Could you please explain about the use of magic and how it is viewed in Islam? A person who resorts to black magic has been giving gifts to my father and putting him under a spell hoping to marry me. I would rather kill myself than marry a man who practices magic. Please comment.
It seems to me from the long letter this lady has written that she has been troubled so much by this problem. There is no way we can deny the existence of magic, but how far it is practiced is rather unknown. There is a great deal of trickery in this respect with some people leading simple-minded persons to believe that they can exercise great powers by means of employing creatures from a different world, particularly the jinn. All magic, however, is no more than make-believe. It has neither substance nor reality. Yet it can cause a great deal of harm, not least because of the fear magicians are keen to implant on their victims' minds.
The best method to foil the attempts of such people is to turn them away and to seek God's help, reading the Qur'an [particularly Surah Al-Falaq and Al-Naas] and relying totally on God. When one does that, one demonstrates the fallacy of the claim of such people that they have special powers. All the power they have is given them by others who believe in their claims which are certainly false. Magic flourished to an exceptional extent among the ancient Egyptians at the time of the Pharaohs, because the magicians were also the men of religion who tried to keep people's submission by raising the Pharaoh to the status of deity. When they confronted Moses with their tricks, their work was described by the Qur'an as 'great magic'. Nevertheless, God tells us that it was all a play on people's imagination, with no substance to it.
The person who practices magic is described by the Prophet as non-believer, even though he may profess to believe. Your best resort is to persuade your father that one who resorts to magic disobeys God and, as such, is no good husband for a Muslim girl. Whatever you do, you must not give in to his designs. You can easily overcome him if you rely on God, trust Him and defy the non-believer.
May I ask how did Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, wear his beard and mustaches? Was it U or V shape? Or did it cover only his chin? Is there any minimum or maximum limit to the length of a beard?
May I begin by reminding you of what Allah tells us in the Qur'an about the Children of Israel and the sort of questions they put to him through Prophet Moses. Allah had commanded them to slaughter a cow. Had they treated that command with the seriousness it deserves and immediately slaughtered any cow, they would have fulfilled their duty.
They, however, put to him so many questions about what sort of cow they should slaughter, what color, how fit and what work it did, etc.
The result of their questioning was the limiting of their choice, time after time, until, when they realized that they had a full description, they discovered that there was only one cow in the whole community which answered that description. Its owner, a pious and God-fearing man whom Allah wanted to benefit by this situation, demanded a very high price for the cow and they had to pay it. The Prophet's comments: "The Children of Israel made things difficult, so Allah made it more difficult for them."
We say that Muslim men should wear a beard, because the Prophet has given instructions to that effect. Many scholars maintain that this is a duty, while others say that it is a Sunnah. Whichever ruling we take, it relates to wearing a beard.
At no time did the Prophet say that it should be a U or V-shaped, or indeed any other. Why should we make things difficult for ourselves; when He wants our faith to be easy to implement. Besides, if your face is of the long type, you cannot make your beard in U-shape.
• Makrooh — the basic definition of
That which is makrooh is an action which can be described as reprehensible or detestable. If a person resists temptation to do something of this sort, he earns a reward. Its commission, however, is not punishable but a person may be reproached for it. Tanzihi and tahrimi are two words to qualify what is reprehensible. The latter denotes a very strong objection to it. When something reprehensible is described as tanzihi, this description means that a good Muslim should avoid it.