have been overlooked—for “your Lord is never forgetful” (Maryam 64). Likewise, had Allah wished, He would have revealed to the Prophet ﷺ an order for the Khath‘amite woman to cover her face, for that was the very moment when clarification was required, as noted earlier. Instead, the Prophet ﷺ chose, in that tremendous gathering, to teach people that blocking the means here is not achieved by forbidding what Allah has permitted—namely, a woman’s choice to uncover her face—but by applying the principle: “…tell the believing men to lower their gaze,” which he did by turning al-Faḍl’s eyes away from the woman.

In my view, there is no difference between these imitators who oblige women to veil their faces—allegedly to block the means—and someone who would claim that men, too, must cover their faces (as do the masked riders in certain regions) so that women are not tempted by looking at them, likewise as a means of prevention. One demand is exactly like the other; whoever differentiates between them is inconsistent and biased toward men over women. Both sexes are equally commanded to lower their gaze; whoever adds a new ruling for one side without proof from Allah and His Messenger has exceeded the limits and acted unjustly—“and Allah does not love the wrongdoers” (Āl ʿImrān 57).

A line of verse occurs to me, as though spoken by a learned woman:
“Another has sinned, yet I alone must suffer among you—
As though I were the forefinger the penitent keeps biting.”

It is perhaps needless to say that the bulk of this discussion concerns those conformists who, on this issue, have departed from their own imams—imams who, together with the Book and the Sunnah, support our position—while the followers of taqlīd deem it obligatory to imitate them. For those statements, in the eyes of the imitators, carry the weight that the Book and Sunnah hold for the mujtahid. Just as the latter may follow nothing but… ⦗140⦘