A report from Jābir has also been narrated with wording similar to what we cited from Ibn Maslamah, as will be seen below.

The ruling we have inferred from this hadith is also held by most scholars. In Fatḥ al-Bārī (9/157), it states:

“The majority hold that it is permissible for him to look at her, if he wishes to do so, without her permission. According to one report from Mālik, her permission is required. Al-Ṭaḥāwī transmitted from some scholars that it is never permissible to look at a woman to whom one has proposed before the marriage contract, because she is then still a non-maḥram woman. The aforementioned hadiths refute them.”

A Benefit:

ʿAbd al-Razzāq recorded in al-Amālī (2/46/1), with an authentic chain of transmission, from Ibn Ṭāwūs, who said:

“I intended to marry a woman, so my father said to me, ‘Go and look at her.’ I went, washed my head, combed my hair, and put on some of my finest clothes. When he saw me in that state, he said, ‘Do not go!’”

I say: He may look at more than her face and hands, in view of the unrestricted wording of the preceding hadiths and the saying of the Messenger of Allah, Allah bless him and grant him peace:

“When one of you proposes to a woman, if he is able to look at what will prompt him to marry her, let him do so.”

99 — “When one of you proposes to a woman, if he is able to look at what will prompt him to marry her, let him do so.”

Abū Dāwūd (2082), al-Ṭaḥāwī, al-Ḥākim, al-Bayhaqī, and Aḥmad (3/334, 360) recorded it from Muḥammad ibn Isḥāq, from Dāwūd ibn Ḥuṣayn, from Wāqid ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Saʿd ibn Muʿādh, from Jābir ibn ʿAbd Allāh, who said: The Messenger of Allah, Allah bless him and grant him peace, said—and he mentioned the hadith. Jābir said:

“I proposed to a young woman, and I would hide myself so that I could see her, until I saw enough of her to prompt me to marry her; so I married her.”

The wording is that of Abū Dāwūd.