The Command of Hijab

Here Allah tells His Messenger to command the believing women -- especially his wives and daughters, because of their position of honor -- to draw their Jilbabs over their bodies, so that they will be distinct in their appearance from the women of the Jahiliyyah and from slave women. The Jilbab is a Rida', worn over the Khimar. This was the view of Ibn Mas`ud, `Ubaydah, Qatadah, Al-Hasan Al-Basri, Sa`id bin Jubayr, Ibrahim An-Nakha`i, `Ata' Al-Khurasani and others. It is like the Izar used today. Al-Jawhari said: "The Jilbab is the outer wrapper. `Ali bin Abi Talhah reported that Ibn `Abbas said that Allah commanded the believing women, when they went out of their houses for some need, to cover their faces from above their heads with the Jilbab, leaving only one eye showing. Muhammad bin Sirin said, "I asked `Ubaydah As-Salmani about the Ayah:

يُدْنِينَ عَلَيْهِنَّ مِن جَلَـبِيبِهِنَّ

Commentary

The previous verses have maintained that causing pain to any Muslim, man or woman, is forbidden and is a major sin, and in particular, inflicting pain on the Holy Prophet ﷺ is an act of infidelity, liable to Allah's curse. Now, there were two kinds of pain caused by the hypocrites to all Muslims and to the Holy Prophet ﷺ . Preventive measures against these have been provided in the verses cited above. As a corollary, stated there are a few additional injunctions in a certain congruity to be unfolded later on. One of these two kinds of pain caused was at the hands of vagabonds from among the general run of hypocrites who used to molest bondwomen from Muslim homes when they came out to take care of family chores. Then on occasions, they would mistreat free women under the impression that they were bondwomen because of which pain was caused to Muslims at large and to the Holy Prophet ﷺ .