Allah, Glorified is He, has commanded in His Book that the gaze be lowered. This is of two kinds: averting one’s gaze from nakedness, and averting it from objects of desire. The first includes a man averting his gaze from another person’s nakedness, as the Prophet said:

“A man must not look at another man’s nakedness, nor a woman at another woman’s nakedness.”

A person must also cover his own nakedness, as the Prophet said to Mu‘āwiyah ibn Haydah:

“Keep your nakedness covered, except from your wife or those whom your right hand possesses.”

I asked, “What if one of us is among his people?”

He replied, “If you can keep anyone from seeing it, then let no one see it.”

I asked, “What if one of us is alone?”

He replied, “Allah is more deserving than people of your modesty before Him.”

One may uncover oneself to the extent necessary, as when relieving oneself. Likewise, when a man bathes alone beside something that screens him, he may bathe naked, as Moses and Job did, and as in the accounts of the Prophet’s bathing on the day of the Conquest and his bathing in the hadith of Maymūnah.

As for the second kind of looking—such as looking at the concealed adornment of a woman whom one is not forbidden to marry—it is graver than the first, just as consuming wine is graver than consuming carrion, blood, or pork. The drinker of wine is liable to the prescribed punishment, whereas someone who consumes those other forbidden things without regarding them as lawful is liable to discretionary punishment. This is because people do not crave those forbidden things as they crave wine. Likewise, looking at a man’s nakedness is not desired in the way that looking at