Al-Radd al-Mufhim - Nasir al-Din al-Albani - (129)

“…Yet we follow the position of ʿAli and Ibn ʿAbbas—may Allah be pleased with them—for the reports have granted a concession to look at her face and hands… (1) so long as the look is not accompanied by desire. If he knows that, were he to look, he would feel desire, then it is unlawful for him to look at any part of her.”

I say: His mention of “ʿAli” is most probably a slip of the pen, or an error introduced by the copyist or the typesetter. Among the reports to which al-Sarakhsi refers we have not found anything traceable to ʿAli; they come from six Companions whose names I have cited earlier (pp. 103–104), among them ʿAʾishah and Ibn ʿUmar. I suspect, therefore, that the word was corrupted from “ʿAʾishah.” The wording of her hadith, as related by al-Bayhaqi (2/226), is:

(Weak) “(What is apparent thereof) means the face and the two hands.”

Its chain is weak, yet it has another route with a similar wording in Ibn Abi Shaybah and others, and it is supported by the statement of Ibn ʿUmar in the form:

(Sound) “The visible adornment is the face and the two hands.”

Ibn Abi Shaybah transmitted it (4/284) with a sound chain from him. He also narrated the same from Ibn ʿAbbas, and its chain is likewise sound.

(1) I remark: al-Sarakhsi cites here several reports in which men are said to have seen a woman’s face and hands, but they are odd and, as he records them, are not found in the recognized hadith collections. For that reason I did not consider it permissible to quote them, even though they would support our view. In any case, we have already supplied authentic reports that spare us the need to rely on such weak material—unlike our opponents, who are content to invoke every stray narration that comes their way. [129]

" ولكنا نأخذ بقول علي وابن عباس رضي الله عن هم فقد جاءت الأخبار في الرخصة بالنظر إلى وجهها وكفيها. . . (١) إذا لم يكن النظر عن شهوة فإن كان يعلم أنه إن نظر اشتهى لم يحل له النظر إلى شيء منها " قلت: وقوله: " علي " لعله سبق قلم أو خطأ من الناسخ أو الطابع فإنا لم نجد في الأخبار التي أشار إليها السرخسي شيئا عن علي وهي عن ستة من الصحابة وقد ذكرت أسماءهم فيما تقدم (ص ١٠٣ - ١٠٤) ومنهم عائشة وابن عمر فأخشى أن يكون محرفا من " عائشة " ولفظ حديثها عند البيهقي (٢ / ٢٢٦) : (ضعيف) " (ما ظهر منها) : الوجه والكفان " وإسناده ضعيف لكن له طريق أخرى بنحوه عند ابن أبي شيبة وغيره ويشهد له أثر ابن عمر بلفظ: (صحيح) " الزينة الظاهرة: الوجه والكفان " أخرجه ابن أبي شيبة (٤ / ٢٨٤) بسند صحيح عنه ثم روى مثله عن ابن عباس وسنده صحيح أيضا

(١) قلت: ذكر السرخسي هنا أخبارا فيها رؤية الرجال لوجه المرأة وكفيها ولكنها غريبة غير مروية في كتب السنة كما ذكرها ولذلك لم أستجز ذكرها وإن كانت حجة لنا ولأننا قد ذكرنا في كتابنا من الأخبار الصحيحة ما يغنينا عن الاحتجاج بالأخبار الواهية خلافا لمخالفينا الذين جروا على الاحتجاج بكل ما هب ودب من الروايات [١٢٩]