—by attributing this very proviso to the Imams themselves! The result, for certain folk whose only stock of “learning” is chopping and piling wood, was the notion that there is no disagreement at all between the Imams and their opponents.

Any true jurist, however, can see plainly that this condition is certainly baseless, for it amounts to correcting the Lord of all worlds. Temptation involving women did not arise only later, prompting us to fashion a brand-new ruling unknown in earlier times; it was present during the era of revelation itself. Does not the episode of al-Faḍl ibn ʿAbbās becoming enamoured with the Khathʿamī woman and repeatedly gazing at her remain fresh in the readers’ minds?

It is well known that when Allah commanded both men and women to lower their gaze, and instructed women to observe modest covering in the presence of men, He did so to block the means to sin and to avert temptation. Yet He did not command them to conceal their faces and hands before men. The Prophet—peace and blessings be upon him—confirmed this in the incident just cited by not ordering the woman to veil her face. True indeed are the words of Allah: “Your Lord is never forgetful” (Q 19:64).

In reality, that condition was mentioned by the scholars—among them the author of Al-Fiqh ʿalā al-Madhāhib al-Arbaʿah, p. 12—only with regard to a man looking at a woman’s face. They said: it is permissible provided there is no fear of temptation, and that is correct. The blind imitators, however, twisted the matter so that they all but concluded a woman is therefore obliged to cover her face. There is no such entailment. They themselves know that the same proviso rightly applies to women: they too may not look at men’s faces unless temptation is absent. Do they then also infer that men must veil their faces from women in order to ward off temptation—just as certain tribes, known as “the veiled ones,” used to do?