The Limits of Fitnah in Revealing the Face
Machine translationRead the Arabic original
Question:
He says: Honorable Shaykh, may Allah grant you success. Those who permit a woman to reveal her face say that this is prohibited if there is fitnah (trial, discord or temptation) or if fitnah results from it. What are the limits of this fitnah?
Answer:
This is what we demand of them. They say that it is permissible to reveal the face as long as no fitnah is feared. We demand of them: what is the limit in which fitnah is safe, and the limit in which it is not safe? There is no limit to fitnah; the expected fitnah is expected. The woman is a fitnah and an 'awrah (the part of the body that must be covered), no matter who she is, even if she is old, even if she is ugly and not beautiful; she is a place of fitnah. So if they admit that hijab (the covering prescribed for women) is for the removal of fitnah, and that fitnah is not safe, then hijab becomes obligatory. Yes.
He says: Honorable Shaykh, may Allah grant you success. Those who permit a woman to reveal her face say that this is prohibited if there is fitnah (trial, discord or temptation) or if fitnah results from it. What are the limits of this fitnah?
Answer:
This is what we demand of them. They say that it is permissible to reveal the face as long as no fitnah is feared. We demand of them: what is the limit in which fitnah is safe, and the limit in which it is not safe? There is no limit to fitnah; the expected fitnah is expected. The woman is a fitnah and an 'awrah (the part of the body that must be covered), no matter who she is, even if she is old, even if she is ugly and not beautiful; she is a place of fitnah. So if they admit that hijab (the covering prescribed for women) is for the removal of fitnah, and that fitnah is not safe, then hijab becomes obligatory. Yes.
Source
75-اللقاء الأسبوعي مع الشيخ صالح الفوزان - 28 — archive.org (1:09:24)
The Arabic text is a machine transcription of the audio recording.