[No Objection to Women Working Outside the Home within Sharʿī Limits]
-
We raise no objection to a woman’s employment outside her home, provided the following conditions are observed:
-
She herself needs the work, or society needs it because no qualified men are available.
-
She undertakes it only after discharging her household duties, for these remain her primary responsibility.
-
The workplace is exclusively for women—such as teaching them, practicing medicine or nursing for them—and is completely separate from men.
-
Likewise, there is no objection—in fact, it is obligatory—for a woman to study her religion, and no harm in her teaching other women the religious knowledge they require, so long as the learning takes place in an all-female environment. She may attend lessons in the mosque and the like, provided she is fully covered and segregated from men, in the same spirit with which the women of the early Muslim community used to work, learn, and frequent the mosques.