their beds.”

He also forbade a man from lying in direct bodily contact with another man under a single covering, and a woman from doing so with another woman, even though those people were unfamiliar with sodomy or sexual acts between women. This was simply part of fully safeguarding Allah’s limits, as Allah commanded in His Book. It is also reported that ‘Umar learned that a number of boys would gather around a certain man, and he forbade this.

More striking still, he banished a man of whom women spoke amorously: Nasr ibn Hajjāj. When he heard a woman expressing her infatuation with him and her desire for him, he regarded this as a source of temptation. He therefore cut the man’s hair, hoping that this would remove the cause of temptation. But he then found him to have the most handsome cheeks of anyone, so he sent him to Basra. Later, Nasr sent word requesting permission to return to his homeland, explaining that he had committed no sin. ‘Umar refused, saying, “Not while I am alive.”

The reason is that, just as a woman is commanded to cover herself, refrain from displaying her beauty, and avoid other things that cause temptation either through her or for her, so too, if a man has become a temptation to women, he is commanded to distance himself from the cause of temptation—either by changing his appearance or by leaving the place where he occasions that temptation. In this way, he safeguards his faith, and the women safeguard theirs.