2688 — “A woman is an ʿawrah (something that must be concealed). When she goes out, Satan makes her alluring; and she is never nearer to Allah than when she is in the innermost part of her home.”

Al-Tabarani recorded it in al-Awsat, under the entry for Ibrahim ibn Hashim al-Baghawi (no. 3036—my photographic copy): Ibrahim narrated to us; ʿAsim ibn al-Nadr informed us; al-Muʿtamir ibn Sulayman informed us, from his father, from Qatadah, from Salim ibn ʿAbd Allah, from his father, from the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, who said it.

I say: This is an authentic chain of transmission. All its narrators are trustworthy and are narrators of Muslim, apart from his shaykh al-Baghawi, whom al-Daraqutni declared trustworthy. He died in 297 AH, as stated in Tarikh Baghdad by al-Khatib al-Baghdadi. The hadith also has a strong corroborating report from Ibn Masʿud, cited in Irwaʾ al-Ghalil (1/303/273).

Al-Mundhiri said in al-Targhib: “Al-Tabarani narrated it in al-Awsat, and its narrators are those of the Sahih.” I say: Except for the shaykh al-Baghawi, as we have mentioned. This is among the hadiths that al-Hafiz al-Haythami missed: he included it neither in Majmaʿ al-Bahrayn nor in Majmaʿ al-Zawaʾid, as I pointed out in my annotation on the hadith in Sahih al-Targhib wa al-Tarhib (1/136). The first volume has been printed and will soon be in circulation, Allah willing. It was subsequently published, and the second volume is now being printed, as was previously noted (p. 384).

A point of benefit: Some who take an unduly strict view regarding women like to cite this hadith as proof that a woman’s face is an ʿawrah before unrelated men. Yet it provides absolutely no proof of that, for its meaning is as Ibn al-Athir stated in al-Nihayah: