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Is the prayer of one who prays with a barrier between him and a sleeping woman that does not cover her entire body permissible?

1 min readAlso available in العربية

If a woman prays with a sleeping woman beside her, or a man prays with a woman beside him whom it is permissible to look at, there is no harm in that. This is based on the hadith of Aisha (may Allah be pleased with her) that the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) used to pray while she was sleeping and her feet were in the direction of his Qiblah. However, it is disliked if it distracts the worshipper from their prayer, or if the sleeping person is talking; based on the hadith of Ibn Abbas (may Allah be pleased with them both): "The Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) forbade praying towards a sleeping person or a talker." It is therefore appropriate to avoid this to avoid this disliked action.

Summarized from the full answer at Ftawy · reviewed Sep 2, 2026

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