05
(Essay)
Lower Your Gaze
The eyes, the phone in your hand, and the look that comes after the first one.
By Mike Rashid King • Allah's Humble Servant
The second look
The first look happens to you. The second one you choose.
You are in line at the store, or on the couch at night with your phone, and something crosses your eyes. The first look you did not plan. What you do with the next second is yours. The thumb stops or it keeps moving. The eyes come back or they stay down.
I am writing this to men, because Allah gave this command to the men first. It goes to the believing men in one ayah (verse), then to the believing women in the next (24:30 to 31). The order is His.
A man's eyes are the door to his heart. What he lets through that door, he carries.
I wrote Say Less about the tongue, Sit Down about the temper, Keep Your Word about the promise and Walk Humbly about pride. This one is about the eyes, the part of a man that does its damage in silence.
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What Allah says about the eyes
Allah gave the command in plain words.
قُل لِّلْمُؤْمِنِينَ يَغُضُّوا۟ مِنْ أَبْصَٰرِهِمْ وَيَحْفَظُوا۟ فُرُوجَهُمْ ۚ ذَٰلِكَ أَزْكَىٰ لَهُمْ ۗ إِنَّ ٱللَّهَ خَبِيرٌۢ بِمَا يَصْنَعُونَ
Qul lil-mu'minina yaghuddu min absarihim wa yahfazu furujahum, dhalika azka lahum, inna Allaha khabirun bima yasna'un
Tell the believing men to reduce some of their vision and guard their private parts. That is purer for them. Indeed, Allah is Acquainted with what they do. (Surah An-Nur 24:30)
The verb is yaghuddu: lower. The Quranic Arabic Corpus glosses the same root the same way when Luqman tells his son to lower his voice (31:19). Allah asks the men to lower some of their sight, min absarihim, and He tells them what it does: azka, purer. Azka comes from the same root as zakah (the purifying charity). Lowering the gaze is a payment that cleans what it leaves behind. That reading is mine.
Quran 24:30-31 · Quranic Arabic Corpus on gh-d-d · Quranic Arabic Corpus on z-k-w
Then Allah tells you He sees what the eyes do in secret. He knows that which deceives the eyes and what the breasts conceal (40:19). Arberry translates the phrase as the treachery of the eyes. Shakir renders it the stealthy looks. Read it plainly: the look a man steals when he thinks no one will notice. Allah named it.
And Allah says the sight will be questioned: do not pursue that of which you have no knowledge; indeed, the hearing, the sight and the heart, about all those one will be questioned (17:36).
Quran 40:19 · Translations of 40:19 in the Quranic Arabic Corpus · Quran 17:36
Then Allah shows you a young man at a closed door.
وَرَٰوَدَتْهُ ٱلَّتِى هُوَ فِى بَيْتِهَا عَن نَّفْسِهِۦ وَغَلَّقَتِ ٱلْأَبْوَٰبَ وَقَالَتْ هَيْتَ لَكَ ۚ قَالَ مَعَاذَ ٱللَّهِ ۖ إِنَّهُۥ رَبِّىٓ أَحْسَنَ مَثْوَاىَ ۖ إِنَّهُۥ لَا يُفْلِحُ ٱلظَّٰلِمُونَ
Wa rawadathu allati huwa fi baytiha 'an nafsihi wa ghallaqati al-abwaba wa qalat hayta lak, qala ma'adha Allah, innahu rabbi ahsana mathway, innahu la yuflihu az-zalimun
And she, in whose house he was, sought to seduce him. She closed the doors and said: Come, you. He said: I seek the refuge of Allah. Indeed, he is my master, who has made good my residence. Indeed, wrongdoers will not succeed. (Surah Yusuf 12:23)
Yusuf, ʿalayhi as-salām (peace be upon him), was a young man far from home, living in another man's house. Allah does not hide that he felt the pull: he would have inclined to her had he not seen the proof of his Lord (12:24). Then Allah shows you what he did. He named Allah. He ran for the door (12:25). And when the pressure came again, he said: my Lord, prison is more to my liking than that to which they invite me (12:33).
He had the closed doors and the invitation. He also had Allah, and he turned to Him.
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What the Prophet ﷺ said about the gaze
He made the rule simple enough to use in the moment.
Jarir ibn Abdullah asked the Messenger of Allah ﷺ about the sudden glance. He commanded him to turn his eyes away.
He told Ali: do not give a second look, Ali; you are not to blame for the first, and you have no right to the second. Al-Albani graded it hasan, which means sound, a chain of narrators the scholars accept.
Sunan Abi Dawud 2149, hasan per Al-Albani
He named what the eye does on its own: the adultery of the eyes is the sight. The Arabic word is zina (unlawful intimacy), and he gave the eyes their own share of it. The sin starts where the look starts.
He gave the young men a way through it. Abdullah ibn Mas'ud said they were young and had no wealth, and the Prophet ﷺ told them: whoever among you can marry, should marry, because it helps him lower his gaze; and whoever is not able to marry, should fast.
And he named a man Allah will shade on the Day when there is no shade but His: a man who refuses the call of a charming woman of noble birth and says: I am afraid of Allah. That is Yusuf's choice, made by an ordinary man.
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Why the eyes lead the man
The look comes first, and the wanting follows it. In the same hadith that gives the eyes their share, the Prophet ﷺ names the eyes, then the tongue, and then says the inner self wishes and desires.
Systems Thinking follows what goes in and what it grows into. Whatever a man feeds his eyes, his heart starts asking for. Feed it the second look every night and the heart learns to expect it. Starve the second look and the asking gets quieter. That is an inference about how a man works, and I will stand on it.
Allah lists the sight between the hearing and the heart when He says all three will be questioned (17:36). The sight feeds the heart, and both answer for what passed between them. That reading is mine.
Sahih al-Bukhari 6243 · Quran 17:36
Dialectical Thinking demands the objection. I am only looking. I am not touching anyone. Who am I hurting?
The Prophet ﷺ already answered it: he gave the eyes their own share of sin. And Allah gave the reason for lowering the gaze in the same ayah, and the reason is the man himself: that is purer for them (24:30). The first person a lowered gaze protects is the one doing the lowering.
His house comes next. His wife lives with what his eyes compare her to. That is an inference.
So the line sits at the second look. Allah asked the men to lower some of their sight, min absarihim, so a man is asked to master his eyes, and nobody is asked to walk through the world blind. The first glance is forgiven (Sunan Abi Dawud 2149). What he does in the next second is the whole test.
Quran 24:30 · Sunan Abi Dawud 2149
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The practice
The rules come from the Quran and the Sunnah (the example of the Prophet ﷺ). The order is mine.
- Turn the first look away. The Prophet ﷺ commanded Jarir to turn his eyes away from the sudden glance (Sahih Muslim 2159a). Train the reflex: eyes down, then back to your business.
- Refuse the second look. You are not to blame for the first, and you have no right to the second (Sunan Abi Dawud 2149). The second look is where the choice lives.
- Clean the phone. Unfollow, mute and delete whatever pulls your eyes where they should not go. What fills your screen is a decision you make every day.
- Charge the phone outside the room where you sleep. Choose the last thing your eyes see at night.
- Fast. The Prophet ﷺ told the young men who could not marry to fast (Sahih al-Bukhari 5066). Hunger quiets more than the stomach.
- Marry, and give your eyes to your wife. Whoever can marry should marry, because it helps him lower his gaze (Sahih al-Bukhari 5066).
- Say the refuge and leave the room. Yusuf said: I seek the refuge of Allah (12:23), and he ran for the door (12:25). Say it out loud. Then stand up and go.
Sahih Muslim 2159a · Sunan Abi Dawud 2149 · Sahih al-Bukhari 5066 · Quran 12:23-25
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The quiet work
A lowered gaze leaves no record anyone can see. Allah keeps the record. He closed the command with it: indeed, Allah is Acquainted with what they do (24:30). Does he not know that Allah sees? (96:14)
The look you did not take earns you nothing from people. It sits between you and Allah, which is the best place for it.
Let your wife know your eyes are hers. Let your son watch his father look away.
Yusuf had the closed doors, the invitation and his whole youth in front of him. He said one sentence, and then he ran.
I seek the refuge of Allah.
By Mike Rashid King • Allah's Humble Servant