“If the face and the hands were part of the ʿawrah, covering them would not have been forbidden; moreover, everyday needs require a woman to uncover her face for buying and selling, and her hands for taking and giving.”

This is the very ruling he affirmed, without hesitation, in his book al-ʿUmda (66).

What does Shaykh al-Tuwajiri say about this explicit statement from that eminent Hanbali imam? Does he also deem him a proponent of unveiling, a man who flings the doors of wanton display wide open, and so on?

Does the Shaykh not fear the warning conveyed in the Prophet’s words—peace and blessings be upon him:

(Authentic) “A servant may utter a single word, not considering its implication, and because of it he plunges into the Fire farther than the distance between East and West.”

The two Shaykhs (al-Bukhari and Muslim) narrated it from Abu Hurayrah—may Allah be pleased with him—and it is also recorded in al-Ṣaḥīḥah (2/540).

Had the Shaykh—may Allah guide him—presented his view to the people and defended it with sound textual proofs, we would have welcomed that, whether he was right or wrong. But for him to brandish his “sword” against everyone who differs with him, and even to disparage the “glass vessels”—the women whom the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, commanded us to treat gently—simply because they disagree with him and have embraced the sound position of his own madhhab, which he has abandoned under an overwhelming fixation, is a moral catastrophe and yet another sectarian lapse. For Imam Ahmad—may Allah have mercy on him—said:

It is not befitting for the jurist to force people to adopt his madhhab. (1)