knowledge of this noble science—Imam Ahmad, as previously noted, being a foremost example, followed by the Hanbali authorities who came after him, not to mention scholars of other schools. Now it is time to fulfill what I promised:

Imam Abū Muḥammad Ibn Qudāmah al-Maqdisī writes in al-Mughnī (7 / 465–466); Abū al-Faraj Ibn Qudāmah al-Maqdisī in al-Sharḥ al-Kabīr (7 / 352–353); Shaykh Manṣūr ibn Yūnus al-Bahūtī in his valuable Sharḥ Muntahā al-Irādāt (3 / 6)(1); and the author of al-Muntahā, Shaykh Muḥammad Taqī al-Dīn, son of Shaykh al-Islām Aḥmad Shihāb al-Dīn ibn Najjār al-Futūḥī—all of them leading Hanbali scholars. Shaykh Manṣūr—what is placed between parentheses is from Shaykh Taqī al-Dīn, and the Maqdisī scholars say something similar—states:

(And) it is permissible (for a woman to look at a man provided she does not see what is ʿawrah, i.e., his private parts), because the Prophet ﷺ said to Fāṭimah bint Qays: “Spend your waiting period in the house of Ibn Umm Maktūm, for he is a blind man; you may lay aside your garments there and he will not see you.” ʿĀʾishah said: “The Messenger of Allah ﷺ would screen me with his cloak while I watched the Abyssinians playing in the mosque.” Both reports are agreed upon.

Moreover, if women were forbidden to look at men, men would have to veil themselves just as women do, so that the women would not look at them.

As for the ḥadīth of Nabahān from Umm Salamah in which she said, “I asked…,” the narration is cited as mentioned earlier.