Re: Silk

Question:   With regards to silk, are all forms of silk prohibited for men? i recall someone mentioning something about a difference between synthetic and natural silk. any light on this subject is much appreciated.

bismillah ar-rahman ar-rahim

as salamu alaykum wa rahmatullah,

The ulama mention different kinds of "silk"...using the arabic words: qazz, ibrisam/ibraysam, and harir. Harir is the more general term that encompasses the other two..but whenever the ulama refer to these, they are only talking about natural silk...the kind produced by a silk worm. Synthetic silk is, by definition, a material that is not silk.

It is impermissible for men to wear pure silk except in the cases of darurah (extreme necessity). Shaykh al-Baajuri in his haashiyah mentions the hadith where the Prophet (s) picks up a piece of silk in his right hand and a piece of gold in his left and states, "these two are prohibited (haram) for the men of my ummah and permissible for their women". Extreme necessity is like during a surprise attack in the time of war and a man can find nothing else to put on, or in the case of covering the `awra when nothing but silk is available, or in medical instances-where wearing silk is required because of severe sensitivity of the skin due to lesions or burns.

If an item of clothing is composed of silk and some other material...then it is permissible for a man to wear as long as the amount of silk is less than the other material. The asah opinion is that it is also permissible to wear if the silk and the other material are in equal amounts...what's important is that the silk is not the majority material in the item of clothing.

Regarding taTrif, which is adding a decorative border of silk along the edges of an outfit...this is permissible as long as the border does not exceed what is considered normal in one's culture and social circle. As for taTriz, which is placing a piece of pure silk on one's clothing--by sewing it on or by other means, this is permissible with the condition that the piece of silk does not exceed 4 fingers (side by side) in width...even if its long. (so watch out for those super- fat ties from the 1960's!!) Some of the ulama, like my teachers in Hadramawt, also add another condition for taTriz, which is that it be for the purpose of tazyin. That is, if you are going to place a piece of silk on your clothing, then not only must its width not exceed the width of your 4 fingers side by side, but it must be there for solely stylistic and decorative purposes. Like some of the saalihin who were known to have a small piece of silk sewn on the outside of of their jubbahs, the silk was not an integral part of their clothing, you could remove the silk and the clothing would still be intact.

wa Allahu a`lam.

forgive me
wasalaam

-Omar Mahmood

Source: http://www.sunnipath.com