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[quote]The issue of head covering was non-existent in the prophetic age as well as later during the Golden Age of Islam. The head cover was almost universal in those ages and so the issue was non-existent or perhaps too anachronistic and uninteresting for any luminaryâ€™s attention.

But, when change occurred and the head cover remained no more universal during the last century, there was no celebrated Ghazzali or Ibn Taymmiah to comment. But had these giants dealt with the issue we would still have debated. :)

For poor is the pupil who does not surpass his master.

Even the issue of the beard, which had risen earlier than the head veil has become more pressing with the advent of the modern technology that is called a â€˜Mach III â€“ the best a man can getâ€™. :)

Let us consider the beard before the head veil.

Shez writes on the beard:

Abu â€˜Umamah reports from the Prophet: â€˜Clip your moustaches and lengthen your beards and do not follow these People of the Bookâ€™. (Musnad Ahmad Ibn Hambal, vol. 5 p. 264)

â€¦the directive of growing a beard occurs in tandem with the directive of clipping the moustache. This paired mention adds a certain stress to the whole directive. It has NOT been said: â€˜Grow a beardâ€™, in which case the directive would mean â€¦  Muslims must grow beards

http://www.renaissance.com.pk/mayq205.htm

This indicates that command related to the beard must be EXPLICIT

One may extend the same logic to the head veil

However, then some questions arise?

1) When a man is NOT required to cover his head while praying, is a woman required to cover her's while praying? And if so why? And will it have any bearing on the issue at hand.

2) Another question that arises is that why did the Divine use two words, head veil and cloak, i.e., KHIMR and THAUB respectively? Is it poetic license or is there something more to it?

The reason for this question is that most probably both young and old women wore the head veil in 7th century Arabia, then why use different words?

3) Has the Divine used different words for some other term and if so, does it have a bearing on his directives related to those?

So far I lean toward the head veil NOT being part of the law despite the above questions.

The reason is that other directives as to physical cleanliness were strongly promoted in the imperative and hence EXPLICIT.

But beard was not done so, and hence beard is not part of the Divine law.

Likewise for head veil, by analogical deduction

Edited by - junaidj on March 19 2004  14:21:17[/quote]

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