the beautiful woman of Khathʿam, his repeated glances at her while he was in the state of pilgrimage, and how the Prophet ﷺ contented himself with turning al-Faḍl’s face away from her, without telling the woman to let a veil fall over her face. This was precisely the moment—so they claim—when temptation was most acute and the avenues to it should have been blocked, yet the Prophet ﷺ did nothing of the sort. His action, then, refutes their contention that a woman is obliged to cover her face, for the scholars are unanimous that it is impermissible to postpone clarifying a ruling when the need for it has arisen.

One of them nevertheless tried to wriggle out of this clear proof and ill-advisedly said: “Perhaps the Prophet ﷺ ordered her afterwards”—that is, to cover her face.

I reply, following Ibn ʿUmar—or another of the early authorities—: “Put that ‘perhaps’ up there with that star!” Such conjecture would paralyze the Sunnah itself, whose very substance in this case is the Prophet’s tacit approval. Indeed, whatever the Prophet ﷺ left unremarked yet approved could always be undermined by anyone who came along and said, “Perhaps he later forbade it.”

Consider, for instance, the hadith of the man who entered iḥrām for ʿumrah wearing his cloak after having perfumed himself. The Prophet ﷺ ordered him to remove the cloak and wash off the scent; the report is in the two Ṣaḥīḥs. Scholars—including the Hanbalis—took this as proof that no expiation is due, because, as Ibn Qudāmah states in al-Mughnī (3/262), “the Prophet ﷺ did not command the man to pay any penalty.”

Will our interlocutor now say of that narration as well, “Perhaps the Prophet ﷺ ordered him afterwards”? Or is he simply using two different yardsticks and two different scales? Allah is the one whose help is sought. ⦗136⦘