What the early Muslim women did

ʿAbīdah al-Salmānī demonstrates the verse

Two reports in al-Ṭabarī, both graded sound, describe ʿAbīdah al-Salmānī showing how the jilbāb was worn: covering the face and nose, covering the left eye, leaving the right eye visible, drawing the cloth down close to the brow.

One detail worth preserving, easily lost in a summary: he used a ridāʾ to demonstrate, not an actual jilbāb.

What the report proves is treated carefully: it strengthens the possibility that the interpretation derives from a Companion's ruling or from ijtihād based on Companion practice, not that it is established as coming from a Companion.

Ḥafṣah bt. Sīrīn in old age

The report of ʿĀṣim al-Aḥwal, graded sound, has her veiling her face with her jilbāb well into old age. Reminded of the concession granted to elderly women in al-Nūr 24:60, she asked for the remainder of the verse — that restraint is better for them.

The point is not that she was obliged to. It is that she chose the stricter course when the easier one was open to her.

During iḥrām

Fāṭimah bt. al-Mundhir reports: "we covered our faces while in iḥrām."

The chain is worth setting out, since it is not accepted at face value. The version that carries the report back to Asmāʾ bt. Abī Bakr is assessed as maʿlūl — defective. Ibrāhīm b. Ḥumayd and ʿAlī b. Mushir are Kufan narrators, and Hishām b. ʿUrwah's transmission from his third visit to Iraq is weaker than his earlier material: Ibnu Ḥajar records him as thiqah by agreement, but with his memory altered in old age.

Mālik's transmission, taken in Madinah, is therefore preferred, and it stops at Fāṭimah rather than reaching Asmāʾ.

So the report stands as the practice of a woman of that generation, not as something established from a Companion.

But not with a niqab. Garments shaped for the face, the niqab and burquʿ among them, are prohibited in iḥrām. The face was covered by other means. To write that they "wore niqab during iḥrām" would state the opposite of the ruling on this point.

The Prophet's wives — a distinction not to be flattened

This is the point most likely to be lost in summary, so it is stated plainly.

The obligation on the Mothers of the Believers to cover the face was specific to them. Qāḍī ʿIyāḍ reports this without dispute.

It is not argued that this obligation transfers automatically to all women. The conclusion for everyone else is deliberately weaker: that covering the face is at minimum a good practice, and at least encouraged.

An argument of the form "the Prophet's wives covered their faces, therefore all women must" is not being made here, and would misrepresent the distinction above.