This is what I learnt in tafseer. Thought to share with those who are interested
“Modesty is a branch from faith”
What is haya? Haya is modesty-it’s kind of like how you have the red cheeks on whatsapp, or when a bride sees her groom and looks down. Haya is from Allah. We should have this haya in front of Allah that we do not let Him see us doing what He dislikes. The best haya is felt towards Allah because He is All Seeing and All Hearing. It’s when you know that everything is for Allah and nothing is for me. When you alone in your room, you will know that Allah is watching me. When we go out we cover ourselves but what about in our homes?? What type of clothes do you wear when you alone in your room? Did we have haya in front of our rabb?? Your satr is from your chest to your knee included. Even a woman shouldn’t see this. Even when you alone in your room, don’t expose this because Allah can see you. How can you have haya in front of creation and not in front of Allah??? Some people have natural haya. When there’s a class of students and a student knows the answers to all the questions but wouldn’t answer because she’s modest and quiet and wants to keep a low profile. This is internal haya and it’s easy for her but what about external haya?? This is what the shariah requires you to do. Cover your body and do not expose it. In a woman haya is both internal and external. The Quran says “lower your gaze” We may think it’s okay to look at men or mix with men because they “just friends”. It is NOT okay. This is against your haya. We can’t define our own shariah. It was a command that the wives of Nabi(s) sit behind a parda and not expose themselves before the sahaba. The PUREST of women to exist have been given this commandment! Our hearts are so impure and full of darkness and we want to interact with the opposite gender! It’s easy for a man to fall for a woman. We have to make sure our haya is not restricted to physical haya. We have to be cold and to the point if we in a situation where we have to interact with men. We in a society where it’s easy to be “friends”. Some people have internal haya and for them their challenge is to cover their bodies, hair etc. Some people cover their bodies but their challenge is to not be so open on facebook or whatsapp. If you go out and you not dressed properly, how many men are looking at you?? The one man that looks at you gets one sin, but you get the sin of EVERY one of the 50, 60, 70 however many men look at you!!! What is in the quran and hadith about parda? In the Quran, the word hijab comes. Hijab is a head covering which covers your hair and goes all the way down to your chest. Jilbaab is a loose our covering. If it’s something like a huge chaadar or dupatta, it’s fine. If it’s a long loose jacket that doesn’t show your figure, it’s fine. If it’s an abaya, it’s fine. Colors are okay too. It depends on where you are. In some places, it could be better to wear color because you blend in better and you don’t stand out. However, you can’t wear bright neon colors that make you stand out. Apa had a friend who was engaged and she was away from deen until she joined Zaynab Academy. Thereafter she insisted on nikah. She started wearing the abaya and she even wanted to wear the niqab. He was surprised that he married this woman who didn’t even wear hijab and now she wants to wear niqab! One day they were going for dinner so apa told her that let me drop you off. This girl wasn’t one who would dress up or wear a lot of makeup. She said I don’t want to go. A person whose away from deen will only get attracted to deen with love. So apa got her a lilac abaya with a matching scarf and put jewelry and makeup and she looked amazing. Her husband never saw her so dressed up before. When she got into the car her husband checked her out from head to toe and said: Why you looking so nice today. She said: I don’t know Zaynab dressed me up. She looked so nice that her husband didn’t want other men to look at her so he allowed her to wear niqaab. She use to wear niqab in front of friends and family but not in his social circle because he wasn’t comfortable with this. The word niqab doesn’t come in the quran but it comes in the quran that a woman should cover her zeena. What is the most attractive part of our mother or father or best friend? 90% of people would say it’s the face. Even advertising agencies always use the face. The face is your identity. You pray to see some ones face, not their hands or body. So what is the essence of a woman’s beauty? It is her face. The zeena lies in her face. A man’s obsession for a woman’s body is lust. He’ll get over it. But what he falls in love with is the face. The niqab is like a barrier. It speaks for itself. A man will think twice before approaching you. Dua and kindness changes a heart. In today’s day and age, it is waajib to wear the niqab because there is so much of fitnah. What’s the difference between fardh and waajib? Fardh specifically comes in the quran but waajib is not clearly stated in the quran. Secondly, the sawaab of fardh and waajib is the same. Leaving the 3 witr of esha is like leaving a fardh. For someone who denies a fardh eg. They say that there’s no such thing as maghrib, they come out of the fold of islam. But one who denies a waajib doesn’t come out of the fold of islam. Apa started wearing the niqab in year 2 of apa’s gaining ilm. No one in apa’s family was doing niqaab. Apa starting niqab was like planet mars for her. It was a strange concept. Apa’s family would dress very modern. But in apa’s heart apa knew that this is obligatory. So apa would make dua that oh Allah open my heart towards it. Change came drastically from hijab to niqab. Apa knew that she would have to marry a different type of person, change her priorities and her social circle. Apa understood that deen is so beautiful and apa made so much dua that Allah should make the Sunnah so beautiful in apa’s eyes that she hates what is not Sunnah. Everything became so normal. Within a year, niqab came, along with the suhbat of friends and teachers. Apa felt happier now. Now apa was ready to marry someone that followed and dressed according to the Sunnah. You have to make dua for what you want. Our main enemy is ourselves. The camel hump is high and above the head. If you are voluminizing your hijab on the level of your ears, that’s fine. If people don’t like it and they talk behind our backs, then we have a resemblance to Nabi(s) because he went through the same thing. Dressing up for your husband, cooking for him, smiling at him etc is extremely important and is ibadah. There was a woman, her husband allowed hijab and abaya but she desperately wanted to wear niqab. She went to her husband and sat him down. This is also a way that you can convince your parents to allow you to wear the niqab. Sit them down and explain to them that this will make Allah happy. If in the dunya someone told me that there’s 100 candies and one is poisonous, You wouldn’t dare to take a candy! So why should you take the one percent chance risk on the day of Qiyamah of standing before Allah and He tells you that you did everything but you didn’t do niqab! The wife told her husband that it’s just 3 or 4 more inches of covering my face. Being around men is one thing and being friends with them is different. When we around them, the bare minimum that we can do is cover our face. You can start by doing hijab or niqab part time. Apa would first wear it just from home to ZA. Nabi(s) said that person who doesn’t have haya, then he should do as he pleases. Haya helps one to refrain from zina, robbery, abuse etc, Haya helps you to refrain from ghuna. Shu’batun has a tanween, this tanween comes for ta’dheem(extreme emphasis)-meaning that it is an extremely important branch of faith. Imaan has many branches. Why is haya mentioned specifically? Another hadith says that imaan has many parts and the lowest is to remove something harmful from the pathway. Why did nabi(s) mention this attribute specifically? This actually shows it’s importance and what an important part of imaan it is.
My World! 