Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz (PML-N) MPA Rukhsana Kausar has tabled a resolution in the provincial house of Punjab seeking a ban on beard styling and action against men with fashionable beards as well as their barbers.

According to Kausar’s resolution, beard is the sunnah of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) and legislation to decide strict action against those who shape beards in fashionable styles is needed.

The resolution contends that any kind of styling of the beard is a “grave sin”, and it is an “insult to the beard”. The resolution calls for strict action against those “who make fun of beard”.

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“When I see youngsters on the streets and in the markets with different designs of beard in the name of fashion, I feel hurt, because that is against the teachings of Islam,” she told a private media outlet.

Federal Minister for Science & Technology Fawad Chaudhry has also reacted to the resolution in the Punjab Assembly.

This is not the first time that beard designing has been a priority of the ruling elite as barbers have time and again been “strictly barred” from styling customers’ beards in different shapes or clipping them into designs in areas of rural Punjab, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) and Balochistan.

KP police in Shabqadar tehsil of Charsadda had in 2019 detained at least four barbers for styling customers’ beards during an unofficial ban imposed by a local traders’ union that had termed such beards “un-Islamic”.