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Trimming or Shaving Pubic Hair

Answered as per Shafi'i Fiqh by Qibla.com

Answered by Shaykh Abdul-Karim Yahya, SunniPath Academy Teacher

What is the ruling on shaving the pubic hair? What areas have to be shaved? Does the hair in between the buttocks need to be shaved and does the hair on the testicles need to be shaved? How often does pubic hair have to be shaved? Is it every 40 days or is it true that it cannot be longer than a grain of rice?

Sometimes when I have an erection or have thoughts about the opposite sex a fluid passes out of my penis, the fluid is white and it comes out in a very small quantity (a drop or two). I do not realize when it passes out of my penis, I only realize after I look in my underwear and there is a stain of a white, sometimes shiny fluid. Is this fluid semen and after it comes out do I need to take a purifying bath (ghusl)?

Answer:
In the Name of Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful

In The Name of Allah, Most Merciful and Compassionate

It is sunna to remove pubic hair which is defined as the hair that grows around the front and rear private parts. The sunna for a man is to shave it and for a woman is to pluck it (if she is able to bear this), but the basic sunna is fulfilled whether it is shaved or plucked. It is offensive to delay its removal when needed and more offensive to delay it beyond forty days.[1] I have not seen the jurists compare its length to a grain of rice, but in cases like this one need is typically defined by common acknowledgement (‘urf). So when it would typically be described as needing removal, it should be removed and this should not go beyond forty days.

The fluid you mentioned does not sound like semen. It sounds like madhy. Madhy is impure, so it must be removed from the body and clothing and its exiting necessitates ablution (wudu) but not a purifying bath (ghusl) [see Reliance of the Traveler e10.5]. And Allah knows best and He alone gives success (tawfiq).

[1] See Abdul-Hamid’s supercommentary on Tuhfa: Ibn Hajar al-Haytami, Hawashi al-Sharwani Wa Ibn Qasim al-Abbadi ‘Ala Tuhfah al-Muhtaj Bisharh al-Minhaj (Beruit, Dar Ihya’ al-Turath al-‘Arabi), 9:375.

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