# Do non-Muslim women in a Muslim country have to cover up?

*Must non-Muslim women cover? Hasan al-Basri, Imam Ahmad, and a medieval traveller's Makkah*

- URL: https://muftiabulayth.org/r/housirokbvu/s/19/
- Date: 2020-04-19 · Kind: discussion · Transcript tier: machine · Recording: Shaykh Kashif Khan | Policing thought, Pornography & Pandora's box | MindTrap with Mufti #15 (1:40:19–1:44:16)
- Status: a view quoted in order to be discussed, not a position held
- Watch from the start of the segment: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hOusirOkBVU&t=6019s
- Recording page: https://muftiabulayth.org/r/housirokbvu/

**Topics:** Hijab and niqab; Interaction between men and women; Guest conversations

**Summary (not a quotation; machine-made, unchecked):** The guest says early scholars held that non-Muslim women cannot be forced to cover and that the prohibition on looking was applied only to believing women.

## Longer summary

The guest asks whether a non-Muslim woman in a Muslim society is obliged to cover, and says scholars including Ibrahim [?] and Sufyan al-Thawri held that non-Muslim women cannot be forced to cover. He says Hasan al-Basri, asked about seeing the bellies and hair of non-Muslim women, said there was no problem, in the context of seeing them in person. As a side note Mufti Abu Layth describes a travelogue he read the previous day, by Ibn Jubayr [?], describing the people of Makkah and a town just outside it where women wore skin-tight leather garments some seven centuries ago, which he finds a fascinating cultural insight against the idea that such things are only modern. The guest adds that some earlier scholars said the prohibition of looking applies only to believing women, that Imam Ahmad refrained from applying it to non-believing women, and that they took evidence from the Quran.

## Sources and names cited

- Shaykh Kashif Khan (guest)
- Hasan al-Basri
- Sufyan al-Thawri [?]
- Imam Ahmad ibn Hanbal
- Ibn Jubayr [?] (travel writer)
- 'awrah

## Transcript (machine tier, 1:40:19–1:44:16)

[1:40:06] principles you're following it's not my papa it's not something I have my little on it's already in the big book it's already in the same book so and in one thing more it's connected with this matter and if a non Muslim woman in Islamic society is she obliged to cover herself is she obliged to the way of personal but really brahim and hi and i think it was also the opinion sophie an authority that not i've always taken a liking just found him amazing

[1:40:44] he had a good sense of humor you cannot enforce the non-muslim woman to cover themselves up so therefore they were asked from it was asked from imam hasan anniversary that we see the bellies of the non-muslim women as they're not covered up watches were they sorry what coaches was that like Iranian Persian I know what's fascinating on a very side

[1:41:20] note is that I was just reading just yesterday you see about the description given by in normal job wheel in his of market stops here where he describes the women of Makkah and the men he's describing mark as a whole he says well all the people are a bit corrupt and he talks about them and he says you know they do this any speaks about their customs and its really fascinating as a cultural kind of insight and one thing he goes on to say wealthy he describes women's features and he says that the women of Makkah seem to have a large

[1:42:00] purposely he says purposely here they seem to have they a large variation Mississippi a lot behind and they like that but he says that they will there's a certain town just outside of Macau with the women dress that they make their clothes just out of leather and it's skin tight and he says and when you go there and this is in the seventh century history so he says that they he says all the women they seem to wear these two garments which are they've got different designs but they're all made of leather and he says any wraps right round the skin and I just thought wow

[1:42:40] that's really fascinating from a cultural insight you know just to get well because people think all this is very modern but yet 700 years ago in mother just outside Makkah this is how they were kind of you know being and doing imagine if today in a Muslim populated country Muslim majority country can see enormous the movement can she walk in the normal skirt or whatever dresses they wear normally they can't become and they can't and Hasan Basri when he was asked looking at the belly and the hairs of the non-muslim

[1:43:19] women so he said is fine there is no problem in that because and that context about seeing them like face to face physically not virtually so and and some of the scholars of the past they said that the whole mass of looking at the woman it applies only to believing women not to the woman reading when writing about something any mom Hemet was of the same view that he was of the view that I am humble yeah he has stained from

[1:43:58] applying the same prohibition of believing of leaving women to the non believing woman so technically if even if they are naked right even if you're naked walking naked like to like it's the whole MA there's not applied to them it only applies to the believing woman and they took evidences from the Quran as well to be honest re the the call of the pianist old I think in the freedom negative and and then under the Ayatollah so people struggling today or if I say struggling I don't know it's struggling is the right word but let's say I was gonna say young people but people of any

## Cite

Mufti Abu Layth Archive, segment hOusirOkBVU/s/19. https://muftiabulayth.org/r/housirokbvu/s/19/

Not a fatwa: these answers were given to specific people at specific times. Ask a qualified scholar about your own situation.