[PRengin]

A few things:

It is not clear cut how the women are sitting. If the women were supposedly seated in the back, it should be obvious, but it isn't since there are women who are right up there at the front (see the left side) and some men are at the back. We shouldn't be compromising the shari'ah for the sake of learning. Also, we should not lay blame at the shaykh since he is not the management and he may have alerted the masjid management of the situation who may not have heeded but ultimately the blame lies upon the management of the masjid.

Furthermore, Umar separated men and women because of the fear of fitnah. We are talking about the time of the sahaba , the best of generations, and Umar separated the men and women with a physical partition. In fact, he initially banned women from the masjid. 'Aisha also shared the same opinion.

Yes you are right on the left side it does seem women are level with the men. And yes we should not blame Abdul Hakim Murad for this, as he is the speaker not the management.

Regards to the second point, Umar (ra) was known to be very hard and strict in all regards. I am not saying He was incorrect, God forbid... only Umar (ra) knows what the situation was at the time and if Umar (ra) thought it was necessary to actually ban women from coming to the Masjid He must have had a good reason. And Ayesha (ra) agreeing with him just proves that more, that there must have been a good reason.

but I am sure women were allowed to learn from home with other women, with the best of women like Ayesha and Hafsa (ra) during the time of the ban. Because we should never ban women from learning, this goes against the Prophet (pbuh) anyway.

I just think sometimes modern Muslim men seem to have a mentality to stop women from doing everything and anything because it "might cause fitnah". I think it goes both ways, Muslim men must obey Allah and His messenger, by lowering their gaze, by covering themselves, by honouring women, by giving them their rights, by following the Sunnah of the Messenger (pbuh).

My family is from Pakistan and the majority of men there are quick to jump at women for "causing fitnah", yet never follow the Fardh, let alone the Sunnah.

Yes, mixing of genders more often then not will cause trouble. So this should always be avoided obviously. But I just feel sometimes men have a mentality to use "fitnah" to stop women from the most harmless things. I know personally women can be a handful (lol), but if men just follow the Sunnah of the Messenger (pbuh) and be patient, this fitnah will be long gone.

The point is, if men in present times obey Allah and His messenger, women would happily follow and all fitnah would vanish. If we do not obey and blame women for fitnah it is narrow-minded... we must look at it both ways.

Salam.