Authenticity Of Ahadith About Pardah
I mean this one: عائشہ رضى اللہ تعالى عنہا كہا كرتى تھيں کہ جب يہ آيت نازل ہوئى : *”اور اپنے گریبانوں پر اپنی چادریں ڈالے رہیں اور اپنی آرائش(زیب و زینت) کو کسی کے سامنے ظاہر نہ کریں”* _سورہ نور :31_ تو ان عورتوں نے اپنى نيچے باندھنے والى چادروں كو كناروں سے دو حصوں ميں پھاڑ ليا *اور اس سے اپنے سروں اور چہروں كو ڈھانپ ليا “*. This is how they translate it into Urdu. I think the English translations must be pretty similar. Also, there’s a tradition that mentions that Omar (R.A) forbade a slave woman from covering her head. Is it authentic? Because if it is , it would mean that headcover is not compulsory because the verses in Surah Nur don’t differentiate between free and slave women.
وعليكم السلام First of all, there is no verse which asks women to wear an “outer covering” as a part of Allah’s directives except the verse in Surah al-Ahzab and that was for a special circumstance which you are aware of. The verses in Surah al-Nur ask women not to show their ornaments in front of men and, for that purpose, to cover their جيوب (between neck and chest) so as to conceal their ornaments (necklaces etc.). This specific directive (to cover the ornaments of the جيب) has been explained to be only for young women in the verse you are talking about. Here is how Ghamidi Sahab explains it: https://www.javedahmedghamidi.org/#!/quran?chapter=24&paragraph=27&type=Ghamidi#fn_102 So, the elderly can take off their خمر from their جيوب. The verb اختمرن means to don a خمار. It is like saying, “he wore a hat.” That doesn’t mean he wore something to cover his head but that he wore what can be called a hat. So, اختمرن means “they (women) put on خمر (plural of خمار)” There were a lot of clothes like خمر of different sizes. For example, رداء، مقنع، ملحفة and جلباب. Regarding the authenticity of the Hadith, I don’t know. Ahadith are not mutawatir, by definition they are اخبار آحاد. I know of only one طريق and that is in Sunan Abi Dawood and Allama Albani has deemed it Sahih. If you know any other طريق, please let me know. 😄 Please feel free to probe further until you are satisfied.
السلام عليكم Let me cross question you to find out where the confusion lies. Q1) Is the perspicuous order of the Quran not enough? Are we saying that the Quran does not give you the complete picture when it takes on a topic in such detail? Q2) Let’s assume that the immigrant women did cover their heads too (which they used to do anyways). How would the actions of these women add to the injunctions of God? Now let me try to address your concerns. Let’s assume you are wearing a sweater over your shirt whose sleeves you have rolled up. Now the sleeves of both your shirt and your sweater are short. You are wearing a wrist watch and the sleeves are not long enough to cover your wrist watch. I as the host, seeing that the men have the sleeves of their sweaters rolled up, ask all men at the event to bring their sleeves down to cover their wrist watches because wrist watches are not to be displayed in the group photo. Now you, seeing that your sleeves are not long enough to cover your wrist watch, take off your sweater and wear another one whose sleeves are long enough. Does that suddenly mean that I as the host asked you to wear a sweater? Or did I just ask you to cover your wrist watch and the decision to wear a sweater was yours? So, you see. The Quran asked the women to cover their bosoms with the خمار. Some of them, seeing that theirs were not long enough or adequate enough, just made خمر out of other clothes. Notice how the report only mentions the immigrant women and not the women of the helpers. So, not everyone did what the report mentions. Also, the خمار is an unstitched cloth of certain length which women used to to cover their heads. Like the دو پٹا, it probably doesn’t have to be worn a certain way to be called a خمار. Regarding the report about prayer, I have tried to answer it in the other forum. I hope my responses help. Be sure to let me know if they don’t. 😅 May be I can whip up something else.