And Ibn Masʿūd used to explain the Almighty’s words, “except what ordinarily appears of it,” as referring to the adornment of a woman’s clothing, as we have already mentioned, not to the adornment of her face as some have claimed. Thus, in the end Ibn ʿAbbās returned to the opinion of Ibn Masʿūd, as Shaykh al-Islām Ibn Taymiyyah noted.

In the early days it was permissible for a woman to show her face, but once the verse prescribing the ḥijāb was revealed, that ruling was abrogated and she was required to cover her face.

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Cutting a woman’s hair

Question: Is it permissible for a woman to trim some of the hair at the front of her head for adornment, or not?

Answer: A woman should preserve the hair on her head, for it is her beauty and her adornment. She should not cut it, because that involves imitating the disbelieving women and the promiscuous women, and it is also a waste of the hair that is her beauty. The Prophet ﷺ instructed a woman, when she has exited from the rites of Ḥajj or ʿUmrah, to cut only the length of a fingertip from her hair, which indicates that she ought to guard and protect this hair.

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Shaking hands with a non-mahram woman

Question: What is the ruling on a man shaking hands with a woman who is not his mahram, and what is the ruling on women shaking hands in general?

Answer: It is not permissible for a man to shake hands with a woman who is not one of his maḥram relatives, for that constitutes a temptation for both the man and the woman. Therefore, a man is not allowed to shake hands with a woman who is outside his circle of maḥrams, because