Some women go out to call other women to Islam, visiting them in their homes and holding lessons for them. Does this contradict what Allah commanded them to do, which is to stay in their homes?

The questioner : Some women go out to call other women to Islam, where they visit them in their homes and invite them to special lessons, and this may become frequent among them. Does this contradict what Allah commanded them to do, which is to stay in their homes? Because she goes and moves about, and especially with us, O Shaykh, a woman is permitted to drive, so she goes to this one and goes to that one. Is this contradictory?

The Shaykh : I believe that this action is also one of the problems of the present age. Among those problems is that we have come to say today that there are male and female callers to Islam. This is, of course, without doubt, one of the newly invented matters. It is not befitting for there to be women who are called "female callers to Islam." There is no harm, rather, it is obligatory that there be women who are learned in Islamic sacred law, such that women turn to them to ask questions. This is because many women are hesitant to direct their private questions to the eminent scholars. If there are truly learned women among the women, on the condition mentioned earlier, namely: according to the Book and the Sunnah, then women should come to them, and it is not the other way around. This is because we believe, with truth, in the saying of those who said from among the scholars of knowledge:
All good is in following those who came before, and all evil is in the innovation of those who came after.
The matter has reached the point with some women here, and perhaps in other countries, that they climb the pulpit in the mosque and deliver lessons to the women. There may be men in the courtyard of the mosque who missed the prayer in congregation, and they enter to pray. This is, without doubt, something I do not hesitate to say is a religious innovation. The matter, as I mentioned in your question, is that it is obligatory for a woman to stay in her home. If she is distinguished from others by knowledge of the law of Allah (Mighty and Majestic), that does not qualify her to go out like men and equal them in going out, as if our Lord (Mighty and Majestic) did not say in His Noble Book: .
The original rule for a woman is that she does not go out except for a need that she cannot fulfill except by going out. Here the matter becomes clear between the learned woman, for it is not permissible for her to go out and move about, as they say, as a "female caller to Islam," and the woman who wants to learn knowledge, for she goes out because it is permissible for her to go out to the mosque, as is well known, and as was the case in the time of the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him). Knowing that the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) said to them: , and yet he (peace and blessings be upon him) approved of their going out to the mosques, even for the night prayer. And the explicit prohibition came: . And the woman would leave from the dawn prayer, as came in the hadith of Muslim: .
The approval of the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) of women going out to perform the five prayers in the mosques, along with the clarification that their prayer in their homes is better for them, is nothing but because they used to go out to seek knowledge. If there is a woman who sits in her home, there is no objection to women coming to her, each according to her circumstances and capacity, etc. As for her, she does not go out like men, because this is imitating the men.