In today's market human hair is the raw material for wigs and hair extensions, priced by length, thickness and colour. But in Islam the human body is not a commodity, Faizullah Riad writes in Prothom Alo. In verse 70 of Surah Bani Isra'il, Allah says He has honoured the children of Adam; in the writer's view that honour extends to the body and its parts.
In al-Hidaya, the jurist Imam al-Marghinani wrote that selling human hair and benefiting from it is not permitted, because a human being is honoured and no part of him may be turned into something cheap. Citing al-Fatawa al-Hindiyya, the article says the reason for the ban is not whether hair is pure or impure but human dignity, so hair does not wholly lose that honour when it is separated from the body.
The Prophet (peace be upon him) said Allah has cursed the woman who adds hair extensions and the one who has them added (Sahih al-Bukhari, hadith 5933). The writer argues that whether someone cuts and sells their own hair or a trader buys hair from salons and processes it, the material is still human hair, so a trade in human hair for wigs or extensions falls outside lawful commerce.
Hair made from synthetic fibre or animal hair, however, is not the same. Citing Radd al-Muhtar, the article says there is room to add beauty or volume with materials other than human hair, and even wool may be used in braids; the ruling on human hair therefore does not apply as such to the trade in artificial hair.
The writer's conclusion: whether it is one's own cut hair or hair gathered at a salon, turning human hair into a commodity to buy and sell is not permissible, however large the beauty market grows.
Source: Prothom Alo
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