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. You can also look into Joshua Bartlett’s blog to get more information about men’s grooming and the products often used for it.
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.
Pakistan is now out of the ICC trophy. It was a sad and depressing performance. Not becasue they lost. Its just a game. But how they losy. 89 all out, liek a high school team. Sad to see what was a great team collapse like that.
Please, everyone, don’t try to turn this defeat into anything of your religion stuff. I am tired of the nastyness and bad language that some people have been bringing in.
As to beards, I actually like W.G. Grace’s; I thought very graceful. Yes, the Bulleh Shah picture elsewhere on this site has a great beard too. On beards, I agree with the last paragraph here.
Adil,
Judging the three “great beardsâ€
[quote post=”377″]because the following of religion should only be for the love of God and not to fit in or to be part of the group. [/quote]
Agreed but I wouldn’t take a single person like Nasim Ashraf’s statment seriously of forcing others to follow Islam[few days later he denied all of his previous statments]. I quoted a link on other thread that players were offering prayers even in the absence of Inzy so the theory that Inzy pressures players doesn’t hold water. As i said that I wouldn’t take even take Nasim’s rant seriously while others know about his mentality and purpose of bringing a non crickter as a chairman of a cricket board. It’s like one takes Bush seriously that ‘there were WMDs in Iraq’.
Speaking of religion and applying it forcefully, History tells that no one was able to make one to follow a religion by force, even prophets couldn’t do that. Noah[AS] couldn’t convince His son while Abraham[AS]failed to save His dad. Lut[AS] failed to save his Wife while Muhammad[SAW] failed to convince his close uncles to accept Islam
like Noah[AS],Muhammad[AS],Lut[AS] and Abraham[AS] couldn’t make their own relatives follower and these stories are mentioned both in Bible and Quran. When these people couldnt make one to follow their religion then how come an ordinary person like Inzy could force other to follow it?
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However, drinking, clubbing is not an issue in this post.
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Agree
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The post was regarding beards and that is why the comments are focused on beards. Why should anybody in this particular post be discussing the issues you have just raised?
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What i meant to say was that is this point ever ever raised.
Everywhere in social discussion, at work, at school…………..it is never the other way around….
[quote post=”377″]Beard for men and hijab for women! (I better duck…here comes Adnan Siddiqui ) [/quote]
you are not offending me anyway. But you might be offending several elders men[some of them would be age of your dad] and women[ of your mom’s age] by making such silly statments. But I once heard that taribiat comes from home rather from some acedmic institute. You are certainly demonstrating it here. Keep it up and I am certainly enjoying your posts *grin*.