"Even If a Woman Dresses Revealingly, a Man Cannot Look"
Fact
This answer was given in the Gazete Duvar interview of 10 December 2019. The question concerned a sentence Alparslan Kuytul had formulated earlier against those circles of religious communities and orders who say, of women subjected to sexual assault, "women should not dress revealingly either."
The sentence is short: "Even if a woman dresses revealingly, a man cannot look."
Kuytul says this not as a matter of rhetorical preference but as a ruling of fiqh, and he states plainly where he takes his criterion from:
"A lawyer looks at the matter according to the laws, does he not? I too am an Islamic jurist, and I look at it according to Islamic fiqh."
The ruling itself is this: to do harm to a woman because of her clothing — leave killing aside — it is not even permissible to look at her. If a woman has a sin relating to her clothing, that sin belongs to her; in his own words, "A woman's own sin is her own." That sin creates for no one any authority over her.
This is why he rejects the sentence "She shouldn't have dressed like that either": "That is not a scholarly view."
Nor does he see the matter as an isolated error. In the same answer he ties it to a widespread deficiency: "There is no criterion in the Islamic community. It is not simple ignorance; there is no scholarly view."
Where the question comes from
The remark is recalled in the Gazete Duvar interview of 10 December 2019. The journalist cites certain representatives of religious communities and orders who say, of women subjected to sexual assault, "women should not dress revealingly either," and asks about the sentence Alparslan Kuytul had formulated against this:
"Even if a woman dresses revealingly, a man cannot look."
The sentence itself is older than the interview; in the interview it was merely recalled.
Two separate acts, two separate responsibilities
This is the essential distinction in Kuytul's answer. There are two separate persons and two separate responsibilities:
- If a woman's clothing is a sin, that sin belongs to her. In his own words: "A woman's own sin is her own."
- A man's looking is a separate prohibition, and it is not removed by the sin on the other side.
The common discourse binds these two responsibilities together: if the woman is at fault, the man's fault is lightened. What Kuytul says is that the bond cannot be made at all. No one's sin gives anyone else a new right.
"Forget killing, even looking is not permissible"
The construction of the answer is striking. Kuytul does not begin the discussion with the gravest act; he begins with the lightest. If looking is already forbidden, then doing harm and killing are not even matters to be discussed.
The meaning of this ordering is that what is being discussed here is not the measure of the punishment for the assault, but the justification that prepares the ground for the assault. The justification is struck down at the very first step.
Where does he take his criterion from?
Kuytul does not present this view as a personal sensitivity; he names its source:
"A lawyer looks at the matter according to the laws, does he not? I too am an Islamic jurist, and I look at it according to Islamic fiqh."
The analogy matters for understanding this page. A lawyer speaks not according to his own opinion but according to the text before him. Kuytul likewise says that he derives the ruling from fiqh, and that the conclusion is therefore not his own preference.
He ties his own difference to this as well: "There is no criterion in the Islamic community. It is not simple ignorance; there is no scholarly view." Here he is not pinning a label on those he addresses; he is describing what he finds missing — that the subject under discussion is met with a reflex rather than with a method.
Why is "She shouldn't have dressed like that either" not a scholarly view?
Because this sentence is not a ruling but an excuse. Fiqh asks for the ruling on an act: is it permissible or not? The answer to that question does not change according to the conduct of the other party. If the ruling on looking depended on a woman's clothing, what would be at hand would not be a ruling but an opinion that changes with the situation.
This is the technical side of Kuytul's objection: the excuse has been put in the place of the ruling.
Is he left unsupported because of this view?
In the same question he is also asked whether this difference of outlook is the reason why the other religious communities and orders gave him no support throughout his imprisonment. Kuytul does not accept this explanation. In his view the reason is not a difference of opinion but political calculation; he says that no one is stood up for, and that the problem is not limited to himself.
That is, he does not bind the fiqh discussion on this page to the question of support — he answers the two separately.
What this page shows
What is conveyed here is not a court ruling or a third party's finding, but Kuytul's own answer. The whole page rests on a single distinction: one person's sin does not legitimise another person's act.