Is the statement of some scholars that the niqab is neither an obligation nor a virtue nor a sunnah correct, especially with their reasoning that women are required to uncover their faces and hands during Hajj, and that some women during the time of the Messenger were without niqab?

The issue of the face and hands has been discussed in previous fatwas, as well as acting upon differing scholarly opinions, and addressing the mentioned misconceptions. No scholar has ever stated that covering the face and hands is not a virtue or a Sunnah (definition). All are in agreement regarding its permissibility and superiority; the disagreement lies only in whether it is obligatory or not.