The fact, the question is that Dr. Saeed Ahmed’s daughter, this is a question from her, left this question with Mr. Abdullah Ibn Sabqalo, that generally speaking, in principle, clapping is not permitted in mosques, yet in the case of an Imam making some mistake, the ladies are required not to say Subhanallah, but to clap. What is the significance of this? What is the reason behind? The simple answer is that clapping, for the purpose of making noises or by itself expressing some sort of joy, spiritual or otherwise, is prohibited for that purpose.
For example, it was a custom in many religious denominations to express their spiritual enhanced experience in terms of making noises, such as clapping as well. So Islam discouraged this. Islam wanted people to express themselves in meaningful expressions, always turning their minds to Allah. But there are exceptions to the rule. Why? Because another injunction of Islam comes into clash with one injunction and there the principle of lesser evil is adopted. This is a very scientific religion Islam is and in the Holy Quran the principle of lesser evil has been mentioned very clearly.
Now here, what was the lesser evil? To permit clapping to the ladies for a different purpose than it was used previously by other religions, or to allow them to speak out in their feminine voice, while there would be many among the worshipers whose spiritual education is not up to the mark, and who have not been able to control their emotions correctly and harness them. When once they hear during the prayer a feminine voice, they might get excited in different directions, their fancy might take flight in unwanted regions. So this is what was discouraged. And out of the two, Islam decided that this was the lesser evil. Permission of clapping for this limited purpose was a better thing than to permit this danger to occur that ladies voice is heard so often and men’s fancy takes wrong flights. Of course it is not a generalized affair but there are diseased people in every society and Islam does not want that to happen. So clapping is an indiscriminate thing.
Nobody can find out which lady clapped and moreover during the worship that feminine voice Islam thought would perhaps create problems. That is what I think is the answer to this. Yes please. There are many things, injunctions, whose philosophy has not been discussed. So I can offer a guess there, if another person can come out with a better guess, he would be welcome. It’s not a sort of opinion which cannot be changed, which is a final verdict. So I make it clear to you, on those things where the philosophy of an injunction has not been told manifestly, there one can guess what may be the philosophy. If it appeals to the nature, it should be accepted. If it does not appeal to the nature, even if I tell you, you should not accept it but to go on thinking on these lines and if you think of a better suggestion you let me know.
