Advice to the one who shaves his beard to let it grow.

The Shaykh : He said—Allah the Exalted said: ; so as long as your Lord has bestowed His blessings upon you, and married you to a righteous daughter, if Allah wills, and you have protected yourself through her and she has protected herself through you, this requires gratitude from you to your Lord. It appears that you have heard from a group of people a promise, or something like a promise, that you would let your beard grow, which you are currently throwing to the ground. They are waiting for you to fulfill it. Is there an obstacle, or a reason, on your part? I believe there is an obstacle; it is not possible. I cannot imagine that you are a believing Muslim man who knows that letting the beard grow is obligatory and that shaving the beard makes one an open sinner, unless there is an obstacle there. But this obstacle—perhaps what comes to your mind is that when I assert there is an obstacle, you might interpret it as a material obstacle. It does not necessarily have to be a material obstacle; the obstacle might be psychological. There is an obstacle from the self, and it is the self that turns one away from the obedience of Allah, meaning following the commands of the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him). Otherwise, if our Lord had commanded us through our Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) to shave our beards and we did not shave, we would say: "By Allah, it needs a movement; we need to get a razor, a sharp, keen razor, and put our chin against the chin of our beard, and put our face in front of our mirror. It needs work." But the matter is the opposite; your Lord is telling you: "Just as I created it for you, leave it." Which is easier, this reality or the image we described? This is easier. So what is making us find the easy difficult and the difficult easy? There must be something, but the thing does not necessarily have to be material, as we said; it is psychological. Do not say: "There is nothing," because you would be being arrogant, because there is no effect without a cause, especially if the effect is contrary to the Shari'ah. Then it is...

The questioner : ... .

The Shaykh : Yes?

The questioner : ... .

The Shaykh : ...it will suffice. [The Shaykh laughs!]

The questioner : No, he will bear it.

Another questioner : ... .

The Shaykh : Yes, indeed. Yes, I told him: "Is there a reason?" He said: "There is no reason." I said to him: "That is not possible; there must be a reason." But I am interpreting his words now; I am telling him: "Perhaps he understood that there is a material reason, meaning that he is an employee, for example, and his boss, and so on. But no, there is a psychological reason; there is a psychological reason."

The questioner : Abu 'Abdullah needs to bear it...

Another questioner : Correct... his eye.

The Shaykh : My master, we need...