They said they must cover their heads...

They said they must cover their heads, and some even said their chins so that this be their sign of difference with slave women. It is not very clear exactly what the jilbab looked like. In the Munjid it says it is a loose flowing dress. If it were a dress, this verse would not then be telling them to cover their hair. Raghib Isfahani in the Mufridat, which is a very reliable book on words, and it has defined the words of the Holy Quran very well, says that it means both dress and scarf.

There is a tradition from Imam Riza, about women who are beyond a certain age, from which it becomes clear that it was something which covered the head. He said they may put aside the jilbab there is no problem if one looks at the hair of an old woman. Here it is not clear if the jilbab covered the hair and head. In another tradition it would appear that the jilbab differed from the khamur but the difference is not clear. Perhaps it was larger.

Imam Sadiq was asked what these woman can take off and he said their jilbab and khamur, i.e., 'their outer garment and scarf'. There are two points which can be made use of in this verse. The first is that this verse adds nothing more to the verse from Suran Nur. Why? Because the verse refers to particular events which were occurring at that time, not a total ruling for all times and secondly, the verse just says to draw the jilbab closer to themselves.

**EPILOGUE THE PARTICIPATION OF WOMEN IN MEETING AND GATHERINGS** From what has been referred to in these lessons, it can be seen that, in the first place, Islam is concerned with and is attentive to the importance, extraordinary value and necessity for the legitimacy of sexual relations between men and women, whether it be concerned in their touching each other, hearing each other or living together.

It is such that Islamic precepts would never allow the slightest detriment in whatever from it may take to be applied to it. But the world today overlooks this extraordinary human value and consciously chooses to ignore this point of view. The world today, in the name of freedom of women, and, more directly, the freedom of sexual relations, has only served to corrupt the morale of the youth.

Instead of this freedom helping to develop the amazing potentialities which exist within every human being, it wastes human energies and talents, in a way which did not exist in the past. Women have left their homes, but for what? For the cinema, the beach, the streets, and evening entertaiment!