Of Beards and Smooth Faces: Equivocal masculinities in the Qur’an, sunnah and early Muslim sources

What is an ideal man? I explore this question through early Muslim depictions of the beard. Discourses on the appearance, treatment, quality or absence of beards reveal much about the underlying concerns surrounding the masculine roles and identities that were required to enact proper belief, righteous behavior, social status and communal care. Part 1 examines the beard as metonymy for male genitalia, and bearded men as essential begetters of life, patres familias, conductors of ritual, sources of wisdom, or warriors. Part 2 examines cases where facial hair or its absence troubled established associations between beards and men, which clouded patriarchal roles, gendered binaries, and ritual fulfillment. The conclusion suggests how fracturing traditional masculinities enabled men to express fragility, pain or grief, and proffered the revelatory message of care and inclusion to bodies on the margins, including the impotent, castrated or effeminate.