Mukhtasar Kashf al-Ghumma an Adillat al-Hijab fi al-Kitab wa al-Sunna
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- Mukhtasar Kashf al-Ghumma an Adillat al-Hijab fi al-Kitab wa al-Sunna
Mukhtasar Kashf al-Ghumma 'an Adillat al-Hijab fi al-Kitab wa al-Sunna (Abridgment of Removing the Grief Regarding the Evidences of the Veil in the Book and the Sunnah) is an Islamic legal treatise by the contemporary author Amal Muhammad Abdullah Al Khumaysa, dedicated to examining the textual and jurisprudential evidences concerning the obligation of the facial veil for women and critiquing the views of Muhammad Nasir al-Din al-Albani on the issue.
Background and Composition
The work is an abridgment prepared by Al Khumaysa of her expansive treatise Kashf al-Ghumma 'an Adillat al-Hijab fi al-Kitab wa al-Sunna bi-Munaqashat Ra'y al-Shaykh al-Albani wa-Jala' al-Haqq lil-Umma. The subject originally developed out of her earlier book, Waqafat Musarahah lil-Mar'ah al-Saliha (Moments of Candor for the Righteous Woman), where her investigation into women's dress and adornment in front of other women and mahrams led her to examine the disagreements among later scholars regarding veiling in front of non-mahram men.
The author condensed the original text while retaining its core issues, analyses, and critical discussions concerning al-Albani's arguments. The work was reviewed by Saad ibn Turki al-Khathlan, a member of the Council of Senior Scholars and chairman of the board of the Saudi Jurisprudential Society, and was registered at the King Fahd National Library in 1442 AH / 2020 CE.
Content and Legal Arguments
The book primarily engages with the arguments presented by al-Albani in his works Jilbab al-Mar'ah al-Muslimah (The Muslim Woman's Jilbab) and al-Radd al-Mufhim (The Decisive Rebuttal), which held that covering the face is recommended rather than obligatory. Al Khumaysa contends that although al-Albani relied on authentic narrations, these texts were applied out of context due to an overlooked historical factor: the distinction in Islamic law between free individuals and enslaved persons.
According to her analysis:
- The obligation of covering the face was specifically mandated for free women in the presence of free non-mahram men, whereas enslaved women were not required to cover their faces, and free women were not commanded to veil before enslaved men.
- Early jurisprudential debates centered on whether an enslaved man could look at the face and hands of a free woman, and whether a man lowering his gaze or a woman covering her face was the primary requirement when fitna was feared.
- The cessation of slavery in modern times obscured these contexts for later scholars, leading to confusion and misplaced extrapolation.
The work also examines textual positions across the four Sunni legal schools and analyzes specific rulings, such as women's dress during the state of ihram, arguing that the prohibition against tightly fastening face-veils (the niqab or burqa) during pilgrimage does not permit leaving the face uncovered, as free women remained instructed to drape their garments over their faces from above their heads in the presence of non-mahram men. The book concludes by affirming that covering the face before non-mahram men is obligatory (fard and wajib) for free Muslim women based on Quranic texts—including يَاأَيُّهَا النَّبِيُّ قُلْ لِأَزْوَاجِكَ وَبَنَاتِكَ وَنِسَاءِ الْمُؤْمِنِينَ يُدْنِينَ عَلَيْهِنَّ مِنْ جَلَابِيبِهِنَّ (O Prophet, tell your wives and your daughters and the women of the believers to draw their cloaks close over themselves)—as well as prophetic hadiths and scholarly consensus.
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