Benefits of the Hadith: (… and Ibn 'Umar, may Allah be pleased with him and his father, when he performed Hajj or 'Umrah, would grasp his beard and take whatever was in excess) and it contains a detailed discussion on the issue of taking what exceeds a handful from the beard.

The Shaykh :"And Ibn 'Umar, may Allah be pleased with him and his father, when he performed Hajj or 'Umrah, would grasp his beard and take whatever was in excess" Ibn 'Umar, may Allah be pleased with him and his father, when he performed Hajj or 'Umrah, held that part of the completion of humility before Allah the Mighty and Majestic is that, just as a person removes his hair, he should remove some of the second beauty, because the head is a beauty for a person. For this reason, in the past, they would groom it, arrange it, make it beautiful, wash it, and clean it, adorning themselves with it. Likewise, the beard is a beauty for a man. So he, may Allah be pleased with him, held that part of the completion of humility before Allah the Mighty and Majestic and worship of Him is to remove from his beard what beautifies him, just as he removed what beautified him from his head by shaving it. So he would grasp his beard, and whatever was in excess, meaning whatever exceeded the handful, he would take.
There is no doubt that this was an exercise of independent legal reasoning (ijtihad) on his part, may Allah be pleased with him, and a person who exercises independent legal reasoning may err or may be correct. For this reason, the scholars, may Allah have mercy on them, differed regarding this action of Ibn 'Umar: whether it can be used as evidence and it is said that it is permissible for a person to take what exceeds a handful, or whether it cannot be used as evidence? Some of the scholars said that it can be used as evidence, and the later followers of Imam Ahmad followed this path. So the well-known position in their school of jurisprudence is that it is permissible for a person to take what exceeds a handful, citing the action of Ibn 'Umar as proof. And some of the scholars said: No, it is not permissible to cite the action of Ibn 'Umar as proof, because the action of Ibn 'Umar is an action that occurred from one who is not infallible, while the words of the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) are words that came from one who is infallible. And the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) commanded to let the beard grow and let it hang down absolutely, without excluding anything. So the implication of complete following of the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) is that we do not take anything from it.
If someone were to say: Ibn 'Umar, may Allah be pleased with him and his father, is known for his strict following of the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him), and he is also one of the narrators of this hadith, which is about letting the beard grow. So he, may Allah be pleased with him, is more knowledgeable about the matter than others because he is the narrator of the hadith, and the narrator of the hadith is more knowledgeable about its meaning. And in terms of action and application, he is more deserving than others, because we know that he was eager to follow the reports (athar) of the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) to such an extent that, when traveling, if he reached the place where the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) had stopped to urinate, he would stop and urinate, out of his intense striving to follow the Sunnah? Then the answer to that is said: As for knowledge, we know that Ibn 'Umar, may Allah be pleased with him and his father, may be more knowledgeable than others about what he narrated. But as long as the wording is before us, and there is no exception in it, and the form that Ibn 'Umar, may Allah be pleased with him and his father, performs implies an exception if it were permissible, then since nothing has come from the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) in his verbal or practical Sunnah that indicates permissibility, we do not permit it. And we do not know that Ibn 'Umar, may Allah be pleased with him and his father, used to do that during the lifetime of the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) so that we could say this is from the category of the approval of the revelation. Rather, what appears to us is that he did it after that. This is what appears, because if the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) had been with him, if he had been with the Messenger, the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) would have performed Hajj and 'Umrah and the people would have followed him.
Then we say: If we want to take the opinion of Ibn 'Umar with precision, we do not say it is permissible absolutely, but we only permit it according to the action of Ibn 'Umar: when we perform Hajj or 'Umrah. Meaning, if we remain without performing Hajj or 'Umrah for ten years, we do not take anything, because Ibn 'Umar used to do it when he performed Hajj, and it was not said: "And Ibn 'Umar used to take," but rather it was said: "When he performed Hajj or 'Umrah." So if we want to apply what Ibn 'Umar did, we do not have the right to exceed the state in which he did this thing, which is the state of Hajj or 'Umrah. So the stronger position in this issue is that we do not take anything from it, neither in Hajj nor in 'Umrah, due to the generality of the evidence indicating the command to let it grow.