بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم
In these times of confusion, many blind followers of those who promote lewdness have erroneously made the claim that righteous Muslim female scholars of the past taught men face-to-face. Such outlandish claims would only come from a people for whom the filth of immodesty, intermingling of the sexes, lewdness, indecency and vulgarity are the norms, a people who were deprived from the purity of a decent, chaste and modest Islamic society, which has unfortunately become non-existent in most parts of the Muslim world let alone any where else.
After the categorical Quranic principle of hijab, “And when you ask for something, ask them from behind a partition, that is purer for your hearts and their hearts,”[1] any such face-to-face setting would have caused the teachers and students to lose any and all credibility. But through the grace of Allah Ta’ala our pious predecessors lived in a pure atmosphere where morals like modesty, chastity, hayaa and ‘effah were in abundance and second nature. Read and ponder over the following passage from Imam Zahabi رحمه الله in this regard.
He relates in his Siyar ‘Alaam Nubalaa[2] that, “(The great muhaddith,) Yahya ibn Sa’eed said that he heard (the Imam of hadith) Hisham ibn ‘Urwah saying, (the historian) ‘Ibn Ishaq narrated hadith from my wife Fatimah bint Al-Mundhir رحمهم الله. By Allah he never saw her.’ I -Imam Zahabi- say Hisham is truthful in his oath. He did not see her. The man (Ibn Ishaq) did not claim that he saw her rather he said that she related hadiths to him. We [ourselves] have heard (hadiths) from several women but did not see them. Similarly, many Al-Tabi’een narrated (ahadith) from Aishah رضي الله عنها but none of them ever even saw her form.”
This is a testimony by the leader of historians that in the golden ages of Islam (Zahabi died 1374 C.E.), when men learnt from pious female scholars, they did so behind a screen and the sisters did not expose themselves to all and sundry nor did the pious male students desired to see them.
Fast forward to the twenty-first century and this Quranic injunction of purity and modesty is being trampled upon, ironically – and sadly, by the very women who claim to teach tazkiyah (purification of the heart). Let alone concealing their forms by teaching from behind a screen, these sisters don’t even cover their faces. Rather they apply makeup, don attractive scarves, colourful abayahs and present themselves on the internet and other public platforms where they are exposed to the eyes of every male, righteous and immodest, Muslim and non-Muslim. This is a far cry from the example of Aishah رضي الله عنها they falsely claim to champion.
In the era of the #MeToo movement, where the non-Muslims are taking such measures of precaution which are reminiscent of the laws of hijab, to protect themselves from sexual harassment and being falsely accused of it, our gullible and naïve Muslim sisters and brothers are advocating the opposite path towards removing all boundaries which Allah and His Messenger ﷺ laid down to ensure a pure and chaste society. Instead of learning from the mistakes of the western society, in which women have been sexually exploited in the workplace, media, pornography, modelling industry, entertainment industry, schools, universities and other institutions, Muslims are abandoning the safe space of hijab which Islam gave them, to thread the path of utter destruction. May Allah guide and protect us.
[1] Surah Ahzaab: 53
[2] Vol.7 Pg.38
