Ahmad 7842

Its isnad is sahih. Yazid bin Kaysan Bishkari is trustworthy, deemed trustworthy by Ibn Main, Ahmad, Daraqutni, and others. His biography appears in al-Kabir 4/2/354, and Ibn Abu Hatim 4/2/285. Abu Hazim is Salman Ashjai. The hadith was narrated by Muslim, 1:401, through the route of Sufyan, who is Ibn Uyayna, the teacher of Ahmad here, with this same isnad, similarly but slightly longer. Nasai narrated it, 2:72, through the narration of Marwan Fazari from Yazid bin Kaysan, with the same wording.Regarding the word "fi" (in), it is written here in the accusative form even though it should be in the nominative, following the manuscripts Q, H, and M, in accordance with the dialect of those who pause on an accusative word with a silent ending. This is permissible. In manuscript K it is written as "shayan" (something), following the standard convention.This hadith, along with what has been transmitted about the meaning of a man's looking at a woman he intends to propose to, is something that immoral and irreligious people of our time play with, the slaves of Europe, the slaves of women, and the slaves of desires. They cite it in contexts where it does not apply, and they take it out of its correct Islamic meaning, which is that a man may take a brief, casual glance without staring or scrutinizing. But these disbelieving, immoral people go on to claim that a full, scrutinizing look is permissible. Worse still, they go so far as to permit looking at what is not lawful to look at of a woman. Worse yet, they descend into forbidden seclusion, and even into conversing and mixing freely, seeing nothing wrong in any of it. So Allah comes to hate them, and comes to hate their women and whoever among them is content with this. The most sinful among them in this regard are those who claim affiliation with the religion, while the religion disowns them. May Allah protect us and guide us to the straight path.