until it became full, thick, and imposing, yet—so they claim—he disliked the very sight of a dense beard and found it irksome. Nor would he have forbidden his followers to imitate the Magians who shave their beards, and expressed distaste at even looking at them, while at the same time supposedly disliking the sight of a thick beard and being troubled by it.

Accordingly, anyone who alleges that the Prophet ﷺ disliked seeing a great, bushy beard and felt uneasy about it has charged him with a contradiction from which even ordinary rational people are free. How much more so the Prophet ﷺ, the most intelligent of all humanity! He is far worthier of being declared innocent of contradiction and of everything unbefitting to sound minds. Whoever imputes any contradiction to him has entertained an evil suspicion of him, and that is one of the things that cut a person off from Islam.

It was mentioned earlier—in the account transmitted by Abū Nuʿaym in Dalāʾil al-Nubuwwa—that Moses, peace be upon him, had a thick beard and that Aaron resembled him. Some narrations of the Night Journey report that the Messenger of Allah ﷺ saw Aaron in the fifth heaven and described him: “Half of his beard is white and half of it black, and its length is such that it almost reaches his navel.” This was related by Ibn Jarīr, Ibn Abī Ḥātim in their Qurʼān commentaries, and al-Bayhaqī in Dalāʾil al-Nubuwwa from the hadith of Abū Saʿīd al-Khudrī, may Allah be pleased with him.

It is also recorded in the two Ṣaḥīḥs and elsewhere that when the Messenger of Allah ﷺ passed by Aaron in the fifth heaven, he greeted him, and Aaron returned the greeting, saying, “Welcome, brother—”