and assigns to each individual whatever suits him.

Scholarly disagreement:
The majority of jurists—including the Mālikīs, Shāfiʿīs, and Ḥanbalīs—regard women’s participation in funeral processions as merely discouraged, not prohibited. They derive this from the present ḥadīth, understanding—just as Umm ʿAṭiyya did by contextual indication—that the directive was not meant as an absolute ban.

Al-Nasāʾī (1859) and Ibn Mājah (1587) record, with reliable transmitters, that Abū Hurayrah said: “The Messenger of Allah ﷺ was at a funeral when ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb noticed a woman and shouted at her. The Prophet said, ‘Leave her alone, O ʿUmar.’”

The Ḥanafīs, however, maintain that the prohibition is one of outright unlawfulness. They cite the report in Ibn Mājah (1578): “The Prophet ﷺ came out and found some women sitting. He asked, ‘What has made you sit here?’ They replied, ‘We are waiting for the funeral.’ He said, ‘Go back, bearing sin and earning no reward.’” Yet this narration’s chain is weak.

Ibn Daqīq al-ʿĪd observed that other aḥādīth convey even stricter censure of women following funeral processions than the above narration does.

On its face, the Prophet’s wording denotes prohibition. Umm ʿAṭiyya’s statement—“He did not insist upon us”—reflects her personal assumption that the order was not absolute; the binding evidence remains the Prophet’s own words.

Additional support for treating the matter as prohibited lies in the authentic ḥadīth reported by Aḥmad (2031), al-Tirmidhī (320), and Ibn Ḥibbān (7/453): “The Prophet ﷺ cursed women who visit graves.” Anyone who accompanies a funeral inevitably visits the graves, and accompanying a procession is tantamount to such visitation. Hence the safer course is to regard the prohibition in the ḥadīth as one of unlawfulness.
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