, O Messenger of Allah?”

He replied: “Lowering the gaze, refraining from causing harm, returning greetings, enjoining what is right and forbidding what is wrong.”

Abū al-Qāsim al-Baghawī narrated from Abū Umāmah, who said: “I heard the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, say: ‘Guarantee me six things, and I will guarantee you Paradise: when any of you speaks, he must not lie; when entrusted with something, he must not betray that trust; and when he makes a promise, he must not break it. Lower your gaze, restrain your hands and guard your chastity.’”

Such looking leads to corruption of the heart. One of the early generations said: “Looking is a poisoned arrow aimed at the heart.” Thus Allah commanded people to guard their chastity, just as He commanded them to lower their gaze, since looking prompts such misconduct.

Al-Tabarānī narrated through ‘Ubayd Allah ibn Yazīd, from al-Qāsim, from Abū Umāmah, who attributed the following to the Prophet:

“You must lower your gaze, guard your chastity and set your faces aright, or your faces will surely be darkened.”

Al-Tabarānī said: Ahmad ibn Zuhayr al-Tustarī narrated to us, saying: We read before Muhammad ibn Hafs ibn ‘Umar, the blind Quran reciter: Yahyā ibn Abī Kathīr narrated to us: Hazīm ibn Sufyān narrated to us, from ‘Abd al-Rahmān ibn Ishāq, from al-Qāsim ibn ‘Abd al-Rahmān, from his father, from Ibn Mas‘ūd, who said:

“The Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, said: ‘Looking is one of Satan’s poisoned arrows. Whoever gives it up out of fear of Allah, Allah will grant him in its place faith whose sweetness he will find in his heart.’”

In the authentic hadith of Abū Hurayrah, the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, said:

“The adultery of the eyes is looking.”

He then related the rest of the hadith. Al-Bukhārī narrated it with the beginning of its chain omitted, and Muslim with a connected chain. They also used to forbid