to discern the wisdom involved and to search out the rationale behind Allah’s rulings. Doing so brings three benefits: it increases his inner composure; it showcases the loftiness of the Islamic Sharia, which links rulings to their underlying causes; and it enables him to apply analogy (qiyās) whenever the effective cause found in a text-based ruling is also present in another matter for which no explicit text exists. Knowledge of the divine wisdom thus yields these three advantages.

We may now answer our brother’s question: it is soundly established from the Prophet ﷺ that wearing gold is forbidden for males but permitted for females. The reason is that gold is the highest form of adornment and embellishment. A man, however, is not meant for such display—he is not someone whose perfection depends on something external; rather, his completeness lies within himself through his manliness. He has no need to beautify himself for someone else, unlike the woman, who is by nature deficient and therefore needs to perfect her beauty. She requires the finest ornaments so that affection and harmony may grow between her and her husband. For this reason it has been made lawful for a woman to