is not the least idea of defilement in a menstruating woman. Similarly there are ḥadīth showing that what a menstruating woman touches with her mouth is not defiled (AD. 1:103). Even the very clothes which she wears need not be washed if they are not actually defiled (Bu. 6:11). The ḥadīth mentioned above is therefore no bar against a woman’s entrance into the mosque when she is menstruating, but as she is to abstain from prayer, she has no need to go there.

Office-bearers of the mosque

Every mosque will ordinarily have a Mutawallī (lit., guardian), who is charged with its management by those who have built it. The mutawallī has the right to appoint the Imām, or the man who leads the prayers, but he has no right to prohibit Muslims, on account of sectarian differences, from entering the mosque. Every mosque has also generally a mu’adh-dhin who gives the call for prayers. The mu’adhdhin may also look after the mosque. But the most important man in the mosque is the Imām , the man who leads the prayers and delivers the sermon (khuṭbah) on Friday. The honour of leading the prayers was, in the time of the Holy Prophet, and also for a long time after that, given to the best man in the community. Bukhārī has the following heading for one of his chapters: “Those who are well-grounded in knowledge and possess the greatest excellence are most entitled to lead prayer” (Bu. 10:46). Under this heading, he quotes a ḥadīth in which it is narrated that when the Holy Prophet was on his death-bed, he appointed Abū Bakr to lead the prayers in his place, and when he was requested to appoint ‘Umar instead, as Abū Bakr was too tender-hearted, he refused to do so. Abū Dāwūd narrates sayings of the Holy Prophet requiring the honour of leading the prayer to be conferred on the man who was most learned in the Holy Qur’ān, or in a case where two men were equal in that respect, other considerations were to be applied. The Holy Prophet himself was the Imām in the central mosque at Madīnah and, after him, his successors, the respective caliphs, Abū Bakr, ‘Umar and ‘Uthmān. When a governor was appointed to a province, he was also appointed as Imām to lead the prayers, and this practice continued for a long time. In fact, the honour of leading the prayers (imāmat) in Islām was as