Adillat Tahrim Halq al-Lihya
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- Adillat Tahrim Halq al-Lihya
Adillat Tahrim Halq al-Lihya (Evidence for the Prohibition of Shaving the Beard) is a legal treatise authored by the contemporary Egyptian scholar and preacher Muhammad Ismail al-Muqaddim (b. 1371 AH / 1952 CE), dedicated to establishing the prohibition of shaving the beard and the obligation of growing it according to Islamic law.
Purpose and Content
The treatise compiles textual, legal, and rational arguments concerning the ruling on shaving and trimming the beard. In the opening legal discussions, al-Muqaddim sets out the principle from legal theory (usul al-fiqh) that imperative commands in scripture fundamentally denote obligation (al-amr haqiqatun fi al-wujub) unless accompanied by contextual evidence (qarinah) that redirects them to recommendation (nadb).
He classifies the evidence into thematic chapters:
- Prophetic commands: Examining reports transmitted through Companions such as Abdullah ibn Umar and Abu Hurayrah containing direct verbal imperatives to leave, grow, and multiply the beard (using terms such as i'fa', ifwa', irkha', irja', and tawfir).
- Opposition to non-Muslim customs: Demonstrating that shaving the beard constitutes impermissible emulation of polytheists and Magians, drawing upon analytical explanations from Ibn Taymiyyah's Iqtida' al-Sirat al-Mustaqim (The Requirement of the Straight Path).
- Adherence to prophetic guidance: Arguing that removing the beard is a departure from the practice of the Prophet Muhammad and the Rightly Guided Caliphs, as well as an alteration of natural disposition (fitrah).
- Critique of opposing reports: Addressing narrations regarding cutting or trimming the beard, including the weakness of the hadith reporting that the Prophet trimmed from the length and width of his beard.
Juristic Documentation
The work documents the positions of the four classical Sunni legal schools:
- In the Hanafi school, it cites authorities such as al-Durr al-Mukhtar and al-Nihayah on the prohibition of cutting or shaving the beard below a fistful.
- In the Maliki school, it cites Ibn Abd al-Barr's al-Tamhid, al-Dasuqi, and al-Qurtubi regarding the prohibition of shaving.
- In the Shafi'i school, it reviews the discussion between the stance of al-Nawawi and al-Rafi'i classifying it as disliked (makruh), and the position attributed to al-Shafi'i in al-Umm and maintained by commentators such as Ibn al-Rif'ah and Shihab al-Din al-Adhra'i that it is prohibited.
- In the Hanbali school, it adduces texts from al-Insaf and al-Saffarini's Ghidha' al-Albab declaring the prohibition of shaving to be the relied-upon position of the school.
The author also incorporates verdicts by modern scholars who affirmed the prohibition, including Ahmad al-Banna al-Sa'ati, Muhammad Nasir al-Din al-Albani, and Abu Bakr al-Jaza'iri.
Publication and Abridgment
The book was published in several editions, including a fourth edition in 1405 AH / 1985 CE issued by Maktabat Dar al-Arqam in Kuwait. Al-Muqaddim later prepared a concise abridgment of the work titled al-Lihya: Limadha? (The Beard: Why?), in which he removed detailed hadith gradings, extensive citations, and scholarly digressions to present the core legal and ethical arguments in a simplified style for general readers.
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