“a man who prays in a single garment with none of it covering his shoulders,” and they maintained that the divine command, “Put on your adornment at every place of worship” (7:31), makes such covering obligatory.

The majority of jurists agree that the clothing which fulfils a woman’s minimum requirement in ṣalāh is a long chemise and a head-covering. This is based on the report that Umm Salamah asked the Messenger of Allah—peace and blessings be upon him—“In what should a woman pray?” He replied, “In a head-covering and a flowing chemise that conceals the tops of her feet.” ʿĀ’ishah also related that the Prophet—peace be upon him—said, “Allah does not accept the prayer of an adult woman unless she wears a head-covering.” The same ruling is transmitted from ʿĀ’ishah, Maymūnah, and Umm Salamah, all of whom issued legal opinions that if a woman prays bare-headed she must repeat the prayer, both within the prescribed time and afterwards—except for Mālik, who held that she repeats only within the time.

The majority further hold that a female servant may perform the prayer with her head and feet uncovered, whereas al-Ḥasan al-Baṣrī made the head-covering obligatory for her, and ʿAṭāʾ deemed it recommended.

The root of this disagreement is whether an address directed to a single class—in this case, women—includes both freewomen and slave-women, or applies only to the free.

They also differed about a man praying while wearing silk. Some said the prayer is valid, others said it is invalid, and yet others recommended that he repeat it within the time.

The cause of their divergence is this: Does avoiding something that is absolutely prohibited constitute a condition for the validity of the prayer? Those who held it to be a condition declared such a prayer invalid; those who considered the worshipper merely sinful for the garment, while the prayer itself remains sound, denied that it is a condition in the way that ritual purity, for example, is a condition.

This controversy resembles the issue of praying in a usurped dwelling, about which the disagreement is famous.

Chapter Five
The Requirement of Purity for Prayer

As for cleansing oneself of physical impurity, anyone who regards it as an emphatic Sunnah will hardly claim that it is a prerequisite for the validity of ṣalāh. Conversely, one who considers it obligatory without qualification may or may not go on to say that it is a condition for prayer. ʿAbd al-Wahhāb recorded two opinions within the school: the first, that removing impurity is a condition of a valid prayer when one is able and aware; the second, that it is not a condition at all.

The view he attributed—that it is a condition—cannot be reconciled with the well-known doctrine that washing away filth is an emphatic Sunnah; it fits only with the opinion that such removal is obligatory whenever one remembers and is able. This matter was dealt with earlier in the Book of Purification, where the causes of disagreement were set out. What concerns us here is whether anything that is an absolute obligation whenever it occurs during prayer must thereby become an obligation of the prayer itself, or not.