Can I Watch Videos In Which Women Are Present?

Answered by Shaykh Yusuf Weltch

Question 

Is it permissible to watch a video in which women are present if I lower my gaze or only look at their faces without desire?

Answer

In the Name of Allah, the Most Merciful and Compassionate

It is permissible to watch a video in which women are present on the condition that one does not look at any prohibited portions of their body and that one does not look at any part of their body with desire.

The above is due to the general rulings that looking at the opposite gender (though discouraged if without reason or need) is permissible with two conditions:

1) One only looks at the face, hands, and/or feet

2) One does not look at any part of their body (even the aforementioned parts) with desire.

[Tahtawi/Shurunbulali, Hashiyat Maraqi al-Falah] 

Note that peripheral vision is pardoned due to the difficulty in averting it.

However, the above is based on the assumption that the content, in general, is permissible. If, however, the content is pornographic or is made with ill intent, then it is in no way permissible even in the above conditions.

Hope this helps

Allah knows best

[Shaykh] Yusuf Weltch

Checked and Approved by Shaykh Faraz Rabbani

Shaykh Yusuf Weltch is a teacher of Arabic, Islamic law, and spirituality. After accepting Islam in 2008, he then completed four years at the Darul Uloom seminary in New York, where he studied Arabic and the traditional sciences. He then traveled to Tarim, Yemen, where he stayed for three years studying in Dar Al-Mustafa under some of the greatest scholars of our time, including Habib Umar Bin Hafiz, Habib Kadhim al-Saqqaf, and Shaykh Umar al-Khatib. In Tarim, Shaykh Yusuf completed the memorization of the Qur’an and studied beliefs, legal methodology, hadith methodology, Qur’anic exegesis, Islamic history, and several texts on spirituality. He joined the SeekersGuidance faculty in the summer of 2019.