—and for this reason al-Shawkani, in his commentary on this hadith (2/97), wrote:

“The hadith shows that a woman must cover her body with a garment that does not outline it; this is a condition for a valid covering of the ‘awrah. He only ordered another garment beneath it because the qubāṭī robes are thin cloths that do not conceal the skin from the onlooker but rather describe it.”

As you can see, he understood the report to refer to light, transparent fabrics that do not hide the color of the skin; on that basis the hadith would belong under the previous condition. In my view, however, that reading is misplaced. Instead, the report concerns thick garments that, because of their softness, reveal the body’s size even though they are neither thin nor transparent. The text makes this clear for two reasons:

1. It explicitly states that the qubṭiyyah was thick—that is, heavy and coarse. How could such a cloth fail to conceal the skin from an observer’s gaze? It seems al-Shawkani—may Allah have mercy on him—overlooked this qualifier, “thick,” and therefore explained the qubṭiyyah according to its usual, lighter form.

2. The Prophet ﷺ plainly identified the danger he feared from that qubṭiyyah, saying, “I am afraid it may describe the size of her bones.” This is explicit proof that the concern is outlining the body’s shape, not its color.

If you ask, “Given what you have said, and given that the qubṭiyyah was thick, what benefit is there in the slip (ghilālah)?” I reply: its benefit is to ward off that very danger, for a garment may still outline the body even