Wearing nailpolish while praying

[Pheonix]

Been digging up the past again!

Hmm this is a good topic. I do understand that we are supposed to be clean and aren't supposed to be wearing any make-up either in our salat. I was told once by one person what is wrong with wearing it! I didn't have the answer cos i didn't know of any writing or anything to back this up. I just listened to what she had to say.

Can u clarify this brother Nur? Oh wisey one.
So wot ur saying is the nailpolish thing is forbidden - rite?

[Bangali_Furi]

The whole idea of doing wazoo is so the water reaches all parts of your hand including ur nails. It's general knowledge really (for the rest of us). I'm sure u should know that!!

[Nur]

Originally posted by Fary
I have heard a lot of "kaath mollas" saying you can't pray if you have nailpolish on.
I mean really, can nailpolish do such harm that our prayers will be unanswered by Allah?

Let's hear some pros and cons on this issue.

Assalamu alaikum,
Well in the Quran Allah says that by disobeying Him we cannot harm Him in any way.

there are many things in Islam which may seem trivial and which may make some people think "what is the point in it?"

Apart from the nailpololish thing, why do we have to do wudhu in a certain way? What difference does it make - why not just wash our body how we want? If you want to ask whatis wrong with wearing nailpolish and praying you could ask the same about many things in Islam.

There are some things which are even apparently bad and yet Allah required people to do these bad things. For example, Allah ordered Ibrahim (SA) to slaughter his son and to leave his wife stranded in the middle of nowhere in a desert. These actions that Allah required Ibrahim to do (SA) in themsleves are of no benefit and there is no logic in slaughtering your son or leaving your wife stranded in the middle of nowhere with no sehlter or food.

The benefit is simply in that we are pleasing Allah by obeying Him and trusting that there is wisdom behind all of Allah's laws.

So wearing the nail polish in itself does not do any harm but if Islam says that wearing it is haraam then we know that it displeses Allah and for this simple reason we do not wear nail polish.

Similarly we are do wudhu in a certain presecribed way and we perform salat in certain prescribed way - not cos we know of some benefits in doing it this way,but because we believe that this is the way Allah taught us to pray!

[Pheonix]

Brother Nur, i dont wear nailpolish nor makeup when performing salat but was asking on behalf of any sister lacking knowledge and understanding for them to realise and understand!

[Nur]

Originally posted by Pheonix


Brother Nur, i dont wear nailpolish nor makeup when performing salat but was asking on behalf of any sister lacking knowledge and understanding for them to realise and understand!

Assalamu alaikum,
Sister Phoenix, I am really confused about something. At the time when I posted here I did not see your post and your question. This has happened to me in a few threads where I post soemthing and then later I notice posts that were simply not there before - there has to be soem sort of bug with b.com. As a result people think that I am ignoring them.

Anyway, regarding nail polish and salat I will give a brief answer for the time being. The simple answer is that it is not haraam, but discouraged.

Islam encourages modesty and simplicity and it discourages showing off and doing things to attract attention to oneself. Attracting attention to oneself is a sign of self-love and this is disapproved of in Islam.

The ideal believer and worshipper of Allah does everythig for the love of Allah and does nothing for himself/herself. So ideally when we perform salat we do not want to be doing it purely for the sake of Allah. Of course getting to this stage of doing things purely for Allah and nothing for oneself is not something that happens overnight.

Since wearing make up is somehting that we do for ourselves and wearing nail polish is something not to please Allah but to please ourselves then in a way it is an expression of self-love and it is for this reason that it is discouraged to wear make up or nail polish when performing salat. It is NOT actually haraam.

What is haraam is when we have make-up or nail polish on and as a result when we do wudhu the water does not reach the skin or the nails. Our wudhu then is not valid and our salat as a result becomes invalid. This is in fact what sister bengali_furi pointed out!

If you do your wudhu first and then put on make-up or nail polish your salat is acceptable. However it is better not to have the make-up or nail polish on.

Because most of us have to usually perform wudhu more than once a day it makes it impractical to wear make-up and nail polish.


The point I was trying to make in my first post was that the root islamic belief is that good is what Allah says is good and bad is what Allah says is bad and so our primary reason for accepting any islamic law is simply because Allah says, although there is wisdom behind all of allah's laws. So for example, muslims accept and defend polygamy not because they like it and have proven logically that it is a good thing after years of investigation, but simply because Allah allows it and we trust Allah and realise that there must be some benefit in it and some wisdom behind why it is allowed in Islam.





[Edited by Nur on 12th September 2001 at 20:15]

[wakeup2011]

I just wanted to point out a major issue in the extract bornagain generously pasted in:

"Then God said, "Take your son, your only son, Isaac"

The only way that Allah could have said "your only son" is if at the time Ibrahim PBUH only had ONE son.... Ishmael (Ismael) PBUH was the eldest son.

So for a period of many years Ismael was the ONLY son.

So either "your only son" wasn't said....or the name of Ishaac PBUH (Isaac) was added to give prominence to the children of Isaac and to ignore the forbearance, obedience and patience of Ismael PBUH and what really happened.