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**deandrecooke** · 12-20-2009, 01:21 AM

With some minor differences, there is an agreement in the four madhabs that the awrah of a slave woman is like that of a man, from the navel to the knees. A slave woman can thus be in public and expose her breasts. There are also rules in fiqh for what part of a slave woman you are allowed to look at, and if the awrah outside of prayer is the same as that in prayer. However, if we were living in the time of the khalifa of Umar ibn al-Khattab

, the sahaba would have walked in the streets and passed slave women with no veil on their head, and their breasts exposed. This is the view of the four madhabs.

There are some people today who claim that women not wearing a hijab, but dressing modestly otherwise, contravenes Islamic principles, etc. etc. Or you hear people trying to argue for an Islamic view of modesty without taking a classical distinction between free women and slave women into account. What is the true aim of the hijab in light of the differences between slave and free women? What if a woman today doesn't wish to wear hijab, and argues based on such a precedent, that faith is not connected to modesty?

What do you think?

12-20-2009, 01:21 AM	#1
deandrecooke Join Date Oct 2005 Posts 493 Senior Member	Awrah of Slave Women With some minor differences, there is an agreement in the four madhabs that the awrah of a slave woman is like that of a man, from the navel to the knees. A slave woman can thus be in public and expose her breasts. There are also rules in fiqh for what part of a slave woman you are allowed to look at, and if the awrah outside of prayer is the same as that in prayer. However, if we were living in the time of the khalifa of Umar ibn al-Khattab , the sahaba would have walked in the streets and passed slave women with no veil on their head, and their breasts exposed. This is the view of the four madhabs. There are some people today who claim that women not wearing a hijab, but dressing modestly otherwise, contravenes Islamic principles, etc. etc. Or you hear people trying to argue for an Islamic view of modesty without taking a classical distinction between free women and slave women into account. What is the true aim of the hijab in light of the differences between slave and free women? What if a woman today doesn't wish to wear hijab, and argues based on such a precedent, that faith is not connected to modesty? What do you think?
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