At other times they argue that the incident occurred before the revelation of the verse of ḥijāb (1) and that she was still young. Al-Tuwayjiri reproduces this contention with admiration, remarking (p. 154), “There is nothing more to be said.”

This, however, is no more than obstinacy and a denial of established facts, for he knows full well that the ḥāfiẓ Ibn Ḥajar has already refuted those claims, proving that the event took place many years after ʿĀʾishah—may Allah be pleased with her—had reached puberty. Consult, as you must, Fatḥ al-Bārī (1/550 and 443–445).

The same applies to their forced interpretation of the ḥadith of Fāṭimah bint Qays—explained earlier (pp. 46–47)—for it clearly shows that she was permitted to look at non-maḥram guests and that they looked at her, i.e., at her face. For that reason al-Qurṭubī, in his Tafsīr, treated it as a specific exception to the general verse, “And tell the believing women to lower their gaze” (al-Nūr 24:31). On the basis of this ḥadith and the report of ʿĀʾishah, the leading Ḥanbalī scholars of Jerusalem and elsewhere—as noted above (p. 66)—argued for the permissibility of a woman’s looking at whatever of a man is not his ʿawrah. This, it seems, is unanimously accepted provided that desire is absent, for I have found the ḥāfiẓ Ibn al-Qaṭṭān stating in his work (fol. 64/1):

“I know of no disagreement over a woman’s being allowed to look at a man’s face so long as she does not seek pleasure and does not fear temptation, just as a man may look at the faces of boys and youths when…"