What is the ruling on a woman wearing the niqab?

The questioner : Honorable Shaykh, questions about the niqab for women have increased greatly. Some women expose their eyes, and some expose their forehead, and in that there is fitnah (trial, discord or temptation). What is the ruling on that? And is there any advice for the women? May Allah reward you with good.

The Shaykh : We do not issue a fatwa permitting the niqab. Because it is a means to great evil. If we allowed women to wear the niqab, today they would be wearing it, and tomorrow they would be exposing themselves, because it remains. She exposes only her eye. And the opening in the khimar (head covering) is the size of the black of the eye. The second week it is the size of the whole eye, in the third with the eyebrow and cheek, in the fourth with the nose and forehead, and in the fifth the whole face. Because we know that Shaytan leads a person into sins from the easy to what is above it. For this reason, the scholars (may Allah have mercy on them) said that sins are the messenger of kufr (disbelief); the sinner lowers them step by step until he reaches the limit. We ask Allah to accept our repentance and yours. So we do not issue a fatwa permitting the niqab, but rather forbidding it. And the women in our country used to observe the hijab (the covering prescribed for women) indicated by the texts, covering the face without wearing the niqab, and their affairs were going well. No woman ever complained about this hijab. But when there was interaction with people from...
...some who hold that the hijab does not require covering the face, some women went to wearing the niqab. And this niqab is a means to exposing the whole face. Perhaps there is a religious woman who says, "I will not wear a niqab more than the permitted niqab." We say: if such a woman is found, she is one out of how many? Out of a thousand? And the rare case has no ruling. So the ruling remains general in our view, which is that the woman does not wear the niqab, and she remains with the hijab indicated by the Book and the Sunnah, and she does not display her adornment to anyone. By this, there will be covering, and there will be modesty, and there will be decency and chastity, and a person will not fear for his mahram (a relative one may not marry) from the fasiq (open sinner) who follows women. The time is up. What time is it now? And all praise is due to Allah, Lord of the worlds.