The ruling on dyeing the beard: Is it obligatory?
Machine translationRead the Arabic original
The questioner : The dye, O Shaykh?
The Shaykh: Yes.
The questioner : The dye for the beard?
The Shaykh : For the hair in general.
The questioner : Its ruling... is the command here...
The Shaykh : If no one has stated that it is obligatory, we do not dare to say that it is obligatory.
The questioner : Why, O Shaykh?
The Shaykh : Because we fear that we would contradict the path of the Muslims and the way of the Muslims.
The questioner : ... .
The Shaykh : No problem. When the command is not definitive in its indication of obligation, we take this stance. But if the text were definitive, we would not care.
The questioner : The command is definitive in its indication of obligation.
The Shaykh : No, it is not definitive; for two reasons: First, there are many commands... for specific matters, yet... Ahmad, or as Imam Ahmad (may Allah have mercy on him) said regarding dyeing: "I fear it may be an obligation." And this is also part of the etiquette we follow from the Imam... there was no precedent for it among the Salaf. And for a reason, we are called Salafis, and we do not say something that has not been said before. Even if the principles might support saying so, when the text is not definitive but rather indicative, the indicative meaning of this command—what we are discussing here—conflicts with the fact that no one from the Salaf stated that the apparent meaning of the command... indicates obligation.
The questioner : ... .
The Shaykh : It is correct, and I said that a person, for example, has not reached... meaning, for example, when we rule on... a certain matter, and among the innovations is... what Imam al-Shatibi called "additional innovation"... in its example, it has no... except that it did not occur among the Salaf, or the Salaf did not practice it. But we do not have a text from the Salaf stating that this is an innovation or that this is disliked or the like. However, the practice of leaving this innovation that some people introduced suggests to us that this... was only in the era of the Salaf...
The Shaykh: Yes.
The questioner : The dye for the beard?
The Shaykh : For the hair in general.
The questioner : Its ruling... is the command here...
The Shaykh : If no one has stated that it is obligatory, we do not dare to say that it is obligatory.
The questioner : Why, O Shaykh?
The Shaykh : Because we fear that we would contradict the path of the Muslims and the way of the Muslims.
The questioner : ... .
The Shaykh : No problem. When the command is not definitive in its indication of obligation, we take this stance. But if the text were definitive, we would not care.
The questioner : The command is definitive in its indication of obligation.
The Shaykh : No, it is not definitive; for two reasons: First, there are many commands... for specific matters, yet... Ahmad, or as Imam Ahmad (may Allah have mercy on him) said regarding dyeing: "I fear it may be an obligation." And this is also part of the etiquette we follow from the Imam... there was no precedent for it among the Salaf. And for a reason, we are called Salafis, and we do not say something that has not been said before. Even if the principles might support saying so, when the text is not definitive but rather indicative, the indicative meaning of this command—what we are discussing here—conflicts with the fact that no one from the Salaf stated that the apparent meaning of the command... indicates obligation.
The questioner : ... .
The Shaykh : It is correct, and I said that a person, for example, has not reached... meaning, for example, when we rule on... a certain matter, and among the innovations is... what Imam al-Shatibi called "additional innovation"... in its example, it has no... except that it did not occur among the Salaf, or the Salaf did not practice it. But we do not have a text from the Salaf stating that this is an innovation or that this is disliked or the like. However, the practice of leaving this innovation that some people introduced suggests to us that this... was only in the era of the Salaf...
Source
www.al-albany.com
The Arabic text is copied verbatim from the original source, without any edits.