Path: utzoo!attcan!telly!lethe!torsqnt!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!wuarchive!usc!jarthur!nntp-server.caltech.edu!bes From: zama@midway.uchicago.edu (iftikhar uz zaman) Newsgroups: soc.religion.islam Subject: Re: Goats,Beards,and Action (Article from MuslimWise). Message-ID: <1990Dec15.012322.9758@nntp-server.caltech.edu> Date: 15 Dec 90 01:23:22 GMT Sender: bes@nntp-server.caltech.edu (Behnam Sadeghi) Organization: California Institute of Technology, Pasadena Lines: 86 Approved: bes@tybalt.caltech.edu In article <1990Dec12.154553.28131@wpi.WPI.EDU> khan@romulus.RUTGERS.EDU (Farrukh Shah Khan) writes: > >In article <1990Dec11.170212.372@wpi.WPI.EDU> zvs@bby.oz.au (Zev Sero) writes: > >> I would like to know more about this. Is it a requirement of Islam >> that Muslims wear beards? Or is it perhaps only required of `clergy'? >> Is trimming permitted? ... > >Islam gives a lot of importance to cleanleness. Mohammad PBUH said >that cleanleness is half of your faith. Muslim has to be clean all the >time (and specially at prayer time). >In Islam a muslim has to clean (shave) all unwanted hair. That is >because of the same reason as circumcision (and bad smells). Same is >(almost) true for the hair on the face. But people like beards, so >Mohammad PBUH put an upper bound on the size of the beard. It should >not be more than the width of your knuckle. This so that you won't dip >it in the gravy when you are eating and is easy to clean. >So the conclusion is that it not required at all infact it is >preferable not to have one. "But they don't understand ..." >> Thanks. Zev (a bearded Jew) > ' _/ __/ Farrukh Shah Khan. EXCUSE ME!!!!???? Mr. Khan, you have *really* got this one wrong! Do you not realize that the Prophet himself always had a beard? And that `Umar's beard was rather large: the method he used to cut his beard was to grab a handful and then two (maybe three?) fingers and then cut the rest off? "Knuckles"? Where did you get that from? Was the Prophet and were his Companions fond of having beard while it is "preferable not to have one?" Who is it here that "doesn't understand?" Classical Islamic scholarship has always held that to have a beard is sunna (i.e. practice of the Prophet which should be followed). There a number of sayings of the Prophet on this issue. The most famous one (I am fairly sure it is in Abu Da'ud, Kitab al-Adab and is probably in most of the other six books also) is about a Persian who came to visit the Prophet and had a large moustache but no beard. When asked why he had "done this to his face" he said that his "master" commanded him to do this. The Prophet responded, in essence, that his Master (I believe the word used is "rabb") commanded him to cut his moustache and let his beard grow long (qass al-shawarib and ihya al-lihya: to shorten the moustache and ALLOW the beard to grow long). The key word is "commanded"--from this Islamic scholars have always argued that this is a sunna which *really should* be followed (as opposed to sunna regarding the specific way the Prophet dressed etc. which is commendable, but not really stressed). I don't have the books in front of me right now, but the range of opinion between the four classical schools of Islamic jurisprudence is somewhat like this: the Hanafis say that cutting one's beard until it has reached the length of a fistful and two fingers is "haram" -- absolutely forbidden. And while I am in the flaming mood: the classical view has been that someone who shaves his beard is a "fajir" i.e. someone who disobeys a major commandment of God publicly! (OK, modern scholars might not be so harsh: but this is how it was viewed from Abu Hanifah's time (d. about 150 A.H.--last part of eighth century) until at least about the nineteenth century. The one school of law (and I can't recall at this point which one) which allows for shaving one's beard does so in a peculiar manner: if someone already has a beard, it is "haram" for him to shave it. But if someone has already started shaving then the sin is only on the first time he does so, if he continues to shave he is not really shaving his "beard" (he has none!) so it is OK. I did not want to write on this topic at all--as I was sure there are plenty of "modernists" out there who will say it is not necessary at all; and then there would be plenty of "traditionalists" who would argue that it was necessary. But to find someone who actually tries to show that the beard is "slightly frowned upon but allowed"; this is really too much. The discussion among modern Muslims swings between the two types of attitudes depicted in the above paragraph: it is good to have a beard-- this much is agreed upon. The question is: is it necessary or just a "nice thing." Sorry to have gone on so long, but the great contrast between the confident tone of your article and its lack of correspondence to facts made me feel that I couldn't let this one go by... Iftikhar