Question
Your arguments regarding this issue are sound & reasonable. However I have come across articles who presented the same hadith but have a different interpretation:
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There are many hadith that just prohibit baring the ankles without mentioning the issue of arrogance. Thus it is stipulated that its implication is general & in all circumstances.
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The hadith that mentions reason of arrogance would mention together a severe/severer punishment such as “Allah would not look at him”. Thus it is concluded that it is haram to cover the ankles in general & even more if it is because of arrogance.
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Regarding the hadith of Abu Bakr it is said that he tried his best but sometimes he could not control the garment from covering the ankles. So the exemption was made because he had tried his best not because of lack of arrogance.
Are the arguments given valid & sound?
Thank you.
Answer
The nature of the information reported through the source of Hadith, it is imperative that before deriving any results from it, we should first collect all the narratives reported on a particular topic and thereby try to form a comprehensive picture of the circumstances, the reasons and the bases of any directives entailed in it.
It is clearly possible in narrating an incident or a saying a narrator may miss out on a very important part of the narration and thereby make it difficult to understand and place in the overall corpus of Islam. Even though this danger of a lack of a comprehensive picture will continue to exist even if all the various narrations on a particular topic are collected and analyzed, yet this is the only possible human means of minimizing it.
Keeping the foregoing point in mind, it should be clear that when we collect all those narratives, which mention the Prophet’s condemnation of trailing one’s clothes or of allowing these to hang below one’s ankles, it becomes clear that this condemnation was due to the element of the arrogant and haughty appearance that such garments entailed. Once this aspect is determined, even if on the basis of one or a very few of the many narratives reported on the topic, we would not have a problem in assuming that the same basis is also entailed in all the other narratives on the topic, even if none of these other narratives expressly mentioned this aspect.
It should be remembered that besides cleansing of the food that we live on, the scope of religion relates generally to the cleansing of our intellectual, physical, moral and spiritual life and interaction at an individual as well as at a collective level. All the directives of religion relate to these spheres of human life. Clearing the mind of arrogance and haughtiness is clearly related to the cleansing of our moral interaction with others. All those elements and symbols in human life that have the potential of inducing arrogance and haughtiness in him would be condemned and discouraged by the Prophet (pbuh). However, independent of the element of inducing a moral ailment, an activity such as wearing a particular style of clothes will become a completely a-religious and amoral issue.
In view of the foregoing explanation, I do not consider the presented arguments to be valid.
I hope this helps.
Moiz Amjad
November 12, 2004