Full Lecture Transcript (Cleaned)
Khutbah of proposal and hijab — 0:00
uh the next question that we have is that actually in a recent lecture i gave i mentioned in passing that a lady may show her hair to a man who is interested in proposing to her and i just passed i just mentioned this in passing and then moved on and i received no exaggeration at least a dozen comments and emails and tweets and whatnot like people were very confused and they wanted to verify did i actually say this or not so i am asking this question on their behalf multiple people uh and so the question is what may uh a lady show uh to a man who is interested in proposing to her who comes to propose to her and obviously this is before the nikah and in the presence of ramaharam's is that may she uncover her hair and show her without her hijab or mushy wear the hijab that is the question the majority position when it comes to this issue is that the one who proposes the man who comes to propose for a lady's hand or the man who comes interested in a lady's hand does not occupy any different status than any other non-relative any other non-maharam and hence three of the four schools the the shafiris the malikis and the hanafis they say that under no circumstance i think there's one position in the maliki that says or the shaffer is but generally speaking the the default of these three methods is that that lady a lady who is interested in a man and a man interested a lady that before the nikkei nothing changes and therefore she is not allowed to take off her hijab uh in that we're talking about obviously there is no privacy we're talking about this clearly they're not alone they are sitting let's say in her parents house and he comes to proposal he comes to talk to her in a public place and of course um by unanimous consensus really we should say or uh the the uh all of the schools say that uh the the uh the husband to be and the wife to be they should you know uh visit or see one another in the presence of their mahrams uh this is something that is encouraged by all the scholars that obviously this is something that is now uh the other opinion or the other uh cultural habit of not knowing your wife at all you don't even know what she looks like until the marriage night that is something that is gone nobody does that anymore but there were cultural limitations back in the day that actually it was not uncommon for a person to get married without even knowing how the spouse looks the sunnah came and encouraged that the spouses should see one another and make sure that there is compatibility because this is a lifelong commitment so there's no major controversy over this the issue comes that may she take her hijab off or not so as i said the default position of the shafiris and the malikis and the hanafis is that no she should not and she may not she is not allowed to do that in the hambury school the mashup position or the well-known position uh that imam ahmed explicitly also said is that actually she may take off her hijab if she chooses to do so and they have a position that advocates that she may appear in front of her maharam's there must be a maharan present her father her brother her other relatives are there she may appear in front of the man interested in her the way that she appears in front of her own mahram so how she dresses in front of her father in front of her brother in other words she's dressing basically normal clothes but maybe her hair is uncovered you know maybe you know it's not a full jilbab is not on her she is wearing let's say a loose blouse a loose skirt or a loose shirt and a loose pant how she would appear in front of her own mahrams basically said it is allowed for her allowed not required not necessary she cannot be forced it's her choice her prerogative if she wants to do so that she may appear in front of uh the the fiancee to be in such a manner and they base this on a number of evidences uh primarily two the first of them is the hadith in abu dhabi and others narrated by abdullah radhial that he said that uh the prophet sallallahu alaihi was seldom said if one of you proposes for a lady then if he wishes to or sorry if one of you proposes to a lady if he is able to he should look at her in a manner that will allow her to then want to give the proposal if he can see that which will make him want to propose for her then let him do that so jabber that said proposed to a lady from the ansar and i would look at her basically now this sounds very very scary and very freaky too when you translate it but it translates that i would hide and look at her uh without the knowledge of her basically uh until finally i saw her and i wanted to propose that i proposed and ended up marrying her now what this means is that he would not i would have been a spy inside her house what it means is that he would wait outside the house and when she would come out and she would not know that there's a man you know that's basically interested in her so he would look at her and obviously in our times this is raising alarm bells and spying and whatnot so the point is that uh the the hanabila or the hambali scholars have taken this incident and they have said that it is allowed to look at her the way that she would be so for example if she would to just come out of her house and let's say i don't know feed the chickens whatever it might be or hang the laundry for example right so she's not you know dressed in the full jilbab or whatnot and jabba the la juan was basically looking at her the way that she might appear in front of her uh parents or whatnot and there's also an incident of um in which he proposed to the daughter of ali and uh he basically also uh you know looked at more than just basically the jib and what not and so they interpret this so he looked at that which might not normally be apparent when she goes outside and that which might be apparent only in front of the mahrams right so this is an incident that is then taken that the fact that um did this or he knew that this is happening and so they know that this is something that is allowed for them to do so based on these and other evidences the the the mashup or the well-known position of the hambali school is that when the man comes to propose or he's interested in proposing that the lady may choose to opt it's again not mandatory she doesn't have to do this she may appear in front of him the way that she appears in front of her father and her brother however she dresses normally so that is a decent covering most of her body is covered it's loose you know clothing obviously because in our sharia it is not allowed for a lady to appear in front of her maharam's in suggestive clothing in extremely tight or skimpy garments this is not allowed so she has to dress with some dignity in front of her father and brothers and so that same level she has to display if she wants to in front of somebody uh in order to basically uh you know uh if he wants to marry and and she wants him to marry her so she can then dress up and do this now in fact uh some of my own teachers actually uh they they said and i remember this clearly went back and forth in this issue some of our students you know they wanted to confirm they heard this from our sheikh that he literally said that she is allowed to even beautify herself the way that uh it would be acceptable and normal in other words not in an uh extremely vulgar manner but you know just the basic makeup and whatnot if she wished to do so she may do so in other words if she wishes to uh you know uh show herself to be who she is regularly speaking with a little bit of makeup and whatnot and you know her hair and whatnot this is allowed for her if uh if she wants to do so now again this is the minority opinion it is the hambali or one of the positions of the hamadi school the other three generally do not allow this nonetheless the texts of the hadith and also the incidents are a number of incidents in the lives of the sahaba that indicate that this was understood and known to them and so that's why i said it in passing without going into all these details but now that uh people ask so then this is the position that i hold it is the uh the fat were given in most humbly schools to this day by scholars of this day as well and there are evidences in the quran in this regard nonetheless if somebody chooses to follow the majority position that is their prerogative and allah knows best foreign me