Answer:

If the female scholar uses the microphone to speak or recites the Quran amongst women, then it is allowed. But the sound of the microphone should only be so high that it is limited only to women who hear it. The sound must not reach the ears of the non-mahram males, for the voice of a woman is awrah [to be hidden]. Just as women are ordered to hide themselves from non-mahram men, so is the voice also ordered to be hidden.

 

Our master Ala Hazrat said as an answer to a similar question,

“It is not allowed, for the female voice is also awrah and the mellifluous voice of a female to a stranger is an opening of schism [fitna].”

[al-Fatawa al-Ridawiyyah: vol. 9, p. 122]

 

In another section he says,

“A woman who recites in a mellifluous voice, with the mellifluous sound going to the non-mahram, is haram. In the Nawazal of Imam Faqih Abu al-Layth it states, ‘The female’s voice is awrah.’ It is stated in the Kafi of Imam Abu al-Barakat al-Nasafi, ‘The female must not recite the Talbiya out loud, for her voice is awrah.’ It is stated in the book al-Sama’ of Imam Abu al-Abbas al-Qurtubi, referring to Imam Ali al-Maqdisi Imdad al-Fattah, Imam al-Shurunbulali, and then Imam al-Shami in Radd al-Muhtar, ‘Women glorifying, lengthening and stretching their voices, with soft tones and streaming sound like declaiming poetry, in all these things we do not give permission to the women, because the reason that in in all these things makes the man inclined towards them. And it arouses a lusty emotion in the men. That is why the females do not have this permission to give Azan.”

[al-Fatawa al-Ridawiyyah: vol. 9, p. 147-148]

 

This Islamic judgment is at that time when the female scholar deliberately used the microphone during the speech knowing that the sound from the microphone was reaching the men’s ears. And if the female scholar knew nothing about it, then she will not be accused.

 

Mufti Muhammad Zulfaqar Khan Naimi Kakralwi
29-Shaban-1436 || ≈ 16-Jun-2015
 al-Fuyudat al-Nabawiyyah fi’l-Fatawa al-Hanafiyya (Fatawa Uttarakhand): vol. 2, p. 394, #129
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