nor may a woman who believes in Allah and the Last Day enter it except because of an ailment.” If this report from the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) is authentic, it refers to women entering it uncovered, as was their customary practice. As for his statement that neither a man nor a woman may see a woman’s body, this is incorrect. Her body must be concealed from men, not from women. The evidence is what we have already cited from the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him), together with the report that ʿUmar ibn al-Khattāb wrote to Abū ʿUbayda ibn al-Jarrāh: “I have learned that some Muslim women enter bathhouses with polytheist women. Forbid this in the strongest terms, for no woman who believes in Allah and the Last Day may allow anyone outside her faith to see her private parts.”

Further evidence is the scholars’ agreement that women wash deceased women just as men wash deceased men. Ibn Abī Zayd’s statement that a woman must not enter the bathhouse except because of an ailment was based on the report narrated from the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) by ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿAmr ibn al-ʿĀs: “The lands of the non-Arabs will be conquered for you, and you will find there buildings called bathhouses. Men must not enter them without waist-wrappers, and keep women from them except those who are ill or recovering from childbirth.” Allah knows best, but he commanded that women be prevented from entering them, except when ill or recovering from childbirth, only because allowing them to do so could lead them to enter without waist-wrappers—not because they would incur sin by entering while wearing waist-wrappers. Thus, entering bathhouses is disliked for women, not forbidden to them.

The reports on this matter from the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) and from ʿĀʾisha are to be understood accordingly. Among them is her report “that the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) forbade entering bathhouses, then permitted men to enter them wearing waist-wrappers.” On the evidence of this hadith, the permission granted to women in this regard is thus understood solely as a precaution against their entering without waist-wrappers.

Another such report states: “It was narrated from her that some women from Syria came to her, and she said, ‘Perhaps you are from the district whose women enter bathhouses.’ The narrator said: They replied, ‘Yes.’ She said, ‘I heard the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) say, “Any woman who removes her clothing outside her own home has torn down what stands between her and Allah—or, the veil between her and Allah.”’” For she has only torn down her veil if she removes her clothing somewhere she cannot rule out the possibility that