Recordings › Hadith Analysis & Fatwa: Women Can Travel Without a Mahram - Mufti Abu Layth · 22 Apr 2018 › Segment 6 of 9
Why did the Prophet say women should not travel without a mahram?
hadeeth ahadith ahaadeeth hadis hadees ahaadith al-bukhari imam bukhari sahih al-bukhari sahih bukhari saheeh al-bukhari saheeh bukhari imam al-bukhari muftis haraam forbidden kufr kafir kaafir kufar kaafirun disbelief madina al-madinah madeenah yathrib wali walee awliya awliyah mehram maharim mahaarim salam as-salamu alaykum assalamu alaikum assalamualaikum salaam salaams salam alaykum wa alaykum as-salam greetingWhy the Prophet limited women's travel: safety in a hostile Arabia
Watch this part
Open on YouTube at 23:01The player starts at 23:01, the beginning of this part.
This segment23:01 to 27:28 · 4 min 27 sGeneral teaching
What this part covers
machinesummary, machine-writtenFor their safety: Mufti Abu Layth says the limits tracked how far the safe zone around Madinah reached, widening as treaties spread, not a rule to confine women.
In more detail
Mufti Abu Layth says the Prophet was not setting boundaries to confine women, and anyone who thinks so has a poor opinion of him; he was trying to safeguard them. He describes the hostilities the Muslims of Madinah faced from neighbouring tribes and the coalition, and the clause of the treaty of Hudaybiyya under which men who came over would be returned but not women, which infuriated Quraysh and others who were eager for a chance to seize the women. Mufti says that as treaties spread, Khaybar was settled and most of Arabia came under Islam, the safe zone widened, which explains why the reports move from one day to two, three and more than three days. He says men were targets too, but women were softer targets.
Position stated
Mufti Abu Layth says the Prophet was not setting boundaries to confine women in these hadith but was trying to safeguard them.
“these hadith were the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam not trying to set boundaries to confine women at all and anybody who thinks that anybody who thinks that has a poor”
Category: teaching
Kind: general teachingTranscript
machine23:01 to 27:28 · click a time to seek · dotted terms open the glossary
can we go he said he said laughs no it is haram because it goes against the hadith of the Prophet so it's interesting that look that these this whole understanding this whole understanding and I don't think somebody said oh they mean I don't think it was I mean allowed women traveling generally either without a guardian I don't think
he did but that some all of my have and I'll come to that in a moment now see let's take a look at all of this what's really going on you see these hadith I've quoted people these hadith were the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam not trying to set boundaries to confine women at all and anybody who thinks that anybody who thinks that has a poor
opinion of the best of creation sallallahu alayhi wasallam the prophet muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam was trying to safeguard now during his lifetime medina and the muslim settlement was attacked and was was undergoing huge hostilities neighboring tribes at time you had hot fun and these are the tribes and all these people you had the assad the coalition against the
Prophet you had so many people targeting the targeting the Muslim communities laying kind of CEO opportunists you had an understanding that the kuffar of Quraish said to the prophet of judah bia that any men that if a man is agile congratula NIF a man comes to you who believes you will have to return him to us and the prophet agreed because the muslims needed this they needed to compromise for this safety for for kind
of a peace settlement now at the time when the women came the prophet said we agreed to men but we didn't say woman so we're not gonna send these women back this infuriated the Crafar of Quraish and other tribes as well people were just dying for an opportunity to get the Muslims back now as the time progressed the Muslims Muslims kind of had treaties peace
treaties with varying tribes ok now some of these like so for example sometimes they were neighboring tribes there was let's say hey bird with the Jewish kind of settlement then that gets settled Muslims kind of take over they established this ok that's not a threat anymore then you've got the coalition ok the coalition breaks away some other tribes come in they become friendly now and these ones then well they think well and towards the end of the prophet's life the whole of arabia had pretty much come under an agreement with the prophet
and most of arabia had come under Islam so you see that based on the dangers the vicinity was varying hence the Prophet was saying oh she shouldn't travel one day because right now the tribe a whole day would get a woman this far beyond that is a danger zone then the the peace treaties expand oh who travels to day is okay but beyond that there's a danger zone oh now it's expanded even further three days oh then it expands a bit more
three days and more this was the Prophet trying to safeguard the women because yes men were targets too but women were greater and Sina softer targets by these people okay so this was why the prophesy Ali Salim had said and how how can we prove this well let's go to another hadith right now I want to take you to a hadith which is also in Bukhari now this
hadith in which the Prophet is addressing a companion by the name of our idea even hurt him okay I did not hurt him he's speaking to the prophet and the Prophet says to him he says to him yeah I D do you know where I'll hear is an era is a place a location it's actually located in Iraq it's very far from the Arabian Peninsula especially in that day and age and he says you know I've heard of it this place called adhira
Paragraphs overlapping 23:01 to 27:28. 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 2018-04-22-S06, auto-transcribed, may contain errors. https://muftiabulayth.org/r/jp8gjvvonms/s/6/ (accessed 1 November 2026)
- APA 7
Mufti Abu Layth. (2018, April 22). Why did the Prophet say women should not travel without a mahram? [Video, segment 2018-04-22-S06, auto-transcribed, may contain errors]. Mufti Abu Layth Archive. Retrieved November 1, 2026, from https://muftiabulayth.org/r/jp8gjvvonms/s/6/
- Chicago author-date
Mufti Abu Layth. 2018. "Why did the Prophet say women should not travel without a mahram?" Video, segment 2018-04-22-S06, auto-transcribed, may contain errors. Mufti Abu Layth Archive. Recorded April 22, 2018. Accessed November 1, 2026. https://muftiabulayth.org/r/jp8gjvvonms/s/6/
- BibTeX
@misc{abulayth-2018-04-22-S06, author = {Mufti Abu Layth}, title = {{Why did the Prophet say women should not travel without a mahram?}}, year = {2018}, month = {4}, date = {2018-04-22}, howpublished = {\url{https://muftiabulayth.org/r/jp8gjvvonms/s/6/}}, url = {https://muftiabulayth.org/r/jp8gjvvonms/s/6/}, organization = {Mufti Abu Layth Archive}, urldate = {2026-11-01}, note = {Segment 2018-04-22-S06, 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.