Back to Hats on Vowels

A question that sometimes occurs to me in winter is: If the Western world can happily accept the concept of a flying bearded man who gives gifts to children once a year, why is it that when a Muslim tries to observe the Prophetic command to “Closely trim the moustaches, and spare the beard,”[1] he can gain such notoriety?

Why is it that Westerners can be at ease whilst indoctrinating children that a particular bearded fellow is jolly, kind, generous and in fact an all round ‘good guy’, but when a Muslim observes the Sunnah, suddenly it’s as if they are walking the streets naked with a shotgun over one arm from all the stares they attract?

Shouldn’t an early exposure to Santa-ism (feel free to move the position of the ‘n’) create in society a natural inclination and endearment towards facial hair? Or, psychoanalytically speaking, maybe the common aversion to beards that I’ve noticed stems from their repressed childhood anger at discovering that Santa Claus wasn’t real; and that the focus of this rage somehow became directed at his beard? Having experienced such a traumatic letdown as a child, they become subconsciously obsessed with shaving, in a subliminal attempt to shave away the emotional pain that they felt.  Just a theory anyway - *shrug!*

I’ve witnessed a range of responses from people in the streets who seem to find it necessary to shout out the names of any famous bearded individuals they can think of as I pass by. Ranging from religious figures and presidents to heavy metal musicians.

Those who are around me long enough to start up a conversation will eventually resort to one of three questions:

“Does your beard itch?” Well, only if I rub up next to you.

“Does your wife mind?” My wife isn’t required to grow one.

The third question is normally, “How long did it take to grow?”
Now this isn’t as easily answered as one might think. This question comes with the implicit assumption by the questioner that you’ve never actually cut anything from its length. So the question that they are essentially asking is “This amount of hair that I see before me now - how long did it take to grow?”

Scholars have differed over whether the beard should be left totally untouched or if it becomes permissible to trim what exceeds a fist’s length. I’m not going to discuss here the various Etch-A-Sketch type beards that I’ve seen around, as I have yet to read a convincing fiqhi justification for them.

Now, if like me, you hold that it is permissible to trim what exceeds a fist in length- based upon a number of reports indicating that sahābah such as Ibn ‘Umar, Abū Hurayrah and Ibn ‘Abbās (radhiy Allāhu ‘anhum) did so- how do you accurately answer the intent of the question? I should note that this position is not based upon the hadīth “The Prophet (sallallāhu ‘alaihi wa sallam) used to cut from the width and and length of his beard.” (al-Tirmidhī) as this hadīth has been shown to be extremely weak by al-Nawawī and others.[2]

My research[3] has lead me to the statistic that beard hair grows at an average rate of 0.4mm every 24 hours.

Which gives us the formula: Length of Beard Hair (mm) divided by 0.4 (mm) = Number of Days of Growth

So for instance, say you find a 9cm hair on your keyboard one day that’s fallen out whilst you were puzzling over how George W. Bush ever became president of the United States. That would be 90mm divided by 0.4mm, which equals 225 days of growth.

I hope that after having read that we will now all be able to handle any length queries with confidence.

A disregard for beards is intrinsically linked with an obsession for shaving. I remember sitting in history class at school and noticing that my friend next to me had the word “shave” on the back of his hand. He explained that he had written this to remind him to shave when he got home. I found this strange. If he wanted to shave so badly wouldn’t the thought just naturally occur to him when he next looked in the mirror? I wondered if he had similar problems in other areas and asked, “When you go to sleep at night, do you write ‘wake up’ on the back of your hand?”

I’d like to extend this memory prompt technique to reviving the instruction of our beloved Messenger (sallallāhu ‘alaihi wa sallam) and have come up with an idea for a T-shirt design, which will say:

“The Sunnah: Show you care, grow your beard hair.”

An exemption notice could be added to the back of the T-shirt saying, “Sisters are excused from implementing this.”

A manager I used to work with eventually plucked up the courage to tell me one day, “There was something in your beard earlier but I didn’t want to mention it.” I explained that I’d just come from making wudhū’ at the time and so it had been water droplets that he’d seen. Which was met with a rather puzzled look, a look that seemed to convey, “So in the time that you’d been at work this morning your beard had become so dirty that you felt the need to wash it?”

This actually highlights an interesting public taboo. It is possible to divide humanity into two groups: those that will tell you when you have something ‘extra’ on or in your beard/face (as it can happen to the beardless too) and those who won’t. Whether this comes from the improper usage of a tissue/handkerchief or when it is the remnants of an orange squash or ketchup moustache. Personally I make the effort to politely inform someone when I spot it, as I would hate to look in the mirror and realise that since I last ate I had walked around with a small piece of chicken hanging from me.

Even amongst those that will tell you that you have an unwanted attachment, it is extremely rare that they will go that extra step and hazard a guess as to what the substance actually is. Which I believe would add an interesting dimension to this phenomenon. People normally either fall back on the “something there” approach or they combine a “do this” instruction with a brushing of the chin motion.

What I’d like to see more of is ‘Positive Identification of Beard Litter’. Such as, “Excuse me, but you appear to have a piece of rice in your beard.” or “I can’t help but notice that there is a biscuit crumb, possibly from a McVitie’s Chocolate Digestive, in your foliage.”

By the way I hope I’m not sounding like some kind of scarecrow by writing this?

The two foods that I’ve found most problematic in my years as a beard keeper are soup and cornflakes. I don’t know why but whenever the spoon reaches my lips a nervous twitch seems to appear from nowhere and the slightest disruption from a horizontal spoon position can leave a person with a “morning dew in tree” effect.

[1] Al-Bukhārī, Muslim, and others.
[2] See Muhammad al-Jibaly, “The Beard: Between the Salaf and the Khalaf” p.19.
[3] Peterkin, A. “One Thousand Beards – A Cultural History of Facial Hair”, p.202.