Recordings › Hadith Analysis & Fatwa: Women Can Travel Without a Mahram - Mufti Abu Layth · 22 Apr 2018 › Segment 1 of 9
Can a woman travel without a mahram?
salat salaah namaz prayer salaat namaaz as-salah al-salah salawat haj pilgrimage hadj hadeeth ahadith ahaadeeth hadis hadees ahaadith saheeh sahih hadith saheeh hadith sound hadith authentic imam bukhari sahih bukhari saheeh al-bukhari saheeh bukhari imam al-bukhari muftis hukm ahkam hukum hukam ahkaam fard farz faraid fard ayn fard kifayah fardh saheeh muslim imam muslim muslim ibn al-hajjaj quran quraan al-quran sahabah sahaba sahabi sahabiyyah sahabiyat ulama ulamaa wali walee awliya awliyah mehram maharim mahaarim salam as-salamu alaykum assalamu alaikum assalamualaikum salaam salaams salam alaykum wa alaykum as-salam greetingCan a woman travel without a mahram? The ruling and the narrations
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This segment0:00 to 9:31 · 9 min 31 sGeneral teaching
The answer in brief
machinesummary, machine-writtenYes: Mufti Abu Layth says a woman can travel without a mahram, since the ruling was about safety. The reports behind it disagree on how long a journey they mean.
In more detail
Mufti Abu Layth takes a question on women travelling without a mahram, explaining that a mahram is a male relative she could not marry, and mentions in passing his separate video saying it is absurd that a man becomes a woman's mahram by drinking her milk. He gives the ruling first: of course a woman can travel in Islam without a guardian, and the ruling was simply about safety. Mufti says the issue arises from reports of four companions, Ibn Umar, Abu Sa'id al-Khudri, Abu Hurayra and Ibn Abbas, which scholars understood to concern journeys, not going to the streets or markets. He goes through the versions in al-Bukhari, Muslim, Abu Dawud and the Musnad of Ahmad, which vary between three days, three nights, more than three days, two days, one day and a night, and one night, and notes that Ibn Abbas's version gives no time span and ends with a man told to leave a military expedition and join his wife on Hajj. Mufti says most scholars of the past held that a woman cannot go on a journey unaccompanied, based on these reports.
Question as read aloud · questioner not identifiedCan a woman travel without a mahram?
Position stated
Mufti Abu Layth says that of course a woman can travel without a mahram, the ruling having been simply about safety.
“yes of course a woman can travel in Islam without a guardian I'm explaining that first of all so I'm gonna give you the ruling first of all of course she can and this ruling was simply about safety”
Category: ruling
Kind: general teachingTranscript
machine0:00 to 9:31 · click a time to seek · dotted terms open the glossary
right women traveling now I've been asked a question about women traveling and is this without a madam am Akram is a male guardian to whom that is related to the woman in such a way that they could not marry amongst themselves and so brother son father uncle nephew these kind of things for example grandfather stuff like this and muharram and I've
dealt with the question which is also a separate question now on YouTube that if a woman wet-nurse is a man does he become her Muharram which is absurd of course he doesn't so if she kind of breastfed him or he drank from her actual milk does he become and some people have been pushing this in saying that a valid thing in Islam I've explained and I've got that video as a separate that that's absurd and not true
right okay so as to women traveling now we've got to understand first of all I'm going to explain that yes of course a woman can travel in Islam without a guardian I'm explaining that first of all so I'm gonna give you the ruling first of all of course she can and this ruling was simply about safety so once I've highlighted that ruling I'm gonna go through the breakdown and the detail of this topic with you okay now
so there there are this this and this issue arises from certain hadith that are transmitted from the prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam peace and blessings be upon him mainly from four companions okay from even our home are from Abu Zeid in a hoodie from Abu Hurairah and from Abner rhodiola wand'rin so these four companions are the main transmitters of this particular heavy about a woman if she travels she needs a guardian now so that's something I want us to understand
that this is so let's take a look at these narrations first of all all of these narrations seem to vary in key detail okay in how far can a woman travel without a guardian because did they mean by this that she can't even step outside her house generally speaking no scholars understood that generally speaking maybe some nut cases some control freaks may have had such an understanding but generally speaking nobody in Islam understood things like
that that what they meant was a journey okay even if it was a short journey or a long journey this is what they they didn't mean things like her going into into the streets or into that Street or this street or the markets or things like this because everybody has always been doing that okay now we have a hadith from abnormal this hadith is transmitted way in in the muslim vac met in abu dawood in in the book in sahih al-bukhari in sahih muslim and in these
generations in Sahih Muslim even Omar says that it is impermissible he heard from the Prophet for a woman to travel Allah madhurima Harmon meandher except with Muharram for the last that I am the journey Macerata Salathe am a journey that would take three whole days in one narration in sahih muslim he says Mesilla to salah el al that the journey of three nights right so this is ignore much narration it comes in these books in Buhari in Muslim degenerations
in Abu Dawood in the most environment then we have the narration of of Abu Hurairah Abu Hurairah the narration is interesting he seems to mention it's in Buhari it's in Sahih Muslim it Center maybe it's in Abu Daoud Abu Huraira says he heard the prophets Amos irritate you minhwa Leyla but the journey of one single day and a single night Lisa Maha Hermann he uses the word formal which is like sanctity and used often for a
guardian who there is a sanctity that you can't marry because of now in his narration in sahih muslim he says massara tell Leila the journey of one night otherwise it says in sahih al-bukhari mercier at a yeoman one laila of one day and one night this is this is the kind of transmission we're getting from Abu Huraira which is inside Bukhari since I'm Muslim it's in even imagine its intimacy okay so these kind of you've got these
four okay so one two three four are so these four then abou seasonal Kadri he has a transmission which is interesting it's in Sahih Muslim he says I heard the Prophet say that she cannot undertake Suffern a journey which he who knows the Lassiter a Yemen fficer iDEN that is of three whole days and more for sir Eden and above three whole days in his
narration and that sort of intermediate and there's a narration in Abu Dawood that says Suffern focus velocity a young for Sidon in Abu Dawood his narration of upside in houdry says I heard the prophecy a journey which is more than three whole days and Counting so and in his narration in the mustard of Ahmed he says focal falafel e'en a journey that is more than three whole nights and then he has one in Sahih Muslim which just says the word three thelusson and then it's interesting he
has another one in Muslim and Bihari that says young man a minute aha two whole days of time now so this narration of Abu Zeid Anil Qadri which is in Tommy the Muslim it's in Abu Dawood and Muslim Ahmed all seem to say more than three whole days and Counting his narrations in Muslim and Bihari say other narrations in Muslim birth I say only two days and then his other narration in Muslim says three days then the fourth companion which is it not bus
now he has a narration that mentioned no time span it only says that I heard the prophecy latter suffer that a woman should not travel who believes in online is messenger ulema are the Muharram except with accompanied by a guardian now this is in body it's in Muslim and it's in the most no Department this from ethnic bossy all appears to be one narration why because at the end of it he says the person then asks the Prophet oh but my wife has gone to Hajj in some
he says she's gone in some he says she's intending to go and I have been enlisted for battle so he's about to go on a battle now he says - and the Prophet that she's already gone and I I've been enlisted and the Prophet says go do the Hajj with her join her upon the Hajj he says that in all of those narrations in body Muslim and Ahmed so it shows that this is one man asking and this seems to be one incident with if not bus so these are the four main
companions upon which this whole understanding rests and is built okay of a woman needing a companion now like I mentioned most scholars all accepted this was not talking about a woman just leaving the house and going about the town this was talking about a journey most scholars in the past said that a woman cannot go on a journey journey unless she's a company this was their understanding based on these kind of
honey then came the issue of Oh what about the Hajj if a woman has to go to the Hajj because Allah is telling in the Koran that we he's stating his instructing Oh - tada I'm income that you know who well alayhi Allen a CHL BT that that people have an obligation to go perform the Hajj so here there is a huge disagreement amongst amongst scholars on who can perform the Hajj a woman let's say a woman doesn't have a guardian to go with her
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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 2018-04-22-S01, auto-transcribed, may contain errors. https://muftiabulayth.org/r/jp8gjvvonms/s/1/ (accessed 1 November 2026)
- APA 7
Mufti Abu Layth. (2018, April 22). Can a woman travel without a mahram? [Video, segment 2018-04-22-S01, auto-transcribed, may contain errors]. Mufti Abu Layth Archive. Retrieved November 1, 2026, from https://muftiabulayth.org/r/jp8gjvvonms/s/1/
- Chicago author-date
Mufti Abu Layth. 2018. "Can a woman travel without a mahram?" Video, segment 2018-04-22-S01, auto-transcribed, may contain errors. Mufti Abu Layth Archive. Recorded April 22, 2018. Accessed November 1, 2026. https://muftiabulayth.org/r/jp8gjvvonms/s/1/
- BibTeX
@misc{abulayth-2018-04-22-S01, author = {Mufti Abu Layth}, title = {{Can a woman travel without a mahram?}}, year = {2018}, month = {4}, date = {2018-04-22}, howpublished = {\url{https://muftiabulayth.org/r/jp8gjvvonms/s/1/}}, url = {https://muftiabulayth.org/r/jp8gjvvonms/s/1/}, organization = {Mufti Abu Layth Archive}, urldate = {2026-11-01}, note = {Segment 2018-04-22-S01, auto-transcribed, may contain errors} }
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