In the last episode we were discussing the issue of beautification in Islam and you have mentioned for us the issues of hair and the categories regarding beautification that which is permissible and that which is not, and generally falls under from what we have gathered that anything that changes the creation of Allah unless specifically mentioned by the Quran or Sunnah is impermissible.
We were going over the issues of hair that is impermissible to remove for both men and women. We went over the issue of hair that is up to them and the hair that is obligatory to leave.
What about things like extending the hair like some individuals do?
The concept of extending the hair is prohibited in Islam, and this is clearly mentioned in the hadith of Abu Huraira (may Allah be pleased with him) that the prophet (salla Allahu alaihi wa sallam) has cursed the woman who adds false hair and fixes hair extensions and he cursed the woman who has this done; and the woman who tattoos and the woman who has this done and this was reported by Al-Bukhari in the Sahih. So this act calls the curse of Allah the Almighty and we know that whomever Allah curses, he departs him from Allah’s mercy and he will not have him under His mercy.
There is also another hadith where Humaid Bin Abdur Rehman Auf said that Muawiya ibn Abu Sufyan (May Allah be pleased with him) once gave a narration while he was on the member and he was holding a piece of hair that was seized by one of his guards and he said to the people where are your scholars, where are your scholars? I have heard the prophet (salla Allahu alaihi wa sallam) say or forbidding this kind of thing and saying that Bani Israel (the Sons of Israel) were destroyed when their women started to use such things, so such extensions are completely forbidden in Islam.
What about eye lash extensions, are they considered the same thing?
Well some scholar say that it takes the same ruling, because first of all, it changes the creation of Allah, second of all, it is hair that is being extended and not only this, some scholars even go further to talk about false nails or when they extend the length of the nails and they say that it falls under the same category.
So when women wear these false nails, these fake nails it falls under the same category as hair extensions?
Yes, because she is changing the creation of Allah and at the same time it is extending something that is not there and it is very awkward when people do this.
It’s also in a fact, is it not a contradiction to what the Prophet (salla Allahu alaihi wa sallam) mentioned from the fitrah, and from the natural inclination is for the people to cut their nails. We know as Muslims, we do this every week for Jumma’a?
Well the concept of doing it every week on Friday is not Islamic, because there is not anything in the sunnah that covers this. People do it out of habit but yes but when you connect this to Friday it becomes an innovation.
We are requested or instructed to remove the nails providing that they are long and in the hadith of Aysha (may Allah be pleased with her) she said that clipping the nails is the part of fitrah, the nature and the hadith of Anas (May Allah be pleased with him) he said that the prophet (salla Allahu alaihi wa sallam) gave us 40 days and this is the maximum.
Scholars such as Imam Al-Nawawi said that this does not mean that one should wait until 40 days and nights because this to some would have their nails very long, but this means that even if your nails do not grow normally, on the 40th day or night you have to clip your nails even if they do not grow normally. Nowadays it is the other way around, we find people extending their nails, or purposely growing them.
Yes and this is not only found in women it is also found in men. I have seen a lot of men clipping their nails, but they are keeping the nail of the small finger which is very long. Why would they do this?
I asked so many of them and they gave me so many lame excuses. Some of them say they use it for the ear, and they will puncture the ear drum most likely, and some say we use it to remove the dandruff, some said things that I cannot mention here. And it is absurd, it’s pathetic and it’s disgusting for a man to have such a nail and to use the nail for such activity.
The problem is now, not only for men but it is also for women and you are finding women prolonging and keeping and growing their nails to horrible lengths and this is against nature.
And now it is become a habit of the non Muslims and so it’s forbidden for Muslim women to imitating them, right?
Even though we have direct rulings stating that we have to clip the nails.
At the maximum of 40 days for men and women.
Now women went the extra mile, so now they not only prolonging their nails and growing them, they are also putting nail polish on top of them and some of them put red nail polish like as if they are animals waiting for their prey, they are not just waiting for their pray but they have already killed their prey and they have got blood on their nails. That is so strange. I have seen my daughters do this, I have spoken to them, some of them Alhamdulillah and one of my daughter puts black nail polish. I asked, what is this? And they say it looks nice so anything that looks nice you imitate, don’t you have your own personality, and don’t you have your own character why should we always follow people?
I remember one scholar mentioned, he goes: “are the Muslims just sheep that we just walk behind anyone, is the Muslim not proud that they are walking on the face of the earth following the religion that Allah, the create of the heavens and the earth has set forth for him. Should we not feel honored with that task?”
Unfortunately this is the problem, we have people who look down on themselves and they are not that proud and therefore whenever they see a new trend, they just follow it, as the prophet (salla Allahu alaihi wa sallam) said that the Muslims will follow the Jews and the Christians and even if they went into a hole of a lizard and they would follow it.
Even amongst the non Muslims, they know the quote which is very famous: “He who stands for nothing falls for everything”. The Muslims should be standing for Islam, the most glorious religion, the truth from Allah, that Allah is one. This is true, but unfortunate it is there.
So, going back to our topic, extending the hair is not permissible for women and also extending the nails with false nails or leaving them to grow even past 40 days and also wearing false eye lashes is not permissible in Islam.
We mentioned the different types of hair that you can remove and that you have to remove. What about people who say I don’t want to remove my hair from my arm pits every week or every two weeks or what not. Can I get laser, there are now laser surgeries that can actually remove the hair and stop it from growing every again. Is this considered changing the creation?
It is not considered changing the creation because you are instructed to remove this hair so if there is a safe surgical procedure that would result in stopping the hair from growing and it does not have any side effects and if it does not involve exposing one’s most private part of the body then it appears to be OK. For example a woman comes and says listen I would like to permanently remove hair from my arms, or legs and this does not include showing my private parts to anyone, and it is a female who is doing this procedure, and doctors say that there is not a side effect to it. Because some of these operations may end up in 6 or 7 or 10 years time and the skin will be allergic and it would have lots of side effects and if this is the case, then this is completely forbidden.
Can’t we say that Allah created humans with a reason that the hair actually grows here and then made it a means of worship by removing it, so removing it in one shot wouldn’t that defeat the ajar or benefits that you can get by removing it every time.
It can be, but at the same time there is nothing to prevent it, and this is why we have to go by the book. The fundamentals we have the Quran and the Sunnah, the principles of the fiqh does not forbid this so it is too much to be more Roman than the Romans as long as the sharia allows it Alhamdulillah we give room to the people to breath because we don’t want to make the religion too difficult. And at the same time we don’t want to make the religion so easy to the extent that it does not become religion anymore. It becomes whims of people and what they desire.
You were discussing with us the issue of extending the hair and how the prophet (salla Allahu alaihi wa sallam) specifically forbid it in all its forms, what about this modern phenomenon of people wearing wigs, or wearing these hats that have these fake braids or fake hair hanging from them?
Ok, I love these hats, my girls bought them once and when they put these caps, young girls they were about 6-7 years old, and they had these fake braids going on the sides and they look so beautiful and I loved it but then it clicked and said “Oops this is not right and I immediately told them to take it off”. They didn’t like it, they were young. But again this is religion we have to follow the Quran and the Sunnah. The prophet (salla Allahu alaihi wa sallam) cursed the women who extend the hair with false extensions.
That’s not really something that we want to be relaxed with this. We have to be very careful because the wording of the prophet (salla Allahu alaihi wa sallam) is very specific and very heavy.
Yes, now, one would might argue and say they were children, so Allah will not punish them and the answer is yes, Allah will not punish them for sure but he will punish me, because I am the guardian of the children, so if I go and tell my child here is a cigarette, light it and have few puffs here and there, or if I give him champagne to drink he is not sinful, I am.
Or even you see your child reaching for bottle of chlorine and he is about to drink it and you have the possibility to stop him, and you don’t, is the same thing.
So this is not permissible in Islam. Likewise it is not permissible to wear anything that gives the impression that this is hair, for example hair dressers where I come from women, when they go to weddings they tend to make a trick, so they bring a piece of cloth, and they put it on their skull ,and they cover it with their own hair, so it gives the impression that they have thick and big hair. This is also considered to be extending the hair because it is form of deceit likewise if they extend the braids with human hair, but not their own or with pieces of cloth that would look like hair, but it is not hair and people would think and be deceived that this is the true length of the hair when they see it.
So anything that gives the illusion of hair, the things like ribbons the things like a woman wearing a hat or something like that or a man wearing the hat. These things are allowed?
This is definitely allowed, for example I am wearing this scarf, what we call ghutra, and a woman is wearing a hijab, or scarf on her head. This is permissible because it is not hair.
If a woman braids her hair and puts in between ribbons with nice colors yellow, brown, black or whatever and people can see that these are the ribbons they are not actual hair, this is permissible.
Going back to your question regarding wigs, wigs are hair whenever you see someone wearing a wig, you would think that this is actual hair. This is not permissible. But it is permissible in few cases. It is not permissible for example for a woman to want to beautify herself she wears a wig with long hair with blonde hair with black hair, this is haram. This is forbidden. It is even worse when a man does this. So if we have someone who is 50 years old or 60 years old, who is bald and he wears like hair on his head and he looks like 20 years younger, this wig is forbidden for him and he is cursed because of it.
That’s a good point that you mentioned because the prophet (salla Allahu alaihi wa sallam) in the hadith mentioned specifically women, so if a man is doing it, it might fall under imitating women at the same time, you know. Well if he has a big beard then it would not be so. But it is not only imitating woman, but it is the text that the prophet (salla Allahu alaihi wa sallam) told us, the evidence of cursing those who change the creation of Allah and in some courts of law in some countries you get even the judge, the lawyers, the whole people in the courtyard wearing white wigs, this is not proper.
This was very common in the past centuries in Europe that the men use to wear these big white wigs for whatever reason I can’t imagine. May be just to make them look like sheep, peaceful and fair. I don’t know. But this is not permissible in Islam and it’s completely forbidden.
Ok, so we have established that wearing the wig takes the same ruling as extending the hair. It’s a form of deception; it’s a fake image of hair on the individual. In most cases, you said that there are exceptions, what those exceptions would be?
The exception would be when wearing the wig would be a correction of a deformity, or of something that is a defect. Let’s say a woman, may Allah protect us, had cancer and she had chemotherapy treatment where she has hair loss and she wants to still be beautiful for her husband and make it easy for him in this hard time as well.
This is permissible. If a woman becomes bald because of this, then it is permissible. If a woman is like 20, 30 or 40 years old and she becomes bald completely, no hair at all, it is permissible for her to wear a wig because this is a correction and she is not changing the creation of Allah. On the contrary she is restoring the creation of Allah.
Now there is a hadith, which is very important for us to know that a woman came to the prophet(salla Allahu alaihi wa sallam) and said that my daughter had an illness and now she has thin hair, it’s not gone altogether but it is not as rich and thick as it used to be and she is going to get married, so is it permissible for me to extend her hair and the prophet (salla Allahu alaihi wa sallam) said: no its not.
Scholars say that because of the extension of the hair falls under the prophets (salla Allahu alaihi wa sallam) cursing and she had hair. Now the wig is permissible for a woman to wear when the hair is completely gone, not when her hair are a bit unsatisfied. When she is complete bald as in the case of chemotherapy, or in the case of an illness that causes a woman hair to completely fall.
What about the case, for example, a woman who has curly hair and wants to straighten it or a woman who has straight hair and wants to make it curly, is this considered changing the creation?
No, this is not considered to be changing the creation because it’s like a woman wearing her hair in different styles and this is not permanent and it goes like 3 months or maybe less.
What about the permanent ones like there are some permanent techniques?
It’s nothing wrong in that because fixing the hair is part of the Sunnah (it’s like combing or brushing) so if you have things chemicals providing that they are not harmful for you, anything that has side effects, or has more disadvantages than the advantages would fall under the category of forbidden things.
So what about a woman for example coloring her hair, we know that there is an Islamic text that forbids woman to color her hair black for example. Perhaps you could expand on that.
The text is not for women, it is for men, but whatever falls for men falls for women as well. We don’t want people accusing us of segregating, in the sense there is segregation in Islam between men and women, but not in-discrimination, we are not discriminating.
The prophet (salla Allahu alaihi wa sallam) when he conquered Makkah on the 8th year of Hijrah, Abu Quhafa (may Allah be pleased with him) the father of Abu Bakr came to the prophet (salla Allahu alaihi wa sallam) he was 80+ years old and he was blinded and he had his hair and beard all white and the prophet (salla Allahu alaihi wa sallam) looked at him and said to his family change this whiteness and avoid black. So in Islam it is forbidden to use black to dye your hair or your beard. You can use any other color, but black is forbidden for you to use.
So a man could dye his beard blonde if he wants, or his hair blonde.
True, you can do whatever you wish because this is permissible. You can dye it with black and brown so it give brownish color and it is permissible, pure black is forbidden in Islam except in the case of again a deformity, a case of defect, a person who is 20 or 25 years old, or a girl who is 25 years old and she has white hair.
Would it not be still preferable for her to dye any other color?
She has all the right to dye in black, because this is her natural color she can have this and this is Islamic, but if someone is about in his 40s, then he cannot dye his in black he has to do it in any other color.
Or perhaps as found in some narrations of the Sunnah, you use Henna.
Henna is definitely the best thing for your hair you know scientifically and also following the Sunnah, but some people would not like the color, if having your orange beard then they said this is ZZ top maybe they won’t like it. So it is up to the people. There are different kinds of Henna, different shades of brown, of red or whatever and you may choose whatever suits you but there is nothing wrong in keeping a white beard or a white hair provided it is not completely white and if it is completely white, then it is part of the Sunnah to change it.