Clarification of the issue of what the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) did from among the matters of custom, including shaving the hair or letting it grow long.

The Shaykh : Sometimes, but the original principle in this is that when the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him and his family) performed an act that appeared to be one of the acts of worship that people could not know except through the path of revelation, he only performed an act that was from the custom of the people. For example, , this in custom was not brought by the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) nor did he legislate it for his Ummah, rather it was a custom that existed before him, and it remains to this day in many of the Arab deserts where we find many young men growing their hair, and some of them turning it into locks and braids. This is established from the Messenger (peace be upon him), and it is clear that it is from the customs. Indeed, it is established that he , meaning: braids. And there is no scholar who says that it is an act of worship for a person to let his hair grow to the earlobes or to the tops of the shoulders, or to turn that into locks and braids. And that is only because they saw that as a custom and not as an act of worship. Especially since it came in the authentic hadith that the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him and his family) said regarding the hair: . And in this is the prohibition of qaza' (shaving part of the head), which the explicit prohibition of it came in the authentic hadith. So his saying: , this means that there is nothing wrong in shaving it all, , that there is nothing wrong - also - in that. So the matter is the same; this is from the matters of custom. How did we understand this? We understood it from the totality of what was mentioned just now, from his action (peace be upon him).

The questioner: Peace be upon you.

The Shaykh : And upon you be peace. What he did was from the practice of his people and from his choice between shaving and leaving it. Likewise, for example, , as in "Sahih al-Bukhari and Muslim." So let no one say that if he wears sandals with a single strap, he has contradicted the Sunnah, because that is from the matters of custom.