Chapter: The Prohibition of a Man Wearing a Safflower-Dyed Garment

1798 – Anas (may Allah be pleased with him) reported: The Prophet ﷺ forbade men to use saffron. Agreed upon.

1799 – ʿAbd Allah ibn ʿAmr ibn al-ʿĀṣ (may Allah be pleased with them) said: The Prophet ﷺ saw me wearing two garments dyed with safflower and asked, “Did your mother tell you to wear these?” I said, “Shall I wash them?” He replied, “Rather, burn them.” In another wording he said, “This is the dress of the disbelievers; do not wear it.” Narrated by Muslim.

[Commentary]
The author (may Allah have mercy on him) includes here two chapters from his work Riyāḍ al-Ṣāliḥīn. The first deals with the prohibition on a man wearing a safflower-dyed garment—meaning a cloth colored with al-ʿuṣfur, a plant that resembles saffron. Under this heading he cites the hadith of ʿAbd Allah ibn ʿAmr ibn al-ʿĀṣ (may Allah be pleased with them) in which the Prophet ﷺ saw him clad in two safflower-dyed garments—or one such garment—and said, “Did your mother order you to wear this?” thereby censuring him. This indicates that it is disliked, and perhaps forbidden, for a man to wear these yellow garments that lean slightly toward red. The same applies to an entirely red garment, for the Prophet ﷺ prohibited men from wearing it and declared it to be from the attire of the unbelievers. Since it is the attire of the unbelievers, we have been forbidden to imitate them, in keeping with the Prophet’s ﷺ statement: “Whoever imitates a people is one of them.”