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Is it obligatory for a woman to feminize the traditional supplications (adhkar) that were وردت in the masculine form when supplicating for herself, such as changing "shakaran" to "shakarah" and "Your servant, son of Your servant" to "Your maidservant, daughter of Your servant"?

1 min readAlso available in العربية

A woman is not required to feminize pronouns when supplicating with reported supplications (Du'a Ma'thur) or any other Du'a. There is no statement from the scholars (Ahl al-Ilm) that mandates this. Sheikh al-Islam Ibn Taymiyyah holds the view that it is preferable and better for a woman to say: "O Allah, I am Your female servant (amatuk), the daughter of Your male servant (abdik), the son of Your female servant (amatik)" instead of "O Allah, I am Your male servant (abdik) and the son of Your male servant (abdik)." However, her saying "Your male servant (abdik), the son of Your male servant (abdik)" has a linguistic justification in Arabic.

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

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