whereas the very root of the word in Arabic means “to draw near.” This is how it appears in the lexicons and how the eminent al-Rāghib al-Aṣfahānī explains it in his Mufradāt, where he writes: “One says: dānaytu bayna al-amrayn— I brought one of the two things closer to the other.” He then cites the verse in question. It is decisive that Ibn ʿAbbās, the foremost interpreter of the Qur’an, explained it in the same way, saying: “She brings the jilbāb near to her face without fastening it around it,” that is, without covering the face. I shall soon document the chain of transmission, and I will show that whatever they cite in contradiction to it is not soundly traced back to him.

Second: They have defined the jilbāb as a garment that covers the face—an interpretation that likewise has no basis in the language. It even contradicts the scholars’ explanation that it is the outer garment a woman throws over her khimār, and none of them said “over her face.” Shaykh al-Tuwayjirī himself reports this very interpretation from Ibn Masʿūd and other early authorities, and it is the view I cited in this book, as will appear on p. 83.

Third: They have all insisted that the khimār is a covering for both the head and the face, adding “the face” on their own so they can use the verse, “and let them draw their khimārs over their bosoms,” as proof—when in fact the verse refutes them. In Arabic usage the khimār is solely a head-covering, and that is what is meant whenever the term appears without qualification in the Sunnah, such as in the reports about wiping over the khimār and in his ﷺ statement: “Allah does not accept the prayer of a menstruating woman except with a khimār.” (1)