Al-Sindī seized on that point and then claimed that al-Ḥāfiẓ treated the two reports as authoritative. This maneuver is identical to what he did in point (Fourth), and the same rebuttal applies.

Second: he alleges that al-Mizzī considers Nabhān reliable. This fabrication is of the same kind, and the answer has already been given above.

Third: he attributes to al-Mizzī the statement, “It was transmitted through other routes.”

This is sheer falsehood—or a malicious act of concealment—for what al-Mizzī actually wrote was: “through other routes from al-Zuhrī.” I would have been inclined to excuse him by saying that the words “from al-Zuhrī” slipped from his pen inadvertently, were it not that he omitted them a second time on the very same page. Moreover, reproducing the full sentence serves him no purpose; on the contrary, it is evidence against him, for it plainly shows that Nabhān alone narrates the ḥadīth. Let any rational person reflect on what passion—or ignorance—can do to its bearer and into what deep abyss it can cast him. We ask Allah for safety.

Fourth: he ignores the fact that this narration contradicts the ḥadīth recorded by Muslim from Fāṭimah bint Qays, as the scholars have noted; even clearer is the report transmitted by al-Ṭabarānī in al-Kabīr (24/377) with an authentic chain from her, in which she said:

“The Messenger of Allah ﷺ instructed me to stay with Ibn Umm Maktūm, for he is blind and will not see me when I remove my head-covering.”

Thus we have five weak aḥādīth that many writers circulate to prohibit a woman from unveiling her face and hands. They differ only in how many of them they choose to cite.

⦗72⦘