Are women allowed to cut their hair 'short'?

It is perfectly legitimate for a Muslim woman to cut her hair short. Abu Salamah b. Abd al-Rahman narrates: “The wives of the Prophet used to cut their hair until it came just below their ears.” (Muslim) However, the Prophet forbade women from shaving their heads (al-Tirmidhi). Where the shar'i maxim goes that a thing is permitted unless there's a prohibition that states otherwise, cutting one's hair to varying lengths is fine as long as it is not shaved off.

The rest of this article summarily discusses some important points for consideration:

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Imaan Boosters and Softeners

Amongst many, religious culture and cultivation tends to centre on imaan boosters: perceived short term-fixes that leave people on a religious ‘high’ for a few hours (or at least what they perceive the feeling to be), after which it evaporates and promptly returns the person to their initial state. Due to the superficial nature of such cultivation, there is a counter-productivity inherent in this way of doing things. Amongst them is that being interested in religion boils down to the amount of videos that are viewed on YouTube and the number of speakers being followed on social media. A few lessons that offer a basic commentary on al-Nawawi’s forty hadith offers the seeming notion of ‘higher’ religious education, or at least something substantial, and provides the consolation that an effort is being made to obtain some religion, or more egregiously, that it’s acceptable now to form and advocate personal religious opinions. For others, a few tajweed classes suffice, but learning how to make guttural sounds doesn’t exactly offer action-guiding principles. Additionally, given the status and/or capacity of local religious clerics and imams, people often turn to online outlets to look for something more substantial where they find consoling rhetoric that seems to resonate by offering something relevant to their lives. If lay personalities online offer what they propose to be major religious concepts in a tweet or three minute clips on YouTube, why would viewers assume there’s more to it? This all then reduces religious activity either to rituals or watching something, yet does little to identify and remedy the specific religious issues an individual distinctively faces.

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Are Muslims the chosen people?

There was a time when the Children of Israel were the chosen people of God (2:47) and the special status, beginning with Abraham, continued up until Christ (2:124). Thereafter, specific people/nations/ethnicities were favoured no more, and instead, divine favour fell upon those committed to revelation. The Prophet informed: “God has a cohort (like close family) from amongst mankind…They are the people of the Qur’an, they are God’s people and His elect.” (Ahmad, Ibn Majah)

God himself told us,

We gave the scripture as a heritage to Our chosen servants…
Qur'an 35:32

I understand that for many people, this sounds like one of those generic posts, ones that often tell us to simply utter a portion of the Qur'an (whilst not understanding it) and that somehow we’ll all then be special. As I’ve shown elsewhere, this is not true and neither revelation itself nor the intellect attests to this.

I also sympathise with the view, although rarely acknowledged, that many regard the Qur’an as just too simple to provide answers/guidance/solutions to most things in isolation, and thus they don’t derive much out of it because they subconsciously regard it as too simple or generic (as abstract theological statements). In their limited experiences, when they see the Qur'an discussed at some depth its overly academic and directly irrelevant to everyday life. The latter point is also why people then practice Islam (or see religious interpretation) in the abstract as well. And where things are more grassroots, preachers seek to get people to go through religious motions rather than meaningfully engage with God ritualising everything, and whilst intentions may be sincere, such an approach is clearly misinformed.

Again, whilst I sympathise, I’m saying that simply calling yourself a Muslim or affirming abstract theological sentiments doesn’t make you ‘chosen’ or special. Going through motions might keep you out of trouble, but that isn’t what God ultimately intended from his guidance (and it’s a very low bar to set). Subservience (the verbal noun of aslama) is a lived phenomenon and only God’s word describes how to live it. Many rely on perpetually changing currents to give their lives value and meaning. This is a grave mistake, and like the many (eventually) informed believers I meet inform me (many of them activists), a lot of time is wasted and little personally achieved.

Fads come and go, social/religious causes build traction and fade away, ideologies catch hold and are discarded, nations rise and fall. But the living God, Creator and Sustainer of all is ever-present and eternal, and so too are His words. No matter the state of a perpetually changing world, the Most High and His guidance shall remain relevant, and the same can be said of absolutely nothing else.

Debaters, social media personalities, religious celebrities, young sectarian zealots all have their moment - in the vast majority of cases, it all dies out and they grow older getting on with their personal lives. In the end it is those who never sought such things, but simply a commitment to decency, righteous conduct, and an engagement with revelation: living it, teaching it, and advocating it, that ultimately endure and prove their utility until the very end. Have you heard of anyone except advocates of what God has revealed still proving their utility to believers into their 70s, 80s or 90s? Be from those people, from their gatherings, their cohorts, their active supporters and their circles. Don’t wait to figure this out until years down the line. Think maturely and be an early bird.

Is it not time for believers to humble their hearts to the remembrance of God and the Truth that has been revealed, and not to be like those who received the Scripture before them, whose time was extended but whose hearts hardened and many of whom were disobedient?
Qur'an 57:16

May God guide us all and aid us to be inspired to be His elect.


“Good luck!” (Is saying it haram?)

I have been increasingly asked whether the widespread expression ‘good luck’ is impermissible to use, and whilst I was initially surprised that it was even a topic of debate, I could empathise that the godly might be anxious when told that it is impermissible, based on the notion that luck is based on chance, and that it is God who determines all things - things do not happen outside the decree of the Most High.

But does the term ‘good luck’ denote or even infer a rejection of God’s decree? And must God’s power of decree be made explicit in all linguistic expressions?

Not really.

A brief explanation:

‘Good luck’ is merely an expression in the English language which confers the hope of success and advantageous outcome. Any inference beyond these simply depends on who is saying it. To assume anything more from this expression would be linguistic incompetence and unfamiliarity with how phrases or expressions inherently work. To misappropriate the English to impose upon it Islamic theology is misplaced. Yes, the expression can be intended to mean the desire for success as a random consequence, but nobody uses it with this staunchly intended meaning. In fact it’s simply a shortened way to say: "I hope it goes well."

Expressions are not simply the literal meanings of words that have been put together, they usually take on a different meaning. "He’s the bomb!", "What’s up?", "bee in a bonnet", "whatever the weather" etc. are all expressions that move beyond any literal meaning of the individual words. Furthermore, like with any linguistic term, in any language, it is about the meaning and intent inherent within the phrase. And where a word or phrase can synonymously mean several things, context dictates how it is taken.

In Arabic, there are a number of expressions that intimate what a Muslim would mean by good luck, one that is widespread is "bil-tawfiq". Now the expression literally means: to bring together in agreement. Where a Muslim might say it as an empathetic expression, it suggests the desire for God to facilitate good, but without explicit mention of God. In explaining 11:88, Al-Qurtubi put it that Tawfiq is al-rushd, that is, to be advantageously subjected to God’s agency, which is inherently what believers mean when they say ‘good luck’ in English. Notably, the expression isn’t a supplication, and I have never met (nor heard of) a scholar who opined that rather than saying bil-tawfiq one ought to make an explicit supplication - in fact to make this point would probably be considered quite sanctimonious. But as we see with a number of (inflated) issues in the west, self-righteous indignation often becomes the norm.

Another word that might be loosely translated as luck (with cognisance of God’s agency) is hadzh الحظ which literally means share or lot. It means, where used to denote advantage, to get a good share or lot of good outcomes. This word, amongst other places, appears at the end of 28:79, where God tells us that ‘those whose aim was the life of this world said, “If only we had been given something like what Qarun has been given: he really is a very fortunate man.”’

Likewise, we use terms such as fortunately and unfortunately, all of which could as equally be argued to denote fortune, i.e. luck. Even where it might be argued that these are being used in the descriptive sense, that is in looking back at a situation and describing it, the notion of luck (or lack of it) remains. There are also prescriptive forms, such as "it would be fortunate if…" To my knowledge, no one seems to have qualms with such a statement because they intuitively understand what is meant, without the etymological pedantry that is unreflective of popular usage. Going even further, one could argue that we shouldn’t include the word pig in guinea pig because a pig is impure which isn’t true of a guinea pig, and so on. The point is very simple, and as the Hanbali usuli Sulaiman al-Tufi put it, ‘words are not intended for their own sake, but to manifest meanings.’

Beyond expressions or phrases, there are also words, such as coincidence, which holds a plethora of connotations, and could denote randomness although no Muslim seeks to negate God’s agency when using it. When a believer uses the term coincidence, he merely means that it seems human agency seemingly had little to do with something, whilst affirming all things to be determined by Allah. In fact, Muslim usage of the term might be held as an affirmation of qadr (divine decree) and an expression of its wondrous nature, that God’s will came to pass in a way that was entirely removed from human intent.

When a believer says ‘good luck’ they simply express a hope for success, fully aware that success or failure is determined by God. In essence, the sentiment is: ‘I hope for your success’ with the ellipsis that "may God make it happen".

But wouldn’t it simply be better to make a supplication, such as ‘May God give you success’?

Not necessarily. It is perfectly valid to express empathy (and well wishing) to someone in a linguistic form that isn’t supplicatory. For example, there are several hadith in which the Prophet expressed his hope that a sahabi would attain membership of a given successful cohort, saying: "and I hope you will be from amongst them" and evidently felt little linguistic need to make clear in that moment the he hoped that it was God who would decree such a thing. Given that it was the Prophet saying it, the godly sentiment would be obvious, just as when a believer says good luck, the same would be assumed to be true.

Another relevant case study might be the prophetic compellation (as related by Ibn Abbas) to the sickly, "Not to worry, a purification - if God wills it." (al-Bukhari) It might be argued that the ending here denotes that it must be ascribed to God. However, some points to consider:

  1. The statement "Not to worry, a purification" presents as descriptive and so would have been taken by the sahabi as informative. However, the Prophet wasn’t informing him that it had occurred but expressing a hope, so by including "if God wills it" the Prophet made clear that it was a hope (i.e. non-grammatically supplicative), and not an inevitable occurrence.
  2. It is also telling that "Not to worry, a purification" meant that Prophet did not need to spell out that Allah was the source of that purification, that through the illness it was God that forgave sin. Again, the sentiment coming from a believer, and especially the messenger of God, made that clear.

Is it better to stay away from saying ‘good luck’ out of caution? Well, only for the one in doubt. If one isn’t in doubt, then there is nothing to be cautious about. Thus, if a person prefers not to use the phrase then that is perfectly fine, but to pontificate to others or to inaccurately evangelise on its impermissibility is severely misplaced.

I'm aware that I've delved far too deeply into this, granting a trivial issue more than it is worth. However, I have done so to demonstrate how simple issues can spiral out of control when some get “a bee in their bonnet” (another non-literal expression!) over something that really isn’t that deep, and going over the top by making it great cause for debate. This issue is a good example of the Prophetic caution, "The most criminal of Muslims are those who enquire into those things that haven’t been made haram, but then become haram because of their excessive questioning." (al-Bukhari and Muslim)

To say or not to say ‘good luck’ really isn’t that deep. But if you would like some brain food, read up on meaning in the philosophy of language, and sections on الألفاظ والمعاني in usul al-fiqh.

And God knows all.


Eid al Ad’ha – Celebrating Guidance

Delivered at Kingston Mosque, 2017.


Convert or Revert?

In the English language, the noun convert refers to a person who has changed his/her faith. The word revert has no theological connotation; it isn't used as a noun and as a verb simply means to return to a previous state. Applying it to those who submit to God and accept the prophethood of His final messenger is not only a linguistic aberration, but also theologically incorrect. It is essentially an unsound understanding of shar’ī sources.

Here are a few brief reasons:

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"What is the ruling on…?” or "What's the strongest opinion…?”

Often, when lay people ask this question they assume there's simply one objective answer. For those that do, here are some considerations:

This question usually concerns fiqh issues, the vast majority of which are open to sound interpretations (i.e. within certain parameters). On the majority of issues any response will not be definitive as there will be a number of valid opinions (i.e. ways of looking at it). So when you ask "what is the ruling on x?" what you're actually getting at is: "what is your opinion on what God might have said on x?" So generally, when someone is asking about a ruling on an issue they're seeking the scholar's insight and view on what God might be saying about a specific scenario. One of the reasons fiqh has become so polarising (whilst it wasn't so in earlier times) is because of fundamental mistakes people make in understanding the nature of fiqh and what jurists actually do.

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QSS 1: Faith, religion, and meaning

For the first #QuranSessions seminar, join us to learn what it means to believe, what religion is, and the idea that everything God has told us has meaning and purpose.

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Hijab, male scholars and society

When a male scholar speaks of the hijab, there can often be the retort that men shouldn’t be telling women how to dress. Yet there is both truth and mistruth to such sentiments (as with many other things in Islam these days). Normatively, scholars do not tell women how to dress, or what to wear, but what God would have them cover (i.e. awrah). Some pretenders might use a platform to obsess over women’s clothing or pursue some form of cultural hegemony, but that must not negate that it is the job of Islamic jurists, both men and women, to study the will of God on a range of issues, including the shar’i dictates around bodily exposure. There are shar’i guidelines pertaining to the amount both men and women ought to cover, and the nature of that covering - but that doesn’t dictate that colour, cultural representation, or design of such covering. Let us remember that in the same way as male scholars, female scholars might also point out what men ought to be covering.

Whilst feminists might focus concertedly on deconstructing gender, seeing it as the product of illegitimate patriarchal structures, clearly God marked out differences such as what is considered the awrah for men and women. On this there is also the issue of terminology which I believe to be useful:

  • The head covering is generally referred to as a khimar.
  • The entire face covering (including the eyes) is a burqa’. That which covers the mouth and nose is a niqab.
  • The body covering is a jilbab which is legitimately understood or interpreted in various ways. An abaya is not a synonym for jilbab nor a divinely stipulated representation, it is a cloak worn in the Arabian peninsula and refers to both the cloaks Arab men and women wear. Thus for the Arab women of the Arabian peninsula - it is a particular cultural expression of the jilbab.

So what is the hijab? It is a state of covering appropriate to shar’i standards. That means that it is not limited to merely covering the head but describes the entire way a women covers. For example, if a Muslim woman dons a khimar along with a miniskirt, we cannot justifiably male the shar'i claim that she is in hijab. For a woman to be in hijab means for her to withhold her entire awrah from those who may not be permitted to see it.

In the Qur'an, God says concerning the Prophet, “When you ask his wives for something, do so from behind a hijab” (33:53) Clearly, it does not mean from behind a 'head covering' (as it wouldn’t logically be possible, nor make much linguistic sense). A hadith that comes to mind that contextualises this is found in the sahihain where Sa’d b. Abi Waqqas and Abd b. Zum’ah disputed over whom a young man belonged to (as a family member). In the context of the hadith, and at the end the event, the Prophet told his wife in regards to the boy, "واحتجبي منه يا سودة" meaning: “Hijab from him, Sauda.” The statement of the prophet shows that it wasn’t merely a statement to don a khimar but her general outward covering would subsequently treat the young man as a non-mahram.

A side point, and one the majority of western Muslims I’m sure are fully cognisant of, is that it's juvenile to assert that non-Muslim women who do not wear a khimar or jilbab, or those in jeans and a t-shirt etc to be ‘naked’, not only is it an extreme exaggeration that absolutely fails to reflect reality but also a considerably lame attempt to assert moral superiority in a very misplaced way. The way most non-Muslim women dress in public is the way Muslim women dress away from non-mahrams; can it be said that they’re all naked amongst one another! Yes, there are general understandings of indecent exposure, and by societal norms there are variant degrees to covering: extensive to minimal, conservative, (in)appropriate (for certain contexts), provocative, indecent, and so on. Whilst not everyone will agree precisely where the line is to be drawn between all of these (as will tend to be the case with most norms in all societies), cultural capital in wider society tends to inform us of the generalities. Only ignorant, insular, and insecure people tend to resort to such hyperbole. Believers are far more intelligent and civil.

On occasion, I'm particularly forthcoming in challenging the “hijab (or niqab) is my Muslim identity” narrative - we find such expressions nowhere in the Qur'an nor in the sunnah. But that is not to undermine that God the Most High has ordained the hijab. It is to counterbalance fickle narratives on Islam and Muslim identity, as well the overarching obsession found in the statements and books of clerics that erroneously and absolutely reduce a woman’s piety and contribution to communal faith down to covering. Often this has an adverse effect to the one intended where Muslim women are perversely sexualised, since they are primarily seen through the lens of sexual provocation rather than free intelligent believers.


A conversation on superstition

The purpose of this post is to provide some clarity on what I where I'm coming from when I use the term superstition.

Being superstitious (kharafah) is when someone believes anything has autonomous metaphysical power besides God.

Now someone might ask: Okay, you've denied the power of everything but God, but isn't a belief in God and His might also superstitious?

I say: No, because the entity we refer to as God we have come to accept as a matter of reason, putting it simplistically that all of this did not come from nothing, and that the entity with the profound ability to create all that exists by means that even our wildest thoughts on quantum physics has yet to even partially fathom, can also directly interact with the events/particles of our daily lives. However, there is no reasonable justification that other (created) entities also have autonomous power.

They respond: Well the supreme entity you have just reasoned and justified empowered entities it created to also directly intervene and affect our agency.

I say: The problem is that this is simply an untrue claim, for the only way to know this matter of the unseen is if the supreme entity tells us, which not only has He not done, everything He has actually told us contradicts this!

They respond: But there are many verses and hadith on these so-called superstitious matters!

I say:

  1. The verses and authentic hadith you cite do not explicitly say what you interpret them to mean. You predetermine what you'd like them to mean and then impose that interpretation on us as if it's explicit. Yet your weak interpretations contradict other verses on the topic.
  2. The hadith you rely on do not stand the rigour of an authentication process (they're categorically weak or made up), something well recognised by hadith scholars over a thousand years.
  3. Your views that you read into verses that clearly aren't saying what you'd like them to also contradict: (1) the principle of Tawhid, (2) the purpose of revelation, and (3) what God has actually told us about the unseen and some of the entities that exist in full reality (including what's beyond our sensory perception).

How so?

On (1), God tells us that absolutely nothing in the unseen can harm nor benefit humans except God, and it is an expression of His divine might and power that only He can do so. God strongly rebukes the pagans for this belief they hold about idols (10:28), jinns (72:6, 34:41) and angels (34:40).

On (2), revelation was sent to save man from the darkness of irrational pagan thinking and superstitions that led to an evil and disastrous culture, and to engage with reasoned logic. Pointing to the statement of the examplar Abraham, "His people argued with him, and he said, ‘How can you argue with me about God when He has guided me? I do not fear anything you associate with Him: unless my Lord wills [nothing can happen]. My Lord encompasses everything in His knowledge. How can you not take heed?" (6:80)

On (3) God speaks of jinn, angels, sihr and so on, but the way we understand them is open to interpretation, and those who interpret them superstitiously choose to do so in such a way. It is not that these verses decisively (qat'an) suggest what they advocate, and in light of points (1) and (2) it's quite to the contrary, but that they seek to confirm preconceived beliefs and read these interpretations into scripture.

Why do I think this is an important topic given all the challenges we face?

  1. Pagan culture is irrational, and superstitions tend to inform the usul of our outlook. We cannot progress in anything if we can't even look at it reasonably, and engendering a superstitious outlook means we deem it to be acceptable to employ irrationality, which then has a knock on effect on other aspects of our individual and collective lives.
  2. It undermines the very thing that God created for us to flourish: the intellect. And it is only by turning our brains off that the devil can easily overcome us.
  3. Muslims are obsessed with supernatural entities, and the numbers of people turning to such explanations leads us to necessarily conclude there is an epidemic! Even a cursory study of the hadith or Qur'an screams the absence of this attitude amongst the Prophet and his companions towards life, yet it's the first point of explanation for many people who claim to be believers. If believers can be educated and helped to overcome this and identify the actual causes to their problems, they'd be able to effectively deal with issues and swiftly progress.

I'm not particularly interested in looking rational because I fear non-Muslim mockery, 83:29-32 suggests it's inevitable and in that context I guess I welcome it. My agenda is very simple: I'm specifically concerned with what God wants and how that can be best achieved; to support the call to tawhid, and undermine the devil's attempt to deceive humans and have them drown in ignominy, irrationality, populism and ignorance. Essentially, I believe the devil encourages superstition in a bid to severely undermine Abrahamic monotheism.