What are the limits of lowering the gaze, and is it obligatory for me to look at any man, especially if circumstances require me to deal with a man?
Machine translationRead the Arabic original
The questioner : This questioner is a student in the Faculty of Medicine at Cairo University in Egypt. She asks: What are the limits of lowering the gaze, and is it obligatory for me to look at any man, especially if circumstances require me to deal with a man? I hope you will provide us with information, O honorable Shaykh?
The Shaykh : Lowering the gaze means shortening the gaze.
The questioner : Yes.
The Shaykh : So that it does not extend to what is not permissible to look at. There is no blame on a woman if she sees a man, because the women in the time of the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) and his family would go out to the mosque and go out to the markets and look at the men, of course, because they were wearing the niqab. But if she looks at a man with a look of enjoyment or a look of desire, that is forbidden for her. She must then avert her gaze. As for what is necessitated by dire necessity, dire necessity has another status. Yes.
The Shaykh : Lowering the gaze means shortening the gaze.
The questioner : Yes.
The Shaykh : So that it does not extend to what is not permissible to look at. There is no blame on a woman if she sees a man, because the women in the time of the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) and his family would go out to the mosque and go out to the markets and look at the men, of course, because they were wearing the niqab. But if she looks at a man with a look of enjoyment or a look of desire, that is forbidden for her. She must then avert her gaze. As for what is necessitated by dire necessity, dire necessity has another status. Yes.