First: it is self-evident that a statement prohibiting something cannot stand side by side with another statement permitting its display—exactly as Ibn al-Qattān (may Allah have mercy on him) established in the passage I cited a moment ago (p. 115). This matches perfectly the authentic hadith that openly combines the two rulings. The Alexandrian brother’s failure to grasp this is due to the narrowness of his outlook and the scantiness of his learning; otherwise he would have had to say that those distinguished scholars endorsed what is “inconceivable,” and I do not think he would go so far as to accuse them of that.

With this, the fourth objection also collapses.

The fifth objection: One of our esteemed colleagues has said,

“Even if we concede the soundness of the hadith, it should be understood as having occurred before the revelation of the veil, because the ḥijāb verses supersede the original ruling and therefore take precedence.”(1)

I reply: The proposed interpretation is invalid for two reasons.

First: none of those texts contains an explicit indication that covering the face and hands is obligatory, so it is incorrect to claim that they overturn the original ruling.

Second: the “ḥijāb texts” in question divide into two categories in terms of what they signify:

1. Those that relate to seclusion within the home, where a woman is in a casual, domestic state; this