah with the conditions of salah so this is why in the maliki method you will get these rulings that to cover yourself what are the different opinions within islam
within the maliki method that it is an obligation that is an obligation with capacity that is a sunnah that is only a recommendation to cover yourself in salah but it is a separate obligation in islam so the question is if i was praying who if somebody prayed naked in a room where nobody could see them is their salah valid according to the malikia of baghdad and iraq which is a valid sub-school of the maliki and called the ismail that their salah is valid and they were legends legends in islam
are the he was you know in his time he was made the absolute judge of uh of uh of baghdad and basra i mean he was an absolute legend in his time so this understanding that just to show this is within the school of medina within sunni islam it is a valid understanding within islam that covering yourself is a separate obligation which is independent and immaterial to salah that said so i want you to understand that and and i've said before
that look based on this understanding i've answered this before previously that look based on that understanding of women or if people are praying and something was to become uncovered look it it's fine anyway the salah you've got this difference of opinion okay now so let's put that ruling there now here the majority of the people the other methods and the rest of the malikiyah said that no i mean there was a difference some said it was a far some said it was afforded capacity in remembrance some said it was a sunnah and then some said it was mustahab just a recommendation and not really part of
the salah at all in any key integral way but the rest of the malakio did say it was an obligation and the arrest of the madahib said okay a person needs to cover in salah it was a condition of salah remember now first of all there is a difference of opinion in this masala with this woman praying poolside in her bikini and swimwear it's not something i would recommend people to do i would not tell them to do that but if they did it right don't be nasty towards them you have no right to be cruel to people nobody gave you the right to do that so what you have the right to do is
you can get ext extend look you can extend your opinion you can say look listen uh you know uh i because i actually think it's amazing well i i actually saw the fact that wow somebody who and i'm being stereotypical just as people will be stereotypical of me i'm being stereotypical seeing somebody in swimwear like that you wouldn't think that they're necessarily somebody so and that's wrong of me to judge like that but i'm just being honest that you wouldn't think that oh that maybe they have a deep connection with islam but wow she does you know the fact that she at poolside put herself to praying and
remembering allah is in itself an amazing thing that she could have just said forget it who gives a damn okay but she may have done it in a way that according to many not according to all according to many invalidated the prayer so fine you know there's still a difference of opinion but you could respectfully nicely extend a kind word you know you will go get very far with kind words to tear into her she'll probably just stop praying thinking look and she never recorded
herself somebody recorded her anyway so that was my point i personally do feel that ismail and the malikiah the school of medina have a strong point on what they've said that covering yourself in salah is a separate obligation to that that is my general understanding that i do go with so i would feel that look based on what the maliki have said her salah would have been valid but you know it was generally an obligation for her to cover which she didn't do and for that somebody could say you know the sin and things like that but the salah would have been fine okay based on that understanding how
would have i reacted i would not have if i was in that situation and somebody prayed it depends look if i i wouldn't go over and command you know the taliban it's not none of my business yes if i was to to be honest with you i was actually when i saw i was just in all that wow somebody that remembered their salah you know like i i saw that side like wow like i wouldn't have expected somebody to be chilling like that and then remember this a lot and it would have probably put me to shame because i would have probably been
delaying mine but i'm just saying so and yeah if i got into a conversation with a girl that did that i would have probably mentioned that look i think you know because i do believe the salah based on what the maliki said was valid but generally it's because people are recording you or whatever that you should you know to avoid controversy and maybe it's better if you get a chance just wrap up in a gown and then pray but look have some decency and stop playing god
let's be honest right all right let's take another question
Paragraphs overlapping 0:00 to 10:18. 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 2019-03-04-S01, auto-transcribed, may contain errors. https://muftiabulayth.org/r/gv69xfzfuek/s/1/ (accessed 1 November 2026)
- APA 7
Mufti Abu Layth. (2019, March 4). Is my prayer valid if I pray in a bikini or swimwear? [Video, segment 2019-03-04-S01, auto-transcribed, may contain errors]. Mufti Abu Layth Archive. Retrieved November 1, 2026, from https://muftiabulayth.org/r/gv69xfzfuek/s/1/
- Chicago author-date
Mufti Abu Layth. 2019. "Is my prayer valid if I pray in a bikini or swimwear?" Video, segment 2019-03-04-S01, auto-transcribed, may contain errors. Mufti Abu Layth Archive. Recorded March 4, 2019. Accessed November 1, 2026. https://muftiabulayth.org/r/gv69xfzfuek/s/1/
- BibTeX
@misc{abulayth-2019-03-04-S01, author = {Mufti Abu Layth}, title = {{Is my prayer valid if I pray in a bikini or swimwear?}}, year = {2019}, month = {3}, date = {2019-03-04}, howpublished = {\url{https://muftiabulayth.org/r/gv69xfzfuek/s/1/}}, url = {https://muftiabulayth.org/r/gv69xfzfuek/s/1/}, organization = {Mufti Abu Layth Archive}, urldate = {2026-11-01}, note = {Segment 2019-03-04-S01, auto-transcribed, may contain errors} }
Something wrong here?
Tell us what is wrong and it will be checked against the recording. Nothing changes until a person has reviewed it.
Sending a note needs JavaScript, which is off or unavailable in this browser. Nothing has been sent.
No name, email address or account is asked for or stored, and the inbox does not store your IP address. For rate limiting it keeps an unreadable fingerprint of your connection for 48 hours, and our database provider's own logs record connections as every website's do. Only your note, its kind, the page and the moment in the recording are kept, for review.