Where Should a Female Place Her Elbows in Prostration?

Answered by Shaykh Yusuf Weltch

Question

Where should a female place her elbows in prostration?

Answer

In the Name of Allah, the Most Merciful and Compassionate

It is a recommended sunna for a woman to lay her forearms flat on the ground during the prostration. This is because this position is more concealing and befitting for the woman. [Ibn ‘Abidin, Radd al-Muhtar]

‘Ali (Allah be pleased with him) is narrated to have said “When a woman prostrates, she should do ‘ihtifaz’ and keep her thighs close together.” [Ibn Abi Shayba]

(Ihtifaz means: The woman will draw herself close together and lean onto one side by resting on the left buttock and entirely contracting herself)

The above entailed that the arms be drawn close to the body and laid flat on the ground.

The Messenger of Allah (Allah bless him and give him peace) passed by two women praying and said, “When you prostrate, then make the parts of your body touch the ground. Surely, the woman, regarding that, is not like the man.” [Abu Dawud, Marasil]

The Prayer of the Woman is Based on Concealment

Imam al-Bayhaqi states, “All the rulings of prayer in which the woman differs from a man are based on the principle of concealment (satr). This means that women are instructed to do all that is most concealing for them.” [Bayhaqi, al-Sunan al-Kubra]

Please refer to the following link for a detailed discussion on this:
How Should a Woman Sit and Prostrate in Prayer?

Hope this helps
Allah knows best

[Shaykh] Yusuf Weltch
Checked and Approved by Shaykh Faraz Rabbani

Shaykh Yusuf Weltch is a teacher of Arabic, Islamic law, and spirituality. After accepting Islam in 2008, he then completed four years at the Darul Uloom seminary in New York where he studied Arabic and the traditional sciences. He then traveled to Tarim, Yemen, where he stayed for three years studying in Dar Al-Mustafa under some of the greatest scholars of our time, including Habib Umar Bin Hafiz, Habib Kadhim al-Saqqaf, and Shaykh Umar al-Khatib. In Tarim, Shaykh Yusuf completed the memorization of the Qur’an and studied beliefs, legal methodology, hadith methodology, Qur’anic exegesis, Islamic history, and a number of texts on spirituality. He joined the SeekersGuidance faculty in the summer of 2019.