Can a Woman Do Different Aspects of the Prayer According to Another School and What is the Ruling of Forearms for Women in Prayer?

In the Name of Allah, the Most Merciful and Compassionate

I pray you are in good faith and health. Thank you for your question. Allah Most High increase you in knowledge, practice, and a high spiritual state.

You should continue to follow a school of fiqh as you are now. This is the safest way and is followed by the majority, especially if your entire family, friends, etc, are following it. You will find ease in this way. The scholar said what he said, as this is what he follows. Thus, his opinion of his school is correct.

If you raised your hands, in bowing and placed your forearms on the ground, your prayer would be valid but disliked.

Women place their forearms on the ground in prostration is understood from the following:

Yazid Ibn Habib (Allah be pleased with him) reported that the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) passed by two women performing the prayer. He said, “When you make prostration, keep your body attached to the ground because a woman has not been created like a man” [Al-Marasil, Abu Dawud; Bayhaqi]

This hadith has been classified as the best Mawsul hadith on this topic.

“Ibrahim (Allah have mercy on him) says that when a woman prostrates, she should join her thighs to her stomach without raising her posterior and stretching her limbs like a male.”[Ibn Abi Shaba, Musannaf Ibn Abi Shayba]

The above will not be fulfilled if a woman raises her elbows in prostration. The above hadiths are clear regarding the difference in posture of the man from that of a woman in prayer. This has been understood by reconciling the hadiths with that of others. Anyone with even basic knowledge of hadith would understand the concept of interpretation of conflicting narrations (Mukhtalif al-Hadith) and the sciences of reconciling apparent inconsistencies in hadiths. Not being able to do this will lead one to wrong conclusions.

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I pray this helps with your question.

Wassalam,

[Mawlana] Ilyas Patel

Mawlana Ilyas Patel is a traditionally trained scholar who has studied in the UK, India, Pakistan, Syria, Jordan, and Turkey.

He started his early education in the UK. He went on to complete hifz of the Quran in India, then enrolled into an Islamic seminary in the UK, where he studied the secular and Alimiyyah sciences. He then travelled to Karachi, Pakistan.

He has been an Imam in Rep of Ireland for a number of years. He has taught hifz of the Qur’an, Tajwid, Fiqh, and many other Islamic sciences to both children and adults onsite and online extensively in UK and Ireland. He taught at a local Islamic seminary for 12 years in the UK, where he was a librarian and a teacher of Islamic sciences.

He currently resides in the UK with his wife. His personal interest is the love of books and gardening.