Explanation of the Hadith: (The worst of the rows of women are the first ones...) Does this apply to the closed rooms designated for them?

The questioner : Our Shaykh, may Allah reward you, the hadith in Sahih Muslim, in which the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) said, in its meaning: So, regarding the closed rooms for that purpose, is the ruling the same as indicated by the apparent meaning of the hadith? I mean, in these closed places now, the women are separated from the men. It is known that when they discussed the explanation of the hadith, they mentioned that the operative cause of the worst rows of women being the first ones is that they are closer to the men, as al-Nawawi mentioned or something like that. So, does the apparent meaning of the hadith apply to these closed places now?

The Shaykh : In my opinion, I cannot answer the question, because I think the questioner acknowledges the legitimacy of this closing off, and I do not see that, because this is a religious innovation: closing women off and imprisoning them in mosques, especially the spacious ones, due to the corruption of society, imprisoning them in a room such that the movements of the imam are hidden from them, and such that they are sometimes exposed to invalidating their prayer to the point of it becoming invalid. And in my opinion, closing women off in private rooms in mosques is exactly like cutting the row with a long pulpit. All of this is a later occurrence, so we must return to what the earliest generations were upon. Is this a discussion of yesterday, isn't it?
Abu Layla : Abu 'Abdullah, it did not exist.

The Shaykh : The brotherThe questioner : It did not exist; I do not think it existed. It is said that the women of today are not the women of yesterday, and of course, this is observed. The point of this saying is that we should imprison women in these rooms so that the men do not see anything of their private parts. So my answer was somewhat long, and the time was short, so I said in a long discussion that this is not among the prescribed public benefits of imprisoning women in these rooms, because the reason for the imprisonment is the failure of the Muslim society, including the women, to fulfill the obligatory religious duties. If the women entered the mosques wearing the Shari'ah jilbab, it would not occur to those who build these rooms to imprison the women in them. But when they see, unfortunately, that some women enter wearing what is called a jacket or a dress, or as they call it today a jilbab, but it is not a jilbab, reaching only to the mid-calf, and perhaps wearing sheer flesh-colored stockings, and so on, in order to shield the men's eyes from seeing these private parts, if we shield the women in the mosque from the men, we say to him: No, it is up to us to return to applying Islam, and to return the Muslim society, which is not divisible, to what the matter was in the first era. We are fighting the society today; we want the Muslims, with their scholars and students and common people, to return to what the Salaf were upon, not sectarianism, but rather: Allah said, and the Messenger of Allah said. There is no objection to disagreement, as was the case in the first era, not to narrow sectarianism. We also want to return the private and public societies to what the Salaf were upon, such as mosques; we do not want long pulpits in them, we do not want pulpits that represent legal stratagems. Be aware that the old pulpits cut the rows, so they brought us pulpits where one enters from the mihrab and climbs over the people from above onto a balcony. Why is this whole turn? Three steps, and "sufficient for the believers is fighting" is better. The best guidance is the guidance of Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him). How much does it cost in money and coins for this preacher to climb onto this balcony? He claims he does not want to cut the row. Good, this claim is obligatory, but it can be done without this expense by adopting a pulpit with three steps, and this matter is finished. Likewise, we do not want these decorations. Finally, we do not want these rooms for women. We want women like the men who were before; women enter veiled, and the men advance in the rows. And then the previous hadith applies: So we do not want to reverse the indication of the hadith because of the deviation that has occurred in the construction of these rooms in the mosques. Call the adhan, my brother, before we enter, it is past the time.