556 – ʿĀʾishah (may Allah be pleased with her) reported: “The Prophet ﷺ applied kohl during Ramadan while he was fasting.” Ibn Mājah recorded it with a weak chain, and al-Tirmidhī said, “Nothing in this chapter is authentic.” (1)
Hadiths on applying kohl:
Several reports allow the fasting person to use kohl, while others forbid it. Because of this apparent conflict, some scholars—among them Imām al-Shāfiʿī, Shaykh al-Islām Ibn Taymiyyah, Ibn al-Qayyim and others—ruled it permissible. Others—including Imām Aḥmad, Isḥāq, Sufyān, and Ibn al-Mubārak—ruled it impermissible.
Both the hadiths that permit kohl for a person who is fasting and those that prohibit it are weak and cannot furnish decisive evidence for either side. A selection of these reports is as follows:
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The hadith of ʿĀʾishah: “The Prophet ﷺ applied kohl while he was fasting.” Al-Tirmidhī stated, “Nothing in this chapter is authentic,” and Ibn al-Qayyim said in Zād al-Maʿād: “It is related that he applied kohl while fasting, but the report is not sound.”
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The hadith of Ibn ʿUmar: “The Prophet ﷺ came out to them in Ramadan with his eyes filled with ithmid (antimony).” Related by al-Tirmidhī, who said: “No authentic report on this subject is established from the Prophet ﷺ.” Ibn al-Qayyim remarked in Zād al-Maʿād: “It is not sound.”
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The hadith of Maʿbad ibn Hawdhah: “The Prophet ﷺ instructed the use of perfumed ithmid at bedtime and said, ‘Let the fasting person avoid it.’” Reported by Abū Dāwūd (2377). Aḥmad said, “This hadith is munkar (denounced),” and Ibn—