I say: This chain of transmission is authentic according to Muslim’s criterion. Al-Manāwī states in Fayḍ al-Qadīr:
“Al-Ṭabarānī also related it from him with the same wording, adding: ‘and she is nearest to Allah when she is deep inside her house.’ Al-Haythamī said: Its transmitters are reliable. Ibn Ḥibbān likewise narrated it from him.”
I add: With that very addition, al-Khaṭīb reproduced it in his Tārīkh through the route of al-Muʿtamir ibn Sulaymān, who said: “I heard my father relate it from Qatādah, from Abū al-Aḥwaṣ,” omitting Mawraq from the chain.
As for the fact that a woman’s face and hands are not ʿawrah, this is inferred from the previous verse, “except what is apparent of it,” which Ibn ʿAbbās and others understood to mean the face and the hands. The Sunnah likewise confirms this:
- Ibn ʿAbbās said: “A woman used to pray behind the Messenger of Allah ﷺ; she was exceptionally beautiful—indeed, one of the most beautiful people [Ibn ʿAbbās added: By Allah, I have never seen her equal]. Some of the men would move up to the first row so they would not see her, while others would remain in the back row; and when the Prophet bowed, they would glance at her from beneath their armpits [spreading their arms apart]. Thereupon Allah, Exalted is He, revealed: ‘We certainly know those of you who advance and We certainly know those who stay behind’ (al-Ḥijr 15:24).”
Ibn Jarīr narrated the statement of Ibn ʿAbbās, as mentioned earlier. A similar version was transmitted by al-Ṭaḥāwī in Sharḥ al-Maʿānī and by al-Bayhaqī in his Sunan through Saʿīd ibn Jubayr on his authority.
Al-Bayhaqī also related it through ʿIkrimah from him, and then remarked: “We have likewise narrated something similar from Anas ibn Mālik.”