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women and islamic law 305[upper] private parts [ juyåbihinna] and not display their [hidden] beauty[zÊnatahunna] except to their [ba#l ] husbands, their fathers, their husband’sfathers, their sons, their husband’s sons, their brothers or theirbrothers’ sons, or their sisters’ sons, or [what follows] next in line[nis§"ihinna], or the [temporary partner] whom their right hands possess,or male [persons] free of physical needs, or small children whohave no sense of the shame of sex; and that they should not strike theirfeet in order to draw attention to their hidden [beauty] [zÊnatihinna].And O you believers! Turn you all together towards God, that youmay attain bliss. ( Al-Når 24:31) 54It is our aim to analyse each single part (as semantic-syntactic units)of these verses separately. We therefore start with the first line ofboth verses and continue line by line in parallel before we thenconcentrate exclusively on 3:31 until this verse reaches itsconclusion.First Line:Say to the believing men that they should lower their gaze [ yaghu··åmin abߧrihim] (24:30). And say to the believing women that they shouldlower their gaze [ yagh·u·na min abߧrihinna] (24:31)…Both verses start with Allah’s command, addressed to both men andwomen, to lower the gaze. It has often been ignored that the textuses the preposition min as the partitive ‘of’. Because of this oversight,the usual transitive rendering of the verb as ‘to cast down their gaze’,which omits to acknowledge the existence of min, is incorrect. Wealso notice that the verse does not specify the object that the gazesof the eyes should avoid. It is obvious that the Book leaves it to us todecide what this should be—in accordance with existing social normsand moral etiquette. The Arabic term used for ‘to cast down’ is gha··54This is my rendering, based on YA, and in the light of MS’s interpretation ofthe verse. It differs considerably from the conventional understanding of this verse,perhaps best illustrated by the complete quotation from YA’s translation:‘And say to the believing women that they should lower their gaze and guardtheir modesty; that they should not display their beauty and ornaments except what(must ordinarily) appear thereof; that they should draw their veils over their bosomsand not display their beauty except to their husbands, their fathers, their husband’sfathers, their sons, their husbands’ sons, their brothers or their brothers’ sons, ortheir sisters’ sons, or their women, or the slaves whom their right hands possess, ormale servants free of physical needs, or small children who have no sense of theshame of sex; and that they should not strike their feet in order to draw attention totheir hidden ornaments. And O you believers! Turn you all together towards God,that you may attain bliss’.