Your Question: Is it okay for a muslim woman to go to gym or a fitness center?

Are Muslim women allowed to go to gyms?

In the name of Allah, We praise Him, seek His help and ask for His forgiveness. Whoever Allah guides none can misguide, and whoever He allows to fall astray, none can guide them aright. We bear witness that there is no one (no idol, no person, no grave, no prophet, no imam, nodai, nobody!) worthy of worship but Allah Alone, and we bear witness that Muhammad (saws) is His slave-servant and the seal of His Messengers.

There is absolutely no harm for a believing woman to go to a gym or a fitness center,provided she conforms to the following principles:

1. The gym is open to women only and no male can see her.

2. She is appropriately dressed in clothing which hides her 'satr'.

But for a believing woman to go to a gym where men have access to it, or where they can see her; then it would not be permissible; unless of course she is completely covered from head to toe in the full Islamic dress.

Islam has not placed a restriction of places where a believing woman can go ... the conditions it has placed is that when in the presence of non-mehram men, she covers herself in the Islamic manner as ordained by Allah Subhanah in the Quran, and not intermingle freely with the non-mehram males.

Allah says in the Holy Quran Chapter 33 Surah Ahzaab verse 59:O Prophet, enjoin your wives and daughters, and the believing women, that they should cast their outer garments over their persons. It is expected that they will thus be recognized, and not molested. Allah is Oft-Forgiving, Most Merciful.

Allah says in the Holy Quran Chapter 24 Surah Nur verse 31: (O Prophet) enjoin the believing woman to restrain their gaze and guard their modesty, and not to display their adornment except that which is displayed of itself, and to draw their veils over their bosoms, and not to display their adornments except before their husbands, their fathers, .......and also forbid them to stamp their feet on the ground lest their hidden ornaments should be displayed.