13 – Thawban (may Allah be pleased with him) narrated:
The daughter of Hubayrah came to the Messenger of Allah ﷺ wearing large gold rings on her hand. The Prophet ﷺ began lightly striking her hand with a small stick he was carrying and said, “Would you be pleased if Allah were to place rings of fire on your hand?” – and so the report continues.
These narrations demonstrate that it is permissible for a woman to uncover her face and hands. They reinforce the previously cited hadith of ʿA’ishah and make clear that this is what is intended by His words, “except what ordinarily appears thereof” (Q 24:31), as noted on p. 51. Furthermore, the verse that follows – “and let them draw their head-covers over their bosoms” (Q 24:31) – conveys the same ruling found in some of the earlier reports: there is no obligation upon a woman to cover her face. For khumur, the plural of khimar, refers to the garment that covers the head,¹ and juyub is the plural of
“It was narrated by Ahmad and al-Tabarani, and the transmitters in Ahmad’s chain are trustworthy.”
I add: indeed, its transmitters are trustworthy, as he said; they are all narrators accepted by the two Sahihs, except for ʿAbd Allah b. Muhammad—whom I take to be ʿAbd Allah b. ʿAqil al-Madani—and his hadiths are classed as hasan (fair).
(13) I further state that its chain is sound, much to the displeasure of the obstinate modernists who follow their passions. Ibn Hazm, al-Hakim, al-Dhahabi, al-Mundhiri, and al-ʿIraqi all declared it authentic, as I demonstrated in Adab al-Zifaf, pp. 17–30 (Amman ed.). I later found Ibn al-Qattan in al-Wahm wa-l-Iham 1/278/2 likewise leaning toward its authentication.
1. The same definition is found in Ibn al-Athir’s al-Nihaya, Ibn Kathir’s Tafsir, al-Shawkani’s Fath al-Qadir, and other authorities on Arabic language and literature. Ibn Hajar states in Fath 8/490: “The khimar for a woman is like the turban for a man.” We know of no disagreement on this point, and it is not contradicted by what appears in the biography of Qadi Abu ʿAli =