provided they neither wear perfume nor display their adornment, that they are fully covered, keep away from mixing with men, and stand behind the men’s rows, as was their practice during the Prophet’s lifetime.

It is recommended for them to attend assemblies of exhortation and circles of knowledge, apart from the men.

It is also recommended that they pray together in their own congregation, separate from the men, whether one of them leads or a man leads them. The Prophet instructed Umm Waraqah to appoint a caller to prayer for herself and told her to lead the people of her household—a report related by Ahmad and the compilers of the Sunan—and other female Companions followed the same practice. This conforms to the general wording of his statement: “The congregational prayer surpasses the individual prayer by twenty-seven degrees.”

As for the Muslim man, it is preferable for him to pray in a mosque whose congregational prayer would not be held were it not for his presence, for in doing so he earns the reward of maintaining the mosque. Allah the Exalted says, “Only those who believe in Allah and the Last Day populate the mosques of Allah” (Qur’an 9:18).