What is the ruling on plucking the hair from the arms and legs for women?

The questioner : What is the ruling on plucking the hair from the arms and legs for women?

The Shaykh : This is a problem of the present age. The basis for this issue is a verse and an authentic hadith. As for the verse, it is what our Lord (Blessed and Exalted is He) related in the story of Iblis and Allah’s expulsion of him from His mercy until the Day of Judgment, due to his whispering to our father Adam (peace be upon him). It relates that Iblis said, in retaliation against Adam and his descendants: . In this noble verse, it is explicitly stated that among the deeds of the accursed Iblis is that he inspires his enemy, man, to change the creation of Allah. Thus, changing the creation of Allah is obedience to Satan and disobedience to the Most Merciful. This verse is explicit text on this matter. Therefore, we say, so that the issue is clear in the minds: every change to the creation of Allah without permission from the Shari'ah is obedience to Satan, carrying out his threat, and disobedience to the Most Merciful. This is confirmed in the hadith I referred to, which is what came in "al-Sahihayn" from the hadith of Abdullah ibn Mas'ud (may Allah be pleased with him), who said: The Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) said: . In another narration, there is the phrase where he (peace and blessings be upon him) said: , .
The curse in this hadith fell upon these types. At the end, there is a very important phrase, which seems like an answer to a question that may arise in some minds. Some ask: Why is there this severity and this threat in a simple matter like taking some hair from the face or any part of the body that Allah (Blessed and Exalted is He) did not permit? The answer came at the end of the hadith: . With this phrase, which we can call the explanatory phrase, it is established that if any of this change occurs to a Muslim man or woman on his or her body for treatment and not for adornment and beauty, there is no blame on him or her for it; because he or she did not do or commit this change , as he (peace and blessings be upon him) said at the end of the hadith, but rather it is for healing and treatment.
Once we know this phrase, we return to detailing the statement into the individual elements of these phrases:
The first is: . In the language, as I have learned from linguistic books like "al-Qamus al-Muhit" by al-Fayruzabadi and others, "namas" (plucking eyebrows) is in the same pattern and meaning as "natf" (plucking). "Namas" and "natf" are one and the same meaning. If that is the case, and we add to this general linguistic meaning the explanation mentioned at the end of the hadith: , then we know that restricting the meaning of "natf" to the eyebrows only contradicts, first, the general meaning of "namas," and also contradicts the general explanatory phrase at the end of the hadith: . So, if a woman, for example, does not have thickness in her eyebrows, so she does not need to pluck them or pluck some of their sides, but she sees some hair on her cheeks and plucks it; this is called "namas" first, meaning plucking, and then it falls under the generality of his (peace be upon him) saying: . Therefore, there is no difference between plucking the eyebrows and plucking the hair that grows on the cheeks for women; let alone for men. This point must be returned to if time permits. Plucking what is on the cheeks for the sake of adornment and beautification is, first, plucking, and second, it falls under the bad intention mentioned in the verse: . This is a change to the creation of Allah (Blessed and Exalted is He), and then it falls under the generality of his (peace and blessings be upon him) saying: .
After this, we proceed with the rest of the hadith: . The "namisah" is the one who beautifies, and the "mutanammisah" is the one upon whom the plucking is performed. So the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him), as is his custom in many legal rulings, in order to realize: , cursed the woman who plucks her sister’s eyebrows, as he cursed the sister whose eyebrows are plucked; because they cooperate in doing what is wrong, which is changing the creation of Allah (Mighty and Majestic).
Then he (peace and blessings be upon him) said: . Tattooing, in my opinion, is known to you; it is the insertion of blue ink into a place on the skin. Here, the devil’s manipulation of the children of Adam is evident in all this change. Allah (Blessed and Exalted is He) says: . In a white, simple, beautiful skin, He is not pleased with it, so He pretends to disfigure what Allah created by inserting the needle and ink into the skin. In many of our countries, especially in Syria, among the farmers, you find the skin entirely changed from white to green or blue ink. Some of them specialize in drawing a lion holding a sword. Ignorances and darknesses, some upon others. So it is no wonder that the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) said: . Why? A final phrase comes: .
Then he said in that other addition: . The "wasilah" is, as we said, the beautifier who joins her sister’s hair with hair from another, and the "mustawasilah" is the one who requests that this joining be done to her. Also, the Messenger (peace be upon him) equated the "wasilah" with the "mustawasilah" in sin; because they cooperated in changing the creation of Allah (Blessed and Exalted is He). In my opinion, if any of these things were permissible to do, joining a woman’s hair that has fallen out would be closer to permissibility than prohibition. But when this hadith came, and its explanation at the end of the hadith: , it is not permissible for a woman to join her hair with hair from another, even if her hair has fallen out after it was a byword for its beauty and the adornment of women with it. It happened in the time of the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) that a woman married and the hair on her head fell out. Her mother came to the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) to ask his permission to join her daughter’s hair. He (peace and blessings be upon him) said: .
From here, it appears to us that it is not permissible, a fortiori, this innovation that has spread in many of the lands of Islam among men, let alone women; where they have started using the hair cap called the "wig." There is no doubt that this use is forbidden a fortiori; because it is a change to the creation of Allah (Blessed and Exalted is He). And if the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) disapproved of tufts of hair that a Muslim woman adds to her thinning hair, making it a change to the creation of Allah; rather, he made the exaggeration of a woman’s hair or her braids by stuffing or wrapping some rags in that hair so that it appears thick and abundant, the Messenger did not permit that, but rather called it deception. It came in "Sahih Muslim" that when Mu'awiyah (may Allah be pleased with him) came to Madinah and ascended the pulpit of the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him), he addressed the people and said: "Where are you, O people of Madinah, or O scholars of Madinah? And in his hand was a cap of cloth that women used to place on their hair at that time and wrap it around their hair. I heard the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) call this deception."
And truly, it is a name that fits its referent; because the woman who adopts that... meaning: from the rags that the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) disapproved of most severely, and he said: . Should it not be said that adopting this wig makes its wearer cursed a fortiori? Especially after women have specialized in buying multiple wigs; so on every day she appears with a new look on her head, sometimes with black hair, sometimes with golden hair, and sometimes with hair that has no basis in the creation of Allah; where it is composed of various colors, and so on. All of this and that is a change to the creation of Allah for what? For beauty. So he (peace and blessings be upon him) said: .
Then he said: This type of alteration appears to have been an old practice, and I do not know that this sin has been revived anew. The woman—and this is Satan’s manipulation of the children of Adam—may be created by Allah (Blessed and Exalted is He) with teeth like well-arranged pearls, which is beautiful, for it is the creation of Allah: . Yet she is not pleased with the creation of Allah. In the past, she would take a file and widen the space between the teeth until the tooth looked like this, resembling a dog’s fang, and this is what pleased her, while the creation of Allah did not please her. So she deserved the curse of the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him), whether she was the one subjected to it or the one who did it to her, and because of the cause .
Therefore, I say that ... mentioned at the beginning of this hadith includes every alteration of Allah’s creation without permission from the Lawgiver. So, regarding the question: if Allah created a woman with an arm full of hair, or a leg that is hairy, it is not permissible for her to change that, for Allah (Mighty and Majestic) does not create anything in vain . Perhaps you remember with me a hadith narrated by some of the compilers of the Sunan or the Musnads, in which the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) saw a man who had lengthened his lower garment, so he called out to him and said: . The man said: O Messenger of Allah, I am a hunchback. A hunchback is one whose legs are crooked; you know this. Usually, our Lord (Mighty and Majestic) creates every person with straight legs, but that man excused his lengthening of his lower garment by saying he wanted to cover this crookedness which he does not control, for Allah created him that way. When he excused himself to the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) by lengthening his lower garment to cover the crookedness of his legs, he said to him (peace and blessings be upon him)—and this is the point of the evidence—: .
This is a reality that the general public have overlooked, unfortunately; unfortunately, many, even some of the scholars, overlook it. We see among humans the white, the black, the brown, the yellow, and so on. Did Allah create this in vain? Far be it from Him. If we find a man who is hairy, or a woman who is hairy, this is the creation of Allah. If we find a woman with a beard—and we use the term as they say in Syria: *‘Allawiyyah*—a woman with a beard; what is strange about that? Our Lord (Mighty and Majestic) wants to remind the heedless, as He said in the Noble Qur’an: . So He created these forms, shapes, and colors. He created men and distinguished them from women with beards, but He may create a man without a beard. Do you think this, as the naturalists or the materialists say, was a natural formation, or was it a deliberate act of Allah (Blessed and Exalted is He), as we Muslims believe? The matter is so, without doubt. For people usually, when they become accustomed to something, overlook its wisdom and the Power that created it in that form. So our Lord (Mighty and Majestic) wants to remind His servants by creating for them things they are not accustomed to. He creates a man who is *kusaj* (beardless) and creates a woman with a beard. Do you think it is permissible for the beardless man to adopt a false beard in the manner of the British English lords, whose false traditions include shaving the beards with which Allah (Blessed and Exalted is He) adorned them, and then, when the time comes for the parliament to convene ... they adopt false beards and enter their parliament with them? This is the height of foolishness and ignorance, so there is no surprise in that; for as it is said, after disbelief there is no greater sin. But if a man is created by Allah *kusaj* like a woman, with no beard on his chin, is it permissible for him to adopt a false beard and restore the image of a man before men? The answer is: No. Why? Because he is altering the creation of Allah. And likewise, when Allah (Mighty and Majestic) showed us the alteration of the customary state among men, who have beards, by creating a man or more than one man without a beard, *kusaj* as we said earlier; likewise, Allah (Blessed and Exalted is He), by His Power and Wisdom, wants to show the women that He is Effective in what He wills. So here He created a woman with a beard. Subhan Allah! Is He not All-Seeing? It has happened. Is this your creation or the creation of your Lord? So it is obligatory for every Muslim to be pleased with what Allah has created for him, and not to change anything of His creation except with the permission of his Lord. What would you say if a man said: “I wish I were a woman,” or a woman said: “I wish I were a man”? Is this not an attempt to change the Sunnah of Allah (Mighty and Majestic) in His creation, while He is the One who said: , ?
This is sufficient.