Veiling in Islam

The meaning of these and similar statements in the Risale-i Nur is this:

In this age, the flourishing of family life, happiness in this world and the Hereafter, and the development of noble qualities in women can only be achieved through Islamic manners and principles within the bounds of Islam.

The most important point in family life is this: if a woman sees bad conduct and unfaithfulness in her husband, and then, out of spite, she too abandons loyalty and trustworthiness—which are her duties in family life—the whole structure of family life is thrown into disorder, just as military discipline collapses when obedience is lost. Rather, as far as she is able, she should try to correct her husband’s faults so that she may save her eternal companion.

Otherwise, if she too tries to display herself through immodesty and make herself attractive to others, she suffers harm in every respect. For whoever abandons true loyalty receives its punishment even in this world. By nature, a woman fears, feels uneasy before, and withdraws from the gaze of unrelated men. She is disturbed by the gaze of eighteen out of twenty unrelated men. A man, however, is disturbed by the gaze of only one out of a hundred unrelated women. Thus, the woman suffers inward torment in this respect; she may also be accused of disloyalty, and because of her weakness, she may be unable to defend her rights.

In short: just as women, through shafqa, differ from men in heroism and ikhlās, and men cannot reach them in that heroism, so too innocent women can in no way rival men in dissipation. For this reason, by their very nature and their delicate constitution, they fear unrelated men intensely and feel compelled to observe modest dress.

For if a man enters into dissipation for eight minutes of pleasure, he suffers only a small worldly loss. But as the penalty for the same eight minutes of sinful pleasure, a woman may have to carry a heavy burden in her womb for eight months and then endure the hardship of raising an unprotected child for eight years. Therefore, she cannot rival men in dissipation and bears a punishment a hundred times heavier.

Such incidents, which are by no means rare, show that blessed women are, by nature, a source of elevated morals, and that their capacity for sinful worldly pleasure in vice and dissipation is almost nonexistent. This means that they are a blessed kind of creation suited to living a happy family life within the sphere of Islamic upbringing. May those committees that lead these blessed women astray be cursed! May Allah protect these sisters of mine from the evil of such wayward people. Āmīn.

My sisters, I say this to you in confidence:

Rather than submitting, out of concern for livelihood, to the domination of a dissolute, immoral, and Westernized husband, try to support yourselves through the frugality and contentment found in your nature, just as innocent village women work to provide for themselves. Do not try to sell yourselves.

If any of you are already married to a husband who is not suitable for you, then be content with your lot and accept it. InshāAllāh, through your contentment and acceptance, he too may be be reformed. Otherwise, as I have recently heard, you may apply to the courts for divorce; but this does not befit the honour of Islam or the dignity of our Muslim identity.