Trimming the Nails and the Forty Days

It has become fashionable among Muslim women, and among young Muslim girls, to grow their fingernails long, in imitation of what is done by non-Muslims and by fashion models; this is a passing fashion, and it is problematic as far as Islam is concerned, not because the nails are long as such, but because germs accumulate beneath the surface of a long nail in a way that prevents water from reaching the skin underneath it, again placing the ghusl in danger. A Muslim's fingernails ought to be kept short. Henna, and other natural preparations, remain in use, and there is no objection even to nail polish as such — a woman may reasonably use it, and there is no difficulty in paying for it — worn at times when prayer is not being performed; but cleanliness must be kept as the first priority, because hygiene, ṭahārah, is central to Islamic ʿibādah, and without ṭahārah there is no ʿibādah at all.

On a related matter, one difficult to raise but necessary: Allah (swt) has given every man and woman certain parts of the body, under the arms and in the private area, where hair grows whether one likes it or not, and where a unique kind of germ accumulates because of the warmth and everything else particular to that area — unlike the hair of the head or elsewhere on the skin. Islam holds personal hygiene in high regard, and as part of it, it is sunnah of the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) to shorten the fingernails, to clip them regularly, and to remove this unwanted hair from the body. According to the Ḥanafīs, forty days is the furthest this may be left unattended; beyond forty days of neglect, a person is reckoned sinful for it. Doing it weekly — before attending the masjid on Fridays, say — is itself sunnah. A Muslim man who lifts his arms only to reveal thick, unshorn growth beneath them is not following this sunnah, and there is nothing feminine or shameful about shaving the underarms: it is the practice of the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him), and of every prophet before him, and of countless generations of Muslim men across the ages, all of whom removed this hair for the very same reason. When a Muslim does even an ordinary, mundane act such as this for the sake of Allah (swt), with the intention of pleasing Him, it becomes an act of worship in its own right — such is the scope of this religion, that nothing in it is left untouched, whatever a person's own DNA and rate of growth may be. Every Muslim, man and woman, is bound by this without exception, and it is something children must be taught as well.