Adil Najam
According to a news item in The News, Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) is going to implement a ban on growing beards – except for French beards – on all male cabin crew:
In a recent notification, PIA administration has announced to have reviewed its policy regarding beards, and said now male cabin crew could not grow beards and they could only have French-cut beards.
Not surprisingly, religious scholars and ulema condemned PIA for this, calling the ban a violation of constitutional and fundamental human rights. Whether this is or is not the most important constitutional violation of our age, the ulema are, in fact, right.
Unless there is a sound technical reason for it (and there seems not to be), forcing someone to take off their beard is deserving of condemnation as much as forcing someone to grow a beard. Especially if either of the act is ideologically motivated; no matter what the ideology. Of course, forcing someone to grow a beard on threat of death or violence is particularly disturbing. But, frankly, a threat to one’s livelihood is also reprehensible.
Right now, I myself do not have a beard. And that is not an ideological statement one way or the other. But my own position remains unchanged from October 2006 when I had commented on facial hair for cricketers:
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.
More pertinent was the June 2006 decision by Habib Bank to ban shalwar kameez and facial hair (by the way, can someone please confirm if that policy was ever implemented). In that case the issue had focused more on the wearing of shalwar kameez to work and the argument that this somehow made the person look less “trustworthy” and less “presentable.” Facial hair were also targeted for the same reason. On the issue of beards, trustworthiness and presentability, my argument was rather simple:
Dr. Abdus Salam? Abdul Sattar Edhi? Sir Syed Ahmed Khan?
Presentable? You bet.
Trustworthy? More than any banker I ever met.
As a rather frequent traveler on PIA – in fact, I read this news item on a PIA plane retruning from Karachi to Islamabad, and one of the cabin staff was supporting a huge beard – I too have noticed that the number of crew members with facial hair, especially large beards, has increased dramatically over the years. But that is a factor of what has been happening in society. PIA has plenty of big problems to deal with, and this seems to be the least of them.
At least in my experience, the quality of service one gets is not at all dependent on the amount of facial hair. Maybe the management should focus on that before it starts following the example of the Swat Taliban in judging people by the length of their facial hair (or not)!
I commend this website and author for standing up for what is right. This has nothing to do with religion, since lots of people keep beards, even large ones, for other reasons. The point is that neither God nor man should discriminate on the basis of how much hair you have on your face. Otherwise, bears would be the most pious of all.
Zechetti and Asim.
Khuda kay liye. There you guys go again. Bhai darhi rakhi hai to rakh lo. Nahin rakhni hai to mauj banao. Laikin hamin maaf karo.
What a useless debate. If you really think that your entry to heaven will be because of hair on your face, then go ahead, good luck to you. And if you think that facial hair are the greatest curse then go ahead and pluck your eyebrows. But for God’s sake let the rest of us be.
The point is of freedom, let other people do as they want and then we will let you do whatever you want.
Zecchetti:
You can talk about 500 other imams, who lived 100’s of years ago and blindly follow Quran, i.e. without using common sense and be a “sheep” as you said earlier, and come back and talk to me in 50 years from now ( if we survive) I gurarantee we would remain in the same mess that we have been in the past 600 years. To better understand Islam, you must think about the time, events, and situation when message came from God and then ask yourself what prompted God to send this message and the apply the same concept to current events and use your brain, not “shepards” to come up with a solution that would be acceptable to the society you live in . Some of the orders that came from God were to benefit the people of the time, not the people 100s of years later, which is the reason God allowed us to have ammendments in our religion that are based on current events, and not from 100’s of years ago.
My understanding of having beard in the old times could be due to many things that were happening in those times, such as:
i. Lack of quality shaving techniques such as shaving cream, razor blades, after shave lotions etc cuased people to catch infections specially when blades were shared.
ii. Time it took to shave every day, now adays you can even shave while driving.
iii. Facial hair protected skin from cracking up as they did not have good facial creams that we now have.
iv. Sign of better status as only people of higher class could afford to have a well kept beard, due to expensive trimming tools, cleansers etc.
Is it possible that the reason is based on hygeine/health grounds? Surgeons and nursing staff in operating theaters are supposed to wear caps and beard masks. Longer hair tends to fall off easily, and can get into open wounds; in this case, may be food and drinks? Just a thought.
@ Asim, and all those who deny the obligation of the beard.
Imam Ahmad, al-Bukhaari, Muslim and others narrated from Ibn