acts of service and feats of heroism could never have come from those noble women had they been over-rigorous, convinced—like certain young women today—that the face and hands are part of the ʿawrah (the parts that must be covered). To my mind this is self-evident, for the Prophet ﷺ had nurtured them upon the easy, gentle ḥanīfiyyah (pure monotheism).

This, then, is what we expect from our scholarly brothers and from every caller to Islam: that they personify the Almighty’s words, “And thus We have made you a middle nation,” and His words, “You are the best community ever brought forth for mankind,” while taking care not to fall into the excessiveness that the Prophet ﷺ forbade when he said, “Beware of extremism in religion; those before you were destroyed only because of their extremism in religion.”1

He also said, “Do not impose harshness upon yourselves; those before you perished only because they imposed harshness upon themselves, and you will still find their remnants in hermitages and monasteries.”2

Let me remind you—and reminders benefit the believers—that this aim can be realized only by casting off sectarian bigotry, by studying the authentic Sunnah and prophetic sīrah in word, deed, and tacit approval, and by paying close attention to the way of the early generations, about whom—and about anyone who follows them with excellence—the Lord of all worlds has said: “The foremost, the first of the Emigrants and the Helpers, and those who followed them with excellence—Allah is pleased with them and they are pleased with Him, and He has prepared for them gardens beneath which rivers flow…"