—whose use may serve either good or ill—“We test you with evil and with good as a trial” (Q 21:35).

Through such efforts a generation of believing women can arise who, when they hear Allah Most High say, “O Prophet, tell your wives, your daughters, and the women of the believers to draw their outer garments closely around themselves” (Q 33:59), hasten to obey His command just as the women of the Anṣār did when His words were revealed: “And let them draw their head-covers over their bosoms” (Q 24:31). They at once covered themselves with whatever wrappers were at hand, as related elsewhere in this book (page 78).

Women of that calibre could indeed be ordered to cover the face were it truly obligatory. As for imposing such a command on the great majority of women in our own Syria, in Egypt, and in other lands where immodesty and licentious display have spread—or are beginning to spread—in their most repugnant forms, a plague that has regrettably reached even the land of monotheism that we had hoped would remain a secure fortress against such excess, it is pointless to oblige this category of women to veil their faces in something Allah has not required while they are not yet ready to cover their necks, chests, and more besides. No one possessing even a breath of understanding of the jurisprudence of the Qur’an and the Sunnah would think otherwise.

It is therefore wise for the scholars of our age to be content if women comply with Allah’s order to cover the whole body—apart from the face and hands. Should any among them also choose to cover these, that is something we deem preferable and encourage. But to declare it obligatory is, in my view, an unwarranted rigour in religion and a pretentious severity that Allah does not love—especially toward women, about whom the Messenger of Allah ﷺ enjoined us to treat kindly in many hadiths, including his words