A young man wants to let his beard grow, but his father forbids him from doing so; what should he do?

The questioner : The second question, may Allah honor you:The Shaykh : I am a young man who loves to let my beard grow, but my father forbids me from doing so; what should I do?

The Shaykh : As for what you should do, you know best; as for what the ruling is, we may know better. Because what you do? I do not know, for a person may be tested with a matter involving disobedience to the Shari'ah, and if he commits this disobedience, he may fall into another disobedience that is more dangerous than the first. So who is able to balance between this and that? Only the one who is tested. And so I said, he is the one who knows best. As for what the ruling is? The ruling, based on the well-known saying of the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him): , and from knowing the correct ruling regarding letting the beard grow, is that letting the beard grow is obligatory, and shaving the beard is a sin, indeed a major sin. From this and that, we conclude that it is obligatory for every Muslim to let his beard grow. As for this one who is an employee and his father forbids him, and that one whose boss or officer is tyrannical over him, and so on, these are personal matters in which no mufti can intervene. And whoever intervenes in them, negatively or positively, has exceeded his limit. Because if he tells him to shave, he has disobeyed the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him), and if he tells him not to shave, he may cause the personThe questioner : to fall into a problem greater than the problem of violating the hadith. Therefore, the matter must be left as the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) said: . In a place like this, this hadith is cited: . We issue the ruling that this is an obligatory matter, but if you implement it, will you fall into a greater problem? I give an example of this: perhaps this son cannot live outside his father's home, and he is in need of his affection and his tenderness, indeed his financial support. So if he disobeys him and follows the authentic hadith in this matter, his father will expel him from his home. If he is expelled from the home, he may fall into other problems that are greater than the first. Therefore, this person who is obligated must balance between what he is currently obligated to do, which is applying the hadith of the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) , and what he may anticipate that he might fall into if he implements the Shari'ah ruling. Because one of the principles of the Shari'ah is that if a Muslim falls between two sins or between two harms, he must choose the one that is less harmful and lighter in damage. The mufti cannot give an answer in such cases, ever; rather, he enlightensThe questioner : and gives him the ruling, then leaves the matter to him. And we say at the end: .