Islam adores beautification providing that it follows the instructions of Islam, so it is not acquired for its own sake, the sake of beautification. And it’s not neglected because Islam does not like beautification; it has to go under the boundaries and guidance of Islam. And what illustrates this the most is the hadith of the prophet (salla Allahu alaihi wa sallam) which is in the Saheeh.

He stated that: “No person with the weight of an atom of ignorance in his heart will enter paradise”. And this is a serious warning from the prophet (salla Allahu alaihi wa sallam). So one of the companions stood up and said o prophet of Allah I would like my dress to be beautiful and my shoes to be beautiful and is this considered to be out of arrogance? The prophet (salla Allahu alaihi wa sallam) answered him with this beautiful statement. He said: “Allah is beautiful and Allah loves beauty, arrogance is when you look down at people and you reject the truth, you do not accept it this is the definition of arrogance.

The prophet stated that Allah the All Mighty is beautiful and that He loves beauty.
But we have to be careful, what kind of beauty does Allah love? Is it the beauty of nudity as we see now, the models in the west, the super models when they expose their bodies and men look at them with their tongues dangling, is this the beauty that Allah loves? Or the beauty of wearing the proper dress, having the proper conduct. As mentioned in the Qur’an that a slave believer is better in the sight of Allah then a disbeliever who is so beautiful. Then definitely the beauty that counts in the sight of Allah is the Islamic way or concept of beauty.

The prophet (salla Allahu alaihi wa sallam) saw a man who entered his gathering once in the masjid, the guy had untidy hair and clothes that were not clean and proper. The prophet looked at him and said (salla Allahu alaihi wa sallam) do you have money and the man said yes, I have cattle, sheep, I have camels. Then the prophet (salla Allahu alaihi wa sallam) said to the man, who understood what the prophet (salla Allahu alaihi wa sallam) meant when he asked about the money, are you a beggar or do you have some form of wealth. The man went immediately, combed his hair, put some oil to it, took a bath, wore new clothes and came back to the prophet (salla Allahu alaihi wa sallam). The minute the prophet saw him (salla Allahu alaihi wa sallam) he said: “Allah the All Mighty would like to see the traces of his blessing upon an individual.”

The prophet (salla Allahu alaihi wa sallam) did not like when he saw the man the first time. And unlike what a lot of us may think that even if you have money, you should not show it. You should not look like you have something. And some go to the extreme in trying to show people that they are poor, and that they don’t have anything to fix themselves with. To the extent where I know people who gave zakaat money to the wealthy, because they thought they were needy. Their cars were 50 years old, their clothes were dirty and torn, and they had only one garment to wear, though they had millions in their bank accounts. And this is forbidden and not part of Islam.

Islam tells you to look good to smell good. The prophet himself (salla Allahu alaihi wa sallam) as Anas may Allah be pleased with him said: “I accompanied the prophet (salla Allahu alaihi wa sallam) for 10 years, and never had I smelt anything more beautiful than the scent of the prophet (salla Allahu alaihi wa sallam), it was more beautiful then musk it self, and his hand was as soft as silk”. This shows us that the prophet (salla Allahu alaihi wa sallam) took real good care of himself though he was not rich. He had nothing except the food of his family for the day.

And we know that he used to have a special garment to meet the envoys who came to ask about Islam or to make treaties. And he used to wear it when he gave khutbas, speeches and great gatherings such as Eid’s, Fridays etc.

Therefore it is unlike what some Muslims may think that you should look miserable to be a good Muslim this is wrong. Islam tells you be in the middle path. Do not go to extravagance buying one car of its kind in the world and paying 50 million dollars. And definitely this is un-Islamic. And at the same time not like those who have money but they deprive their children of proper medical care, or going to decent schools or wearing normal clothes like everyone else.
So Islam promotes beautification.

Ibn Abas for example may Allah be pleased with him and with his Father, the cousin of the prophet (salla Allahu alaihi wa sallam) says that when someone saw him taking good care of himself, combing his beard, combing his hair and wearing nice clothes, he said listen you are one of the cousins of the prophet (salla Allahu alaihi wa sallam) and you are one of the most knowledgeable of the companions and you are doing this. He said yes. I like to beautify myself for my wife as I like my wife to beautify herself for me.

And this is an indication that women should take good care of themselves for their husbands and not their non mahram in the streets and in the markets. Unfortunately this is the norm in a lot of the Muslim houses, women do not pay attention to their husbands, and this is one of the reasons of course that a lot of the husbands look for another wife and look elsewhere because their women are taking care of the children and neglecting their husbands. This is not the one I got married to. And it goes both ways for the men, so the wife goes and says listen I married a healthy man who had a sports figure and now he has got this beer belly. This is not the norm.
You are representing Islam so you have to dress likewise and you have to take care of yourself, so your wife will love you more, and the wife should do the same with her husband, so her husband will love her more. And this form of beautification is highly appreciated in Islam.
But having said that, there are lots and lots of forms of beautification that are forbidden in Islam.

If you go through the Qur’an and the sunnah you will find general evidence, general statements that tell us that these forms of beautification are not permissible. For example Allah the All Mighty says: “Verily I will mislead them” (and this is Satan speaking, this is what he is saying and Allah Azza Wa Jal is telling us in the Qur’an). And surely I will arise in them false desires, and certainly I will order them to slit the ears of Cattle and indeed I will order them to change the nature created by Allah”. And this is underlined; he will order humans to do things that will change the creation of Allah the All Mighty.

Allah says “and whoever takes Satan as a Walee instead of Allah has surely suffered a manifest loss”. So this is in Black and White in the Qur’an. So if you do this (change) you are objecting to Allah’s creation, of course within boundaries which we will explain later in more detail. Also the prophet (salla Allahu alaihi wa sallam) told us that in the Hadeeth of Abdullah Ibn Masood may Allah be pleased with him where he said: “May Allah curse the women who do tattoos and the women who have them done, and the women who pluck eyebrows and the women who have that done, and the women who file their teeth for the purpose of beautification, those who change the creation of Allah”.

So the prophet (salla Allahu alaihi wa sallam) is giving us a reason for cursing such women because they seek the beautification but while doing so they change the creation of Allah. And this is the criteria that we should judge all types of beautification cosmetic surgery and cosmetics in general when we talk about the issue In sha’Allah.

The issue being that when you look at contemporary issues we have things that were done before, and these things were at the time of the prophet (salla Allahu alaihi wa sallam), and we have contemporary things that did not exist at the time of the prophet (salla Allahu alaihi wa sallam). And they are coming in their hundreds of different forms.

Bleaching of the eyebrows is an example. Is something that the scholars have disputed over, because if you go to beautification you will find generally speaking that it is divided into three main categories.

If you want to dissect it and try to categorize it you will find that for example one part talks about the hair on your head and on your body, removing it, adding extensions to it, bleaching it and dying it, keeping it what is the ruling on that. This is one category.

The second category is using the colors on/in your body whether by tattooing or removing things with color on your body by bleaching or even by applying something that will add beauty to your body like make up. Again they did not have makeup at the time of the prophet (salla Allahu alaihi wa sallam).

The third part comes to what is today known as cosmetic surgery and this has a wide array of topics that one could talk about. Whether it is a correctional procedure correcting the structure of the face or the body, whether it is to correct a deformity or a defect, whether it is to remove harm, or something that is not natural, as in the case of changing, replacing the skin once it is burnt. It can go on to beautifying a fat person into a skinny person, enlarging different parts of the body for beautification removing wrinkles etc…