Prophet used to visit it once a week (Bu. 20:2). Another mosque at Madīnah is spoken of as the mosque of Banī Zuraiq (Bu. 8:41). And Bukhārī has the following heading for this chapter: “Can a mosque be called the ‘mosque of so and so?’ “ Thus a name may be given to any mosque, either that of the founder or of the people who resort to it, or any other name. In later times, Muslims belonging to different sects had their own mosques, the Ka‘bah, the Central Mosque, gathering them all together at the time of Pilgrimage. But when a mosque has once been built it is open to Muslims of all persuasions and no one has the right to prohibit Muslims of a certain persuasion or sect from entering it. This is a point on which the Holy Qur’ān contains a clear injunction: “And who is more unjust than he who prevents (men) from the mosques of Allāh, from His name being remembered in them, and strives to ruin them?” (2:114).

Admission of women to mosques

The custom of pardah in certain countries of the Muslim world raises the question as to whether women may go to the mosques. There was no such question in the Holy Prophet’s time, when women freely took part in religious services. There is indeed a ḥadīth which tells us that on a certain night the Holy Prophet was very late in coming out to lead the night prayers, when the people had assembled in the mosque; and he came only on hearing ‘Umar call out, “The women and the children are going to sleep” (Bu. 9:22). This shows that women were in the mosque even at such a late hour. According to another ḥadīth narrated by ‘Āishah, women used to be present at the morning prayer, which was said at an hour so early that they returned to their houses while it was still dark (Bu. 8:13). Yet another ḥadīth shows that even women who had children to suckle would come to the mosque, and that when the Holy Prophet heard a baby crying, he would shorten his prayer lest the mother should feel inconvenience (Bu. 10:65); while in one ḥadīth it is stated that when the Holy Prophet had finished his prayers, he used to stay a little and did not rise until the women had left the mosque (Bu. 10:152). All these ḥadīth afford overwhelming evidence of the fact that women, just in the same way as men, used to frequent the mosques and that there was not the least restriction in this matter. There are other