From the street to the phone screen; The boundaries of look and coverage in the age of social networks

The transfer of human interactions to the bright screen of smart phones has transformed the structure of visual glare and body privacy; A development that reveals the necessity of a deep jurisprudential re-reading of the rulings of looking and covering more than ever.

Missionary - Education Service: The contemporary world is witnessing a kind of visual explosion. If until a few decades ago, human encounters in the streets, markets, workplaces or educational environments were limited to physical spaces, today with the presence of social networks, these boundaries have completely changed. At any moment, with a simple touch on the smartphone screen, today's man enters a space full of open images, personal angles of people's lives, clothes, bodies and casual poses. This fundamental transformation has faced new theoretical and behavioral challenges to concepts such as solitude, fronting, covering, and looking; The challenge in which many users think that because there is no physical wall and they are facing a digital image, the moral rulings and jurisprudential requirements of looking and covering are also lost or suspended.

From the point of view of sociology of communication and media analysis, virtual space has a nature that Jean Baudrillard, a French philosopher, calls it the predominance of pretense over reality. In this space, the image replaces the living person and a kind of moral numbness or the phenomenon of psychological distance is created. Eric Fontana and contemporary researchers in the field of digital ethics show that when mediated viewing occurs from behind a crystal screen, the user feels less moral responsibility compared to direct viewing in real space. This creates the context for boundless wonder or the phenomenon of visual delight of the anonymous observer. The audience feels that they cannot be seen, so they are allowed to watch any image, and on the other hand, the content producer pushes the boundaries of privacy and clothing back day by day in order to gain attention and likes in the attention economy.

However, in the field of religious thought and the system of Imami jurisprudence, this conceptual break between the physical world and the visual world is not accepted; Because the objectivity of the rulings on looking and covering is organized around two central foundations, namely the inherent dignity of human beings and the control of sensual desire. Islamic jurisprudence establishes a two-way equation with the double setter and ghaz basr; On the one hand, it defines the responsibility of protection and covering for the owner of the body, and on the other hand, it defines the task of lowering the eyes and restraining the gaze for the viewer. In the verses of Surah Mubaraka Noor, the Holy Qur'an begins exactly this double engineering by promoting the restraint of the eyes, both for men and women, and then comes to the issue of maintaining skirts and covering ornaments. This priority shows that before the other person covers himself, it is the viewer who must have morals, discipline and abstinence.

Contemporary jurists, in response to the emerging issues surrounding photos and films, have extracted this fundamental principle that the criteria for the sanctity of looking is not only physical contact or being under the same roof, but sexual promiscuity and usury, i.e. the fear of falling into sin, are considered the backbone of jurisprudence. Although in the traditional jurisprudential view, seeing images of people who are unknown or considered to be among the people who do not pay attention if they are forbidden, is faced with less strictness if there is no intention of pleasure and without fear of sedition, but as soon as the element of pleasure-seeking or the collapse of the psychological security of the family is brought up, there is no difference between the real person on the street and his animated image on the Instagram page. Z and Imam Khomeini in Tahrir al-Wasila pointed out the fact that looking with sexual pleasure at a non-mahram in any form and format is invalid and negative, because sexual stimulation is something that works beyond the distance and directly affects the human heart and mind.

On the other hand, modern behaviorism in the field of digital chastity shows that the publication of private images with homemade or unconventional clothes brings a kind of normalization of breaking boundaries. A person who presents an inappropriate image of himself, even if he has no other intention in his original intention, has at least shaken the social privacy of dignity. The religious community is a connected body; The more unorthodox images multiply in people's field of vision, the weaker the mental capacity of the society to live chastely. Continuous and abandoned glances at this screen erode the capacity for healthy enjoyment within the family; Because the human mind is caught in the constant comparison between the optimized, filtered and deceptive images of the virtual space with the real face of the life partner in the real world.

Therefore, jurisprudence's view on the issue of cover and covering is not just an apparent directive to adjust the centimeters of fabric; Covering is a tool to preserve the human identity of men and women so that people can be present in social relations with their thoughts, art, expertise and virtues, not as visual assets. Shari'i view considers the eye as the door of the heart; When this window is left open without a filter, the flood of images swallows mental focus, peace of mind, and inner peace and turns it into a constant turmoil of lust and comparison. Re-reading these commandments shows that today, more than ever, people need digital piety and keenness of sight at the feet of these screens so that they don't lose their humanity in the middle of all these enchanting images.

The analyzes presented in this report about the need to restrain the gaze, regulate the veil and link the haram gaze with spiritual neglect and subsequent sins, are taken from the verses of the Holy Quran and authentic traditions in the old Imamiya texts:

1. Qur'anic decree regarding the sight and protection of the pharynx:

In the verses of Surah Noor, God first commands the believing men to lower their gaze and wear a chaste skirt, and immediately orders the believing women to lower their gaze, keep their skirts and not to show their adornments except what is obvious.

Surah Mubaraka Noor, verses 30 and 31.

Tafsir of these verses and their limitations in jurisprudential and narrative books: Tafsir al-Tabayan, Sheikh Tusi, vol. 7, p. 428.

2. A polluted look is like a poisonous arrow of the devil:

Imam Sadiq (peace be upon him) has said in a warning speech that an illegitimate look is a poisonous arrow from the devil's arrows, and perhaps a look that causes long-term regret. A narrative that determines the psychological criterion of the penetration of sin in the innermost being of a human being: the view of my share is the poisoned devil's share and the lack of me, the view of the inheritance of long regret.

Al-Wasal al-Shia, Shaykh Har Amili, vol. 20, Kitab al-Nikah, Chapters of Matrimony, Chapter 28, p. 191, Hadith 25399.

3. The jurisprudential rule of honoring opinion with riba and pleasure:

The Imamiyyah jurists have clarified that looking at a non-mahram with the intention of pleasure and riba is absolutely haram, even in cases where the face and hands are permissible without this intention, and the same rule also governs images and videos.

Tahrir al-Wasila, Imam Khomeini, vol. 2, Kitab al-Nikah, chapter on the rulings of al-Nazar, p. 243, issue 20.

Also: Al-Taliqat Ali Al-Arawa Al-Waghaki, Ayatollah Muhammad Fazil Lankarani, vol. 2, p. 778.