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Are there any female scholars in the world today?

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Are there any female scholars in the world today?
dirt
01/06/03 at 05:39:44
[slm]

I'm positive that there have been very esteemed female scholars in the past.  But I don't know of any around today.  Do they exist?

[wlm]
Re: Are there any female scholars in the world tod
bhaloo
01/06/03 at 23:30:34
[slm]

Dr. Farhat Hashmi.
Re: Are there any female scholars in the world tod
amatullah
01/07/03 at 00:04:48
[wlm]

I don't think there are many female nor male scholars today compared to before. There are many who are studying and imams, etc. but to have learned aalim faqeeh/muhaddith,etc men or women is very few. I think Sheikh al-Albani may Allah have mercy on him was the last scholar of hadeeth alive (knowing i think over 100,000 hadeeth with their isnad and meaning,etc) I guess it depends what you mean by scholar and level of ilm standards.

There are MANY da'eyas and knowledgable women in the gulf area. Like sister Buthayna al-ibraheem is a revert who married sheikh dr tariq swaidan she goes all over the gulf doing series only for women about raising children is the one coming up and all sorts of islamic issues amazingly masha'Allah in Arabic! There are other da'yas who hold lectures for women only all the time as well.
01/07/03 at 00:06:13
amatullah
Re: Are there any female scholars in the world tod
se7en
01/08/03 at 15:21:06
as salaamu alaykum wa rahmatAllah,

sis jannah posted a great article about this in the al-taqwa masjid.. check it out [url=http://www.jannah.org/cgi-bin/madina/YaBB.pl?board=library;action=display;num=1041793108]here[/url].

Dr. Ingrid Mattson is another one of the very few modern day Muslim women scholars I can think of:

Dr. Ingrid Mattson is Director of Islamic Chaplaincy and Professor at the Macdonald Center for Islamic Studies and Christian-Muslim Relations at Hartford Seminary in Hartford, CT.

Dr. Mattson earned her Ph.D. in Islamic Studies from the University of Chicago in 1999.  Her research is focused on Islamic law and society; among her articles are studies on slavery, poverty and Islamic legal theory

In 1995, she was an adviser to the Afghan delegation to the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women.  In 2001 Dr. Mattson was elected Vice-President of the Islamic Society of North America.  Professor Mattson is also a contributor to The Muslim World Journal.
01/08/03 at 15:22:21
se7en
Re: Are there any female scholars in the world tod
Abu_Hamza
01/09/03 at 22:36:36
[slm]

Yes dirt, they do exist, walhamdulillah.  However, most of them are only known in their own country or town, and are not famous beyond their national borders.  Many of the contemporary ulemaa learned a great deal of their ilm [knowledge] from female scholars.  Shaykh Shanqeeti is one great example.  

If you ask students of knowledge from Algeria, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Morocco, and various other Muslim countries, you will find that they can even name you some shaykhas who are well respected in their localities.  

Their number is definitely few, but they do exist.  Walhamdulillah.

On a side note, I think it's an unfortunate reality of our times that knowledge - overall - is being lifted from this ummah.  There is no doubt that Islamic scholarship has weakened to a great extent, and it is a sign of the last Hour as prophecized by Rasulullah [saw] himself.  The disciples of knowledge are fewer today than before, and those that do exist are usually not comparable in their knowledge to those before them.  This is true for both male and female Islamic scholars.  However, to say that no true scholar exists today or it's impossible to find one, I think is a little extreme and an insult to the esteemed scholars of our time.  We need to understand that yes, we are in a sad situation.  Yes, scholars are fewer today than before.  But they do exist, and we need to look for them, honor them, respect them, learn from them, and make du'aa for them.  Not ignore them, act as if they don't exist, or belittle their efforts.

May Allah (awj) help this ummah, and forgive us for our sins and our shortcomings.  

Wassalamu alaikum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh.


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