Is it permissible for a woman to pluck some of the hair from her face?

The questioner : Regarding a woman, is it permissible for her to remove some of the hair from her face? And secondly, some scholars have permitted that revealing the face is lawful, while others have said that it is not permissible. Which is the more correct? May Allah reward you with good.

The Shaykh : Do you want me to start with the answer to the first issue, or the second?

The questioner : The first, then the second.

The Shaykh : What is the first one?

The questioner : Is it permissible for a woman to remove some of the hair from her face?

The Shaykh : The answer is that it is not permissible, due to the saying of the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) What concerns us from this hadith is the first phrase of it: The *namisah* is the one who plucks, and the *mutanammisah* is the one who is plucked. That is, here there is an agent and an object. There is the one who plucks, who is the beautician, or what are they called today?
The audience : Hairdressers.

The Shaykh : Hairdressers. And the second is the one who is plucked, the one who is the object. These two, because of their cooperation in the forbidden, which is forbidden with the strongest prohibition, were cursed by the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) in the first part of this authentic hadith: We said that the *namisah* is the one who plucks, and the word *namisah* is derived in the Arabic language from *namas*, which is plucking. You know that the Sunnah and the fitrah include trimming the mustache, letting the beard grow, and plucking the armpit hair. Plucking the armpit hair is part of the prescribed fitrah, but plucking hair other than the armpit, especially when it involves changing the creation of Allah, is forbidden with the strongest prohibition. And I want to draw your attention to the entirety of this authentic hadith...

The questioner : Peace be upon you.

The Shaykh : And upon you be peace. Because this completion will cast a clear light on a reality that you have always heard the opposite of from sources that are often trusted. When he (peace and blessings be upon him) said: to the end of the hadith. He said at the end: This phrase: is a causal phrase. It is very rare that we find a causal explanation for rulings in the legal texts, because Allah (Mighty and Majestic) wanted us to receive them as He said: Why? Like this. But here, the cause is explained: Why did Allah curse the *namasat* and the *mutanammisat*? He said: So we must pause here for a moment. A woman, let alone a man, Allah created her with eyebrows that are joined, with no whiteness between them, or Allah created her with thick eyebrows. She is not pleased with the creation of Allah. From here the curse begins. She stands before the mirror, or she entrusts herself to one who has made the disobedience of Allah her profession, and she separates and spreads out the space between her eyebrows, and she thins her eyebrows, and she may even remove her eyebrows entirely by plucking, and then applies a soft dye according to her precise intellect, which is almost dead. Why does this woman make this change to herself? Because she was not pleased with the creation of Allah, so she wants to change the creation of Allah. And Allah (Mighty and Majestic) says explicitly in the Qur'an: And our Lord (Mighty and Majestic) narrated about Iblis, who was cursed until the Day of Judgment, that he set himself as an enemy to the children of Adam and said: So, this one, or this person, who changes the creation of Allah is obedient to Satan and disobedient to the Most Merciful. Therefore, he deserved a share of the curse of Allah for Satan. So he (peace and blessings be upon him) expressed that in this authentic hadith: Why do they pluck? Changing the creation of Allah for beauty, for adornment. That is, as if the language of their state, as the scholars say, "the language of the state is more eloquent than the language of speech." Among the authentic supplications established from the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) is to say: or: If our Lord, as He said in the noble Qur'an: Then when He created the male and the female, He did not create the male in vain and the female in vain, but for a profound wisdom. Therefore, what is forbidden with the most severe prohibition is what we sometimes read in some newspapers or magazines, especially there in Egypt, the land of wonders and oddities, that so-and-so underwent an operation; he was a young man and became a woman, or it may be the reverse. These operations that change the creation of Allah are among the most severely forbidden matters in the religion of Allah. For this reason, the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) said in this hadith: A strange matter. Our Lord created the human being with beautiful, clean skin, white or brown, etc. Whatever pleases this person, whether male or female, this pure color, he injects a special medicine into it. What is it? Tattooing. So he (peace and blessings be upon him) said: In Syria, we have tattooing in a very strange way. You see a Muslim man performing wudu, and you see an image of a lion drawn here, holding a sword, things from the imaginations and very strange superstitions. In another hadith, it was added: Now, among the afflictions of the present age is the wig, where the woman is like Satan; every hour she has a different look. One hour you see her hair is golden, one hour you see her hair is black as the dark night, one hour you see her hair is... shapes and colors, changing the creation of Allah. She is certainly not pleased with the creation of Allah. Her hair may be black and she does not like it; she wants golden hair. Her hair may be golden and she does not like it. All of this falls under the curse, a type mentioned by the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) in this hadith, which we have not seen in the present age. It seems it was from their old misguidance. He said: Among the cursed in the hadith are the *falajat*. What does *falajat* mean? This is also from Satan's tampering with the children of Adam. Our Lord, as you all know, created for the human being, both males and females, teeth arranged side by side like strung pearls. She is not pleased with that, so what did she do? She would take a file and spread out, meaning separate, between one tooth and another, so that some of the teeth would be like the fangs of a dog. This is what pleased her, so the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) cursed her. He gathers all these misforties with this wise cause: So, the Muslim woman who is committed to the Shari'ah of Allah (Blessed and Exalted is He) and who fears Allah (Mighty and Majestic) must be pleased with the decree of Allah in her. First of all, He created her as a woman and made the man a maintainer over her. First of all, she should not wish and say, "Oh, if only I were a man, so I could control the women!" This is contrary to the will of Allah (Mighty and Majestic), which is called in the language of scholars the cosmic will: So Allah created the male and the female. First of all, she must be pleased with the reality of femineness that our Lord (Mighty and Majestic) created her with. Second, she must be pleased with her appearance as Allah (Mighty and Majestic) created her, whether her eyebrows are joined and connected, or separated and thin, or thick. She should leave them as Allah (Mighty and Majestic) created them. If she does anything to change them, the curse mentioned in this authentic hadith encompasses her. We gave the example of the eyebrows because this example is agreed upon by the scholars. Let us go down a second time. A woman grows hair on her cheeks. Is it permissible for her to pluck it? It is said and said, and you must have heard something of that. I think this is the reason for directing such a question. It is said that it is not permissible, and this is the truth without doubt. And it is said that it is permissible because the intended meaning of the hadith is only plucking the eyebrows. This is an encroachment on the generality of the text, where he (peace and blessings be upon him) said "the *namasat*." A woman takes a tweezer and does this. What is said of her in language? She plucked a hair. Another woman takes a tweezer and does this on her cheek. What is said of her in language? She plucked. A woman takes a tweezer to her leg or her arm and does this. What is said of her? She plucked, she plucked, she plucked. Wherever there is plucking, there is *namas*, and wherever there is *namas*, there is plucking. Therefore, it is not permissible to take anything from the hair of the body of a man or a woman except by permission from Allah or His Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him). And these things we mentioned are among the things that Allah (Mighty and Majestic) has not permitted, unlike the previous example, which is plucking the armpit hair. That is from the characteristics of the fitrah, as it came in the authentic hadith. So, when we mention this hadith or hear it, we must keep in mind two realities, and this is the summary of what we mentioned. The first reality is that *namas* in language is not specific to a place on the body, but it includes the entire body. The other reality is that the cause of the curse is changing the creation of Allah. So wherever this cause is, the effect, which is the prohibition, is present. This is the summary of what you asked about, which is your first question. Is this enough so that we can answer your second question?

The questioner : If a man swears by divorce that his wife is divorced if she does not shape her eyebrows, is she divorced if she does not do it?

The Shaykh : She should not comply with him. She should not comply with him, and he must expiate for his oath.

The questioner : Even if a woman has a mustache like a man's.

The Shaykh : And a beard, just to be safe! We say, on this occasion, that this question actually reminds us of something: some scholars said that if a woman grows a beard, it is permissible for her to shave it. I say—and I am not saying anything new—that it is not permissible for her to shave her beard. You must go back with me to some texts from the Book that I mentioned to you earlier: When Allah created a woman with a beard, was this by her creation or by her Lord's creation? By her Lord's creation. So why does this woman want to change the creation of Allah? I say, contrary to those who follow a deviant path from the Shari'ah, we know of many men who do not grow a beard. In the Arabic language, this is called *kawsaj*, meaning a beardless man who reaches forty, fifty, or sixty years of age and dies without a beard growing. Do you think it is permissible for this beardless man to wear a wig specifically for a beard? The answer is no. Why? For the same reason. Just as Allah may create a woman who grows a beard, so too our Lord, Mighty and Majestic, creates a man who does not grow a beard. This was not in vain; it was for a profound wisdom. This is a refutation of the naturalists who attribute everything contrary to nature to a "natural anomaly." They say it is an anomaly, a natural anomaly. There are no natural anomalies at all; rather, it is as the Exalted said: He has established two measures in men and women: a general measure, where men have beards and women do not, and a specific measure, where a man has no beard and a woman has a beard. This was not in vain. Why? Our Lord wants to show His servants that He is effective in what He wills. He is the One who decreed the first measure, making most men bearded and most women beardless, and He decreed the second measure to alert the heedless. They say this is nature, but nature is what created the beard for the man and did not create it for the woman. So our Lord strikes these naturalists by creating for them a woman with a beard and a man without a beard. The point is that the woman who shaves her beard and throws it on the ground is like the man who wears a beard that Allah did not create for him, in the manner of the English lords whose custom is to shave their beards. When the time comes to enter Parliament, they put on borrowed beards; they put them on when they enter and take them off when they leave. This is the way of the disbelieving British people. So we must keep the creation of Allah as Allah created it, except by the permission of Allah. For example, the five things of fitrah: do we leave the beard, even if we drag it on the ground? The answer is no. Do we let the mustache grow until the hair enters the mouth with the food, as the Druze and others like them, the Leninists and Stalinists, do? The answer is no. Is this changing the creation of Allah? The answer is: by the permission of Allah, for He said: These five things are mentioned in the authentic hadith agreed upon by al-Bukhari and Muslim, and in a hadith of Muslim: which mentions letting the beard grow. So any change not permitted by Allah, Mighty and Majestic, falls under the general meaning of: I want to advise our brothers present not to apply this ruling only to their wives, but to apply it to themselves. For example, if one of us has a wife whom Allah created with thick eyebrows and she wants to adorn herself for him, he should tell her, "No, this is not permissible because it is a change of the creation of Allah." I advise those who have understood this legal ruling—and as the saying goes, "walls have ears"—that the wife should say to her husband, "You are changing the creation of Allah more than I am. How? You shave your beard." So I want you to hear something you have not heard in your lives, and you need to understand it. May Allah make your life sweet.
Al-Halabi : .

The Shaykh : May He make it sweet. What does "make it sweet" mean? It means He inspires you with a righteous deed that you will do until the end of your life.
Abu Layla : May Allah reward you with good.

The Shaykh : O Allah, amen. If the woman is considered one who changes the creation of Allah by messing with the hairs on her eyelids, what is the state of the man who messes with his beard and throws it on the ground? So beware of contradicting yourselves. Then the common people say a phrase taken from the Noble Qur'an: "The horse is from the horseman." I know many men who want their wives to observe the Shari'ah hijab, and where is thisThe questioner : the one who asked me the second question? Many men want their women to observe the Shari'ah hijab, even covering the face, which is among the virtues of deeds but not among the obligatory deeds. Covering the face of the woman is among the virtues of deeds, not the obligatory ones. Many men want their wives to observe this complete hijab so that nothing of her is seen at all, not even her fingernails, as Imam Ahmad said, even in prayer. But this man who wants this complete Shari'ah hijab from his wife has clothing that is not Shari'ah-compliant. So one who lacks something cannot give it. We must fix ourselves before we try to fix others, for Allah says, and this is the basis for those who say "the horse is from the horseman":