Religious Merits For Growing Beard

July 10, 2024

3 min read 3 min

Question

Assalām o ‘Alaykum

I am delighted to write this email to you. I am Thankful to God to provide the World well versed and well read people like you.

Sir, I am confused on one issue and I am not getting any end to it. The more I try to simplify my concept the more difficult it becomes.
The question is, beard is a Sunnah of our beloved Prophet (sws). We all need to follow this Sunnah, but is there any alternate minimum criterion to observe beard.

You can understand my point by this example. There are two persons:

1. A very good Muslim person with beard. Praying regularly and living a peaceful life and trying to follow Islam. No lying, no stealing and no other evil deeds. Now this kind of person is a reason for people to see and praise as a Muslim. He is presenting a role model (closely) of a good Muslim.

2. A simple man of God. Following blindly his Worldly desires, lying,
stealing, big fan of Media/entertainment. Now if this kind of person is also observing beard. He would be depicting a bad example of Muslim. He would be the reason that people would start losing respect for Muslim or beard.

Do you think that there should be some alternate minimum criteria to observe beard.

Sameer Sohail

Answer

If I have understood your question correctly, you are asking whether people need to have some religious merits before growing beard. This is because (as you observe) there are people with not very good behaviour but with beard who give a bad impression about Islam.

Firstly, I would like to inform you that according to Mr. Ghamidi, beard is not part of the Sunnah of the Prophet (sws). Mr. Ghamidi considers beard to be the preferred style of the Prophet (sws) as a human being and not as a religious leader.

Nevertheless, agreeing or disagreeing with the above view does not affect the answer that I want to give to your question.

I would like to believe that we are living in a society where people think with their brains and not with their eyes. I totally understand your concern and have full sympathy with the issue you are raising. However I think the main problem is not beard. The problem is that people tend to judge others not on the basis of their actions but on the basis of their appearance.

Beard should not be treated as a criterion of being religious. The criterion of a religious person is nothing but his way of life and thinking. We need to find ways to intelligently educate people about this fact.

Regards

Answered by: Farhad Shafti

Date: 2015-03-28