Hence it is not permissible for her to practice talathum (covering the lower part of the face) with it, as she herself said a moment ago. Her letting the cloth hang down to cover her face—as mentioned in some versions—is simply an action on her part that we acknowledge, yet it does not establish an obligation, contrary to what the opponents allege.

I say: By this clarification the interpretation advanced by that Shaykh is invalid, for it contradicts the express statements of the leading jurists who allow a woman to uncover her face both in prayer and outside it, even in the presence of men. Some of them justified the permissibility on the basis of a woman’s need to buy and sell, to take and give, and even to share a meal. The Shaykh, however, confines all these opinions to the prayer itself and not to situations where men are present—a reading that is not merely misinterpretation but outright nullification. We belong to Allah and to Him we shall return.

What further proves the Shaykh’s ignorance of fiqh and of the jurists’ views—or at the very least his deliberate disregard, bias against me, and arrogant rejection of the truth—is that among the sources he cites in his book (p. 109) is Ibn Mufliḥ’s “al-Ādāb al-Sharʿiyyah.” Ibn Mufliḥ was one of the foremost Ḥanbalī scholars of the eighth century AH and a disciple of Ibn Taymiyyah, who used to say to him, “You are not merely the son of Mufliḥ; you are Mufliḥ himself.” Ibn al-Qayyim said about him, “Under the entire vault of heaven there is no one more knowledgeable of Imam Aḥmad’s school than Ibn Mufliḥ.” (1)

Having understood this, note that this same Ibn Mufliḥ says in the aforementioned work, al-Ādāb al-Sharʿiyyah (1 / 316):