Answered by Shaykh Faraz Rabbani
I would like to know if it is permissible to grow the beard for the intention of bringing one’s exterior look of piety to do good actions, meaning by looking more pious to help oneself to be pious if it helps one to do so. I am sorry if I am not clear.
Answer:
- It is obligatory for men to grow the beard, and a sin not to.
- The sin of not having a beard would be lifted by growing one, regardless of reason.
- The fiqhi principle is that there is no reward without intention. As such, actions are only pleasing to Allah in measure of the intention behind them.
- Seeking to be pious, and to look like the pious is a good intention, as look as it is not in order to show off but because Allah loves the pious, and the outward invariably helps the inward, for “actions are but lifeless forms whose soul is the secret of sincerity within them.”
- The best intention is to seek nothing but Allah in one’s actions. This is the way of the Father of the Prophets, Sayyiduna Ibrahim (upon him be peace), so said, “Verily my prayer, worship, life, and death are only for Allah, Lord of the Worlds…” (Qur’an). This is the way of the Haneefs, those who leave all falsehood and are ever-turning to the True.
Wassalam,
Faraz Rabbani