What is the ruling on using a prayer room for meetings, late-night gatherings, and discussions about women's affairs and worldly matters, accompanied by backbiting and reprehensible speech, and a refusal to accept the advice that this prayer room is one of the houses of Allah and gatherings should instead take place in homes?

First, it must be verified whether the prayer hall is a mosque or not. A prayer hall is only considered a mosque if its owners have endowed it as such and given general permission for prayer within it. Only then does it take on the ruling of a mosque. However, if some residents of the building occasionally gather to pray in it, that does not make it a mosque.

If the prayer hall is an endowment, there is no harm in carrying out within it anything that benefits Muslims, such as women gathering to discuss their affairs and current topics. If it is not an endowment, then permissibility is even more certain.

Care must be taken to engage in knowledge, study the Quran, and deliver admonitions in the mosque, as stated in Allah's verse: "In houses which Allah has ordered to be raised and that His name be remembered therein."

Backbiting, raising voices, and idle talk are forbidden in the mosque, as is anything that leads to such things, because backbiting is prohibited, and raising one's voice is forbidden. Mosques must also be protected from foul odors and bad speech.