Adil Najam
Given all the discussion about cricket and Islam (here), sooner or later we will come to beards and cricket and whether beards of a certain length or style are ‘religiously intimidating’ for some (related story here).
I thought I would pre-empt the discussion by sharing some images of a few ‘great beards’ of cricket. Readers are, of course, welcome to add to the list.
For that it seems to me that the obvious choice is one of Pakistan’s most graceful batsmen ever (and that is saying something!) Saeed Anwar. He is also generally considered a mentor to many of the more religiously inclined players in the current Pakistan team.
His, however, is not the only set of religiously motivated set of facial hair to adorn cricketing fields. One of my all-time favorite cricketers and all-time favorite famous persons is former Indian Captain Bishen Singh Bedi. His fine-looking facial hair and head-dress - and of many others - were also clearly religiously-motivated and a constant expression of his faith.
By way of disclosure I should add that I occasionally sprout facial hair of my own but am mostly clean-shaven. But as a deep and committed adherent of people’s right of expression (how can a blogger not be that!) I stand committed to defend people’s right to facial hair, whether they are grown for stylistic elegance or religious expression.
Why do some British Pakistani’s sound more Jihadi/Mullah than many in Pakistan? Is it due to a complex to show that they are some body if they haven’t done well in UK society because they skipped school unlike Hindus & Sikhs? Or is it because of their imported local Mullah who can only do sermons in Urdu/Punjabi? Hard to find Muslims in UK who are not stuck in middle ages.
MQ….
maybe my knowledge is limited comapred to prominent scholars, but what ever I have sed so far is all with confidence and true understanding.
thanx for making it clear to me that your knowledge of Islaam is extremely limited[I mean you even give your own commentry for the quran ayahs!] and that the knowledge you do have is totally off track from what traditional Islaam has always taught us.
U also made it pretty obvious that you reject Hadith!
GOD BLESS YOUR SOUL
seriously you need to sit and ponder upon ur beliefs…
If your living in paksitan, go study in a madressa for a yr or two, maybe you’ll gain some understanding of the very basics of Islaam.
oh and try speakin to a prominent scholar about your views cos I honestly dont have the time and energy to sit here all day to explain to you the methedology of Hadith [ even though I wud luv to] cos its complicated and deep stuff, alongside being authentic.
Hope you meet some one whos wiling to take out time to teach you this field of knowledge cos it wud be well worth it for your kinda minds.
So once you’ve done that maybe we can talk about this topic again :)
till then
Peace out
Wasslmaualikum
I proudly announce I AM ADAMIC…MY GRANDFATHER WAS PROPHET ADAM :)
YES, I did mean evolution. What else could it be. Like it or not, we do NOT get to choose our ancestors. They were what they were. Maybe mine did have even more hair on their face than I do. But this is NOT about faith, this is about Science. If anyone wants to talk science, I am happy to, anything else I am not game for.
British Pakistani,
I am afraid I am not qualified to engage in a religious discourse. And, I suspect, neither are you. But please allow me to make a few common sense observations.
Ahadith, we all know, were written by ordinary human beings (not prophets) about 200 years after the death of the Prophet. Therefore many of them are contradictory or are inconclusive. Take the collection of Bukhari, for example. Bukhari collected about 300,000 ahadith that were in circulation at the time and started checking their authenticity. It turned out that an overwhelmingly large number of them were either unreliable or totally fabricated according to the needs of certain individuals or groups. Therefore he discarded most of them and retained only 2,602 in his collection. Another researcher today could very well embark on a new research and further prune this number. In fact, Shias don’t agree with Bukhari all the time.
Regarding your quote from the Koran: “Obey your Lord and Obey your Prophet… “ I don’t think this verse proves anything, one way or the other, about beard. But just for argument’s sake, let us stick to this verse. The complete verse is “obey Allah, obey the Prophet and obey your Ruler among you.â€Â? As we know, Allah (Koran) is silent on the issue of beards. The Prophet’s instruction on the subject (ahadith), as I have said before, are inconclusive. So, we are left with the rulers among us. Now which of the Muslim rulers would you like to follow in the matter of beard? Any one from Jinnah to Zia (yes, even Zia) to Musharraf in Pakistan? Suekarno or Mahathir in South East Asia? Nasser, Sa’adat, Mubarak, Qadhafi or others in the Middle East? Mustafa Kamal or Erdogan in Turkey?
rofl…..I hope that was a bad joke!
nufin too serious eh MQ??
[quote ] “I personally do not like them [the beards]. I have a thing for being able to see [a] guys’ jawline because I like a strong jawline and if it is covered in facial hair it very difficult to distinguish where the face ends and where the beard begins. Hence, personally it is a no no.”[/quote]
Umera,
Hey, that is a whole new perspective on beards. Now I know why was I always ignored by women! I am going to shave off my beard right away and expose the jawline. Thanks for the insight.
I will let Farrukh speak for himself but yes evolution IS the word. Unless you are in that Jerry Fallwell type camp of science deniers! Which really would be appalling.