She is the very woman whom the Prophet ﷺ refined with his celebrated guidance: “…nothing may be seen of her except her face and her hands.” Ibn Saʿd reports (8/253) with a sound chain—classified as authentic—that Asmāʾ bint Abī Bakr once took up a dagger during the governorship of Saʿīd ibn al-ʿĀṣ because thieves had established themselves in Madinah; she kept the weapon beneath her pillow.

All this is a direct outcome of the Prophet’s ﷺ nurturing of those women upon the gentle, upright religion—free of excess and free of negligence. Thus they fulfilled Allah’s words: “You are the best community ever raised for humankind: you enjoin what is right, forbid what is wrong, and believe in Allah” (Āl ʿImrān 110); and: “And so We have made you a balanced nation, so that you may be witnesses over humanity and the Messenger a witness over you” (al-Baqarah 143).

Following this noble prophetic method, shaykhs and preachers must undertake the moral training of people, men and women alike. They can do so only if they acquaint themselves with the authentic Sunnah and the sound prophetic sīrah, which comprise his ﷺ statements, actions, tacit approvals, and the verified practice of our righteous predecessors. A scholar’s understanding will be sound only when all of this is brought together, aided by the words of the mujtahid imams and the critical scholars; otherwise he will stray from the truth and from the path of the believers.

How eloquent, then, are the words of Shaykh al-Islam Ibn Taymiyyah—may Allah have mercy on him—when he drew attention to this point, a precious remark I have not found elsewhere, in his earlier statement (p. 48):

“The reports transmitted from the early generations and from the scholars require verification of their wording and their meaning, just as is required for what is transmitted from Allah and His Messenger.”

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