Advice on women’s free time and their going out to the markets

The questioner : Women complain of having a great deal of free time, especially on nights like these, and they find nothing before them but the television or the video. What is your advice to them on how to spend these times? And another complains of the frequent going out of women to the markets. We ask for guidance.

The Shaykh : As for women going out to the markets, there is no doubt that it is a good thing and a cause for regret. The responsibility falls first and foremost on the men, the guardians, because they are the ones whom Allah the Exalted has appointed as those in authority over women. He said, “Men are in charge of women” , and He said, “And men have a degree of authority over them” . It is not permissible for a man to leave his women like this, free to go wherever they wish, whether at night or in the day, whether in Ramadan or otherwise. Rather, it is obligatory for them to observe and monitor them, especially with the fear of fitnah (trial, discord or temptation) that a woman might go out perfumed or displaying her adornment, or the like. So I place the greatest responsibility on the guardians. It is obligatory to prevent a woman from going out of the house to the markets at night, even if that leads to preventing her from the mosque. This does not contradict the saying of the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) , because I am preventing her from going to the mosque in a way that, when she leaves the mosque, she passes by the market and walks around in it without benefit. So I am preventing her not from the mosque, but from what happens after the mosque. Otherwise, I would be careful to meet her as soon as she goes out to the mosque and take her to the house. As for the free time of women in their homes.
It is the woman who has created this free time for herself, and in my view, there is no free time. As for the young girls, most of them are in school, and she has a responsibility to the school. She can spend her night reviewing her lessons, as long as she has not slept. As for the older women, the affairs of the house are many. She can strive in the matters of her house, or she can sleep, as the women of the past did, who had no television, no video, no radio, or anything else, and their affairs were in order. Indeed, by Allah, it was better than this time. You find the woman’s heart attached to her worship and the affairs of her house, and she has no look or attention to anything else. But it is the women who have occupied themselves with these listening devices, of which they are in no need. So she can, when the tarawih prayer is finished, stay in the house if she is reviewing her lessons. If she is a student, she reviews what she wants to study. If she has read the Qur’an, if she does not read, she occupies herself with the affairs of her house. If there is no work and the work is finished, she sleeps, and there is no problem with the matter. So there is no problem and there is no free time, but the women are the ones who create this problem and seek its solution, and its solution, praise be to Allah, is easy and simple.