What is the ruling on plucking hair other than the eyebrows, such as the hair on the upper lip and the legs?

The questioner : What is the ruling on plucking hair from places other than the eyebrows, such as the upper lip, the legs, and other areas?

The Shaykh : This is a question we have been asked about for a long time, so women, like men, must know that Allah (Blessed and Exalted is He), as He said: , when He created the male and the female, He distinguished between them in many matters related to identifying one sex from the other. Among these is that He created the man with a beard and the woman without a beard. So if we see something that differs from what we are accustomed to, such as seeing a man who has no beard, he should not try to get an artificial beard, because Allah (Mighty and Majestic), when He created him without a beard, did not err in this creation, far be it from Him; rather, He created it for a wisdom. Likewise, if we assume a woman grows an upper lip or a beard, this is not a slip or a sin from the Lord of the Worlds, far be it from Him. And in the expression of the atheists, it was not a natural anomaly, because there is no nature there, but it is Allah, as He (Mighty and Majestic) said: . So if the Muslim is certain that every creation of Allah (Mighty and Majestic) does not deviate from His wisdom and His will, he should not overlook this reality and say: "The woman does not have an upper lip, and one has grown on her, so why does she not cut it or pluck it?" Because we say: This is the creation of Allah, so show me what those other than Him have created. It is good here to remind all listeners of a hadith: It is established from the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) that he saw a man from the Companions who had lengthened his garment to his ankles; so he ordered him to raise his lower garment, and said to him: That is more pious and purer. He said: O Messenger of Allah, there is a deviation in my leg. He (peace and blessings be upon him) said: For that reason, it is not permissible for a woman to change anything of what Allah created in her, such as thick hair in some places like the eyebrow, for example, or thin hair in another place like the upper lip or the leg or the like. It is not permissible to change any of that except in what permission has come from the Wise Lawgiver; because this change is disobedience to the Most Merciful and obedience to Satan, whose mention came in the Qur'an, and he is saying, challenging the Lord of the Worlds: . So changing the creation of Allah is only the execution by Satan of what he initiated with his disobedience to the Most Merciful, when he said: . So it is expected of every Muslim man and woman not to obey Satan, but rather to disobey Satan and obey the Most Merciful (Blessed and Exalted is He). And for that reason, we find our Prophet (may Allah's prayers and peace be upon him) clarified that previous verse when he (Blessed and Exalted is He) narrated about Satan: . So the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) came to clarify that whoever changes the creation of Allah has been expelled from the mercy of Allah or has become expelled from the mercy of Allah. He (peace and blessings be upon him) said: . His saying (peace and blessings be upon him): , means: The pluckers, the practice of plucking is plucking in word and meaning, there is no difference between them in word and meaning; plucking is equal to plucking. And plucking, as is known, in any place where a person plucks hair, it is said "so-and-so plucked his hair." Likewise, plucking is complete from any place where the plucker plucks his hair, so he is a plucker. And for that reason, he (peace and blessings be upon him) said: , but he added to that and said: , and distinguished between the meanings of these two words. The pluckers are the beauticians who open their shops to receive their female customers, then they proceed to pluck the hair according to their desires. This is the meaning of the pluckers. As for the ones who get plucked, they are the female customer who goes to the first one, the plucker, and hands over the leadership of plucking the hair to her according to the desires of the first one. And since it is from the principles and rules of Islam that cooperation in righteousness and piety is obligatory, and not the opposite, He (the Exalted) said: . And since this plucker helps the one who gets plucked in her disobedience to her Lord, the curse included her with her. So he (peace and blessings be upon him) said: . Then he (peace and blessings be upon him) said: . I do not know if tattooing is known in this country or not, but in our Syrian country it is much and very much, especially among the farmers, women and men. You find one of them messing with his body, engraving his chest, back, and arms with various images resembling green ink. So this tattooing was also cursed by the Messenger (peace be upon him). The tattooers; meaning: those who tattoo others, and the ones who get tattooed, who are those who seek tattooing from others. Then he (peace be upon him) said: . The ones who file their teeth is the plural of the one who files, and it was an old fashion, one of the strangest fashions. The woman would take a file and file between her teeth so that she would have teeth aligned, one next to the other like aligned pearls. So she did not like this creation of Allah, and she would take the file and file between the tooth and the other, and spread them apart until something of her teeth appears, and glory be to Allah, it is like a dog's fang. This is what pleases her, but the creation of Allah (Blessed and Exalted is He) does not please her. And this is proof of the corruption of the fitrah of these women who engage in causes that change the creation of Allah. And Allah (Mighty and Majestic) says: . So changing the creation of Allah is only from the command of Satan, as we mentioned earlier when he said: . Changing the creation of Allah is altering the creation of Allah, and He (the Exalted) said: . And only he who does not fear Allah, from those who disobey the Most Merciful and follow Satan, seeks to alter the creation of Allah.