the effeminate men; in another wording, “those men who imitate women.” These are the mukhannathūn referred to in this ḥadīth. He likewise cursed the mutarajilāt among women—that is, women who imitate men. A curse means to be driven away and excluded from Allah’s mercy.

Accordingly, if a man imitates a woman in her clothing—especially when the clothing itself is forbidden for men, such as silk or gold—or in her manner of speech, altering his natural voice until he sounds like a woman, or in her gait, or in any other trait that is peculiar to women, he is cursed on the tongue of the noblest of creation; and we, in turn, curse whomever the Messenger of Allah has cursed. In the same way, a woman who imitates men is cursed: if she begins to speak as a man speaks, wraps a turban as a man does, or fashions her garments to resemble men’s clothing. Included in this is the wearing of trousers, for trousers are specific to men. Women are required to wear concealing garments, whereas trousers, as we all know, outline the woman’s body—her thighs and legs become discernible. For that reason we say it is not permissible for a woman to wear trousers even in the presence of her husband, for the issue is not simply exposure of the private parts; the underlying cause is imitation. When a woman imitates men she is cursed on the tongue of Muhammad ﷺ.

For this reason the author—may Allah have mercy on him—followed the ḥadīth of Ibn ʿAbbās with the ḥadīth of Abū Hurayrah, in which the Prophet ﷺ said: “Two categories of the people of Hell I have not yet seen: a people with whips like the tails of cattle, lashing the people….” The scholars explain that these are the police who strike people without right. They carry whips like the tails of cattle—that is, a long whip with a split end—beating the people unjustly. Beating someone with right, however, is permissible when punishing the aggressor, the adulteress and the adulterer.