It is common knowledge that in the Prophet’s time there were no chemical detergents or petroleum-based solvents. For that reason they relied on water to remove impurity. Yet whenever the impurity itself disappears, the place becomes pure—no matter what agent is used—because impurity is a foul, tangible substance; once it is gone, the area reverts to its original purity by whatever means it was removed.

Therefore urine and feces may be cleansed with stones: a person may wipe with a stone three times until the area is clean, and that suffices.

Similarly, a woman’s trailing hem—if it brushes against something impure and then passes over clean ground—becomes purified thereby. In the Prophet’s era it was customary for women, when they went out, to wear a flowing garment that covered the feet and trailed behind by a span or two, up to an arm’s length, but never more than that. Such was the practice in the Prophet’s age, the age of pure women in a pure time—so what, then, of our own day?

Regrettably, Muslims today no longer look to the predecessors of this ummah; instead they look to those who came later, the successors about whom Allah said: “Then there came after them generations who neglected the prayer and followed their desires, and so they will meet with ruin” (Maryam 19:59).

We have begun to take not only those successors but even our enemies—the Jews, the Christians, the Magians, the idol-worshippers, and the like—as models, imitating them in matters such as dress. You now see women, whenever the fashion magazine they call “Burda” arrives, hastening to leaf through it; then a woman will go out and do exactly what they have done.

I say: guardians must prevent these magazines from being circulated,