Tafsir of An-Nur 24:30

"Say to the believing men that they should lower [min] their gaze..."

• The particle min: It denotes partiality (tab'id). The intent is to lower the gaze from what is forbidden and restrict it to what is permissible.
• Grammatical note: Al-Akhfash permitted it to be an expletive (mazidah), but Sibawayh rejected this.
• The Question: Why is min used for the gaze but not for guarding the private parts?
• The Answer: It indicates that the matter of looking is broader. Do you not see that there is no harm in looking at the hair, chests, breasts, upper arms, shins, and feet of one’s mahram (unmarriageable kin)? The same applies to slave girls being presented for sale. As for a non-mahram woman, one may look at her face, hands, and feet according to one of the two narrations.
• The contrast: The matter of the private parts is restricted. It suffices as a distinction that looking is permitted except for what is excluded, whereas intercourse is forbidden except for what is excluded.
• Alternative interpretation: It is possible that "guarding" refers to both guarding them from leading to what is unlawful and guarding them from exposure.
• Ibn Zayd’s view: Every instance of "guarding the private parts" in the Quran refers to [abstaining from] adultery, except for this verse, where it refers to covering them.
• "Indeed, Allah is Acquainted [Khabir] with what they do": He knows their actions and states—how they cast their gazes and what they do with their other senses and limbs. Therefore, once they know this, they must be in a state of piety and caution regarding Him in every movement and stillness.

"And tell the believing women to reduce [some] of their vision and guard their private parts and not expose their adornment except that which [necessarily] appears thereof and to wrap [a portion of] their headcovers over their chests and not expose their adornment except to their husbands, their fathers, their husbands' fathers, their sons, their husbands' sons, their brothers, their brothers' sons, their sisters' sons, their women, that which their right hands possess, or those male attendants having no physical desire, or children who are not yet aware of the private aspects of women. And let them not stamp their feet to make known what they conceal of their adornment. And turn to Allah in repentance, all of you, O believers, that you might succeed."