What is the ruling on beautifying and straightening teeth?
Machine translationRead the Arabic original
The questioner: Okay, what is the ruling on beautifying or straightening teeth, and with the teeth themselves...?
The Shaykh : He said, the Exalted:[Al-Qasas 28:68] You must have read or heard, or combined reading and hearing, His saying, peace and blessings be upon him: , The ones who file their teeth are an old fashion; we hope it does not return today. A woman would come to a tooth-filer to widen the space between her teeth, where the tooth is close to the tooth as we see it in Allah’s creation. She would not be pleased with Allah’s creation, so she would separate them. She was cursed. Why? Because she changes Allah’s creation. This is the question I mentioned: what does she do with her teeth?
The questioner: She straightens them or beautifies them.
The Shaykh : She straightens them or beautifies them. It is beautifying what Allah created, meaning it is changing what Allah created. This is not permissible, because there is nothing better than Allah’s creation. I mean, when our Lord created a short man and another tall man, and other types between that and this, this was not in vain; it was for a profound wisdom. Likewise, when He created the male and the female. And today they try, for example, to turn a man into a woman and a woman into a man. All of this is an interference in Allah’s will and in His cosmic sunnah. It is as if the meaning of the speech of these people is: You created, O Lord, but You did not perfect the creation. You created, O Lord, but You did not beautify the creation. This is disbelief itself. But I know that those who change Allah’s creation, this is not the language of their state or their speech; I mean, they are accused, and by Allah, that they did not perfect the creation. But the language of their state means this. I mean, does not the man, when he stands in front of the mirror and takes the razor and shaves his beard and smooths his cheeks until he makes them like the cheeks of a woman, does this not mean his speech is that...? Allah’s creation. And peace be upon you. And therefore, the one who does this is cursed. So, beautifying the teeth, filing them, cooling them, beautifying them, all of this falls under changing Allah’s creation.
The questioner: They do not file them or cool them or anything like that; rather, they return this tooth to the back.
The Shaykh : What is the place? I am not researching the tool, the type of tool, the type of device. Our research is in the result, the result of the type of device. What is its result? This is like this, whether by tool or not. Look now at an example: The Messenger, peace and blessings be upon him, mentioned in some authentic hadiths:. Okay, now there is soft cauterizing, cauterizing with electricity. At first, he takes the iron. Maybe a woman in a place on her body takes the electric iron, for example. Did you see the iron from before or not?
The questioner : No.
The Shaykh : Today there is cauterizing for the teeth, very soft. It cauterizes the place of the wound or something similar. All of this is called cauterizing, and as it was said: "The causes are many, but death is one." One kills by bullet, another by bomb, a third by sword, a fourth by knife, and so on. Is this killing permissible? No, killing is not permissible. So, whether the killing happens by this or by that, killing is forbidden. And likewise... the means do not concern us at all as much as the goal concerns us. So, changing Allah’s creation is not permissible. And among that is a tooth that is protruding from the other teeth. They perform an operation on it so that it returns between the teeth. This tooth is protruding... it is not a natural state, because this is Allah’s creation. And therefore, everything remains as Allah created it, except that one case is excluded, which is if there is harm. For example, a man has a long tooth, and every time he eats, he bites his lip. So, he shortens this tooth. It is not a second adjustment; it is shortened so that the harm resulting from it is removed. But for the sake of beautification, no. And the examples are many, and very many. A man has a large nose, and people look at it, and by Allah, his nose is ugly. So he comes and performs a cosmetic operation, and his nose becomes nice. It is not permissible, because Allah is the one who created this human being... his nose... and He created another human being whose nose is small, like this, protruding, etc. This and that, all of it is not permissible. A man has a nose tip that is tilted to the right or left, and he performs a surgical operation. It is not permissible. But a man is injured in an accident and his nose is crushed and becomes flat. He goes and performs a surgical operation to return the nose to its natural position. This is permissible, because what happened to him is not from Allah’s creation.
The Shaykh : He said, the Exalted:
And your Lord creates what He wills and chooses; not for them was the choice. Exalted is Allah and high above what they associate with Him.
وَرَبُّكَ يَخْلُقُ مَا يَشَاءُ وَيَخْتَارُ مَا كَانَ لَهُمُ الْخِيَرَةُ سُبْحَانَ اللَّهِ وَتَعَالَى عَمَّا يُشْرِكُونَAllah has cursed the women who pluck their eyebrows, and those who have them plucked, and the women who tattoo, and those who have themselves tattooed, and the women who file their teeth, changing Allah’s creation for beauty.
لَعَنَ اللهُ النامصات والمتنمِّصات ، والواشمات والمستوشمات ، والفالجات المغيِّرات لخلق الله بالحسنThe questioner: She straightens them or beautifies them.
The Shaykh : She straightens them or beautifies them. It is beautifying what Allah created, meaning it is changing what Allah created. This is not permissible, because there is nothing better than Allah’s creation. I mean, when our Lord created a short man and another tall man, and other types between that and this, this was not in vain; it was for a profound wisdom. Likewise, when He created the male and the female. And today they try, for example, to turn a man into a woman and a woman into a man. All of this is an interference in Allah’s will and in His cosmic sunnah. It is as if the meaning of the speech of these people is: You created, O Lord, but You did not perfect the creation. You created, O Lord, but You did not beautify the creation. This is disbelief itself. But I know that those who change Allah’s creation, this is not the language of their state or their speech; I mean, they are accused, and by Allah, that they did not perfect the creation. But the language of their state means this. I mean, does not the man, when he stands in front of the mirror and takes the razor and shaves his beard and smooths his cheeks until he makes them like the cheeks of a woman, does this not mean his speech is that...? Allah’s creation. And peace be upon you. And therefore, the one who does this is cursed. So, beautifying the teeth, filing them, cooling them, beautifying them, all of this falls under changing Allah’s creation.
The questioner: They do not file them or cool them or anything like that; rather, they return this tooth to the back.
The Shaykh : What is the place? I am not researching the tool, the type of tool, the type of device. Our research is in the result, the result of the type of device. What is its result? This is like this, whether by tool or not. Look now at an example: The Messenger, peace and blessings be upon him, mentioned in some authentic hadiths:
The best of what you treat yourselves with is cupping and cauterizing with fire, and He forbade my ummah from cauterizing.
خير ما تداويتم به الحجامة والكيُّ بالنار ، وأنهى أمَّتي عن الكيِّThe questioner : No.
The Shaykh : Today there is cauterizing for the teeth, very soft. It cauterizes the place of the wound or something similar. All of this is called cauterizing, and as it was said: "The causes are many, but death is one." One kills by bullet, another by bomb, a third by sword, a fourth by knife, and so on. Is this killing permissible? No, killing is not permissible. So, whether the killing happens by this or by that, killing is forbidden. And likewise... the means do not concern us at all as much as the goal concerns us. So, changing Allah’s creation is not permissible. And among that is a tooth that is protruding from the other teeth. They perform an operation on it so that it returns between the teeth. This tooth is protruding... it is not a natural state, because this is Allah’s creation. And therefore, everything remains as Allah created it, except that one case is excluded, which is if there is harm. For example, a man has a long tooth, and every time he eats, he bites his lip. So, he shortens this tooth. It is not a second adjustment; it is shortened so that the harm resulting from it is removed. But for the sake of beautification, no. And the examples are many, and very many. A man has a large nose, and people look at it, and by Allah, his nose is ugly. So he comes and performs a cosmetic operation, and his nose becomes nice. It is not permissible, because Allah is the one who created this human being... his nose... and He created another human being whose nose is small, like this, protruding, etc. This and that, all of it is not permissible. A man has a nose tip that is tilted to the right or left, and he performs a surgical operation. It is not permissible. But a man is injured in an accident and his nose is crushed and becomes flat. He goes and performs a surgical operation to return the nose to its natural position. This is permissible, because what happened to him is not from Allah’s creation.
Source
www.al-albany.com
The Arabic text is copied verbatim from the original source, without any edits.