His Work Upon Women

Shayṭān then turned to speak of women. Whenever a woman rises from her seat, he said, a devil sits down in the place she has left; a devil sits, indeed, upon the lap of every woman, making her desirable to whoever looks at her, and with his own claws commands her to bare her arms, her legs, her chest, tearing away her veil of shame and decency. The moment a woman begins to uncover herself, something is loosed that can never afterward be recalled in the same way: beneath the physical covering, the ḥijāb, lies a further, spiritual covering called ḥayāʾ, modesty, and it is this that Shayṭān's devil tears apart completely; once it is torn, a woman can no longer feel shame in society, and becomes shameless there. Immodesty in a man is already a bad and terrible thing, but in a woman it is worse still, because she carries within her a power capable of turning a great many people from the path of Allah — becoming, without meaning to be a person of evil herself, a formidable soldier of Shayṭān's. It is not her own doing: the beauty Allah has given her is what Shayṭān uses to deceive others, working upon whatever weakness of heart a man carries toward her. This is simply how it works in society, and it is why Allah commands covering — for what the eye does not see cannot touch the heart; certain emotions, once the eye has seen, cannot be governed, certain reactions within the heart cannot be held back, and the unlawful remains unlawful whatever is done about it afterward. This is why the Messenger of Allah says that the first glance, falling upon what should not be seen, is free of sin — it happens unintended — but the second glance is where sin begins, because it is now wilful. Some among the young argue that, the first look being a free one, it should simply be made a long one; it does not work that way.