unless you are sure that your request for entry cannot be heard, in which case there is no harm in asking more than three times. In our day, knocking on the door takes the place of the former verbal request; yet anyone who has knocked three times has no right to enter, nor even to walk away, until he is certain that he has been heard and that those inside are aware of him. If a man enters a shop or a house in which his own goods are stored, he is not at fault for omitting to seek permission, though it is good manners for him to say, “In the name of Allah; peace be upon us and upon the righteous servants of Allah.”

It is unlawful for a Muslim to look at another person’s private parts except in a case of necessity, and equally unlawful to expose his own nakedness to anyone except his wife or his female slave, and then only when there is a genuine need. No one should forgo wearing trousers unless he cannot obtain them; if he is in a state of iḥrām, his waist-wrapper suffices. A man must not sit wrapped in a single garment that leaves his loins uncovered, nor may he be alone with a woman who is not a maḥram (a close relative with whom marriage is permanently unlawful). A woman is not to travel except with her husband or a male maḥram; the sole exception is her journey for the obligatory ḥajj—if she has no male maḥram, she may travel with a company of women.

A man should never stand completely naked, by night or by day. When he bathes, let him conceal himself as much as possible, for Allah is more deserving of one’s modesty than anyone else. No one may enter a public bathhouse without a waist-wrapper, save small children.