887 – Ibn ʿUmar (may Allah be pleased with them both) reported that the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) “cursed the woman who adds hair extensions, the one who asks for them, the tattooist, and the one who seeks to be tattooed.” Agreed upon. (1)

Vocabulary of the ḥadith
• laʿana (to curse): to drive someone away and exclude him from all goodness and mercy.
• al-wāṣilah: a woman who joins her own or another woman’s hair to someone else’s hair.
• al-mustawṣilah: a woman who asks that her hair be lengthened with other hair.
• al-wāshimah: the woman who performs tattooing, which is done by piercing the skin with a needle and rubbing indigo into it until a blue-green mark remains.
• al-mustawshimah: the woman who requests that tattooing be done on her body.

Lessons derived from the ḥadith

1. The wāṣilah is the woman who attaches her hair to hair that is not her own, while the mustawṣilah is the one who requests this be done for her.
2. The ḥadith indicates that attaching hair with other hair is prohibited and counts among the grave sins, for the Lawgiver cursed both the wāṣilah and the mustawṣilah. A curse—expulsion from Allah’s mercy—is pronounced only on the perpetrator of a major sin.
3. Shaykh ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz ibn Bāz said: “As for wearing a wig, it has now become common in Muslim lands; women wear it and beautify themselves with it until it has become part of their adornment. A woman’s wearing it and adorning herself with it—even for her husband—is an imitation of the unbelievers, and the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) forbade that when he said: ‘Whoever imitates a people is one of them.’”