What admits of no doubt—given the sheer number of hadiths on the matter—is that women are to go out for the two ʿEid prayers. For the moment the single report of Umm ʿAṭiyah that we cited earlier is enough, for it proves not only permissibility but obligation, since the Prophet ﷺ expressly commanded it, and the default rule concerning a command is that it is binding. This is further confirmed by what Ibn Abī Shaybah narrates in al-Muṣannaf, 2/184, on the authority of Abū Bakr al-Ṣiddīq: “It is a duty upon every woman who owns a nīṭāq—a wrap resembling an izār that is fastened with a belt—to go out for the two ʿEids,” and its chain of transmission is sound.

So will those who claim to champion the Rightly Guided Caliphs adopt this ruling, now that the very first of them has affirmed it with an authenticated chain? We do not think they will. Let them prove us wrong—that is what we would prefer—otherwise people will see for themselves the real motive behind their professed defense.

The verdict of obligation is the view favored by al-Ṣanʿānī in Subul al-Salām, by al-Shawkānī, and by Ṣiddīq Ḥasan Khān. It is also the apparent position of Ibn Ḥazm, and Ibn Taymiyyah seems to incline toward it in his Ikhtiyārāt. Allah knows best.

al-Ūlā 1, pp. 9–10, may be summarized as follows: we say: