Muhammad and pubic hair.

[sum]

It is recorded that Muhammad advised his followers to remove their pubic hair but I am not aware that he gave any medical reason for this.

It is also recorded that he had lice that one of his lady friends would remove for him.

Did Muhammad know better than modern medicine regarding the advisability of removing pubic hair?

The following article only shows disadvantages regarding the removal of pubic hair except for one possible advantage - the avoidance of pubic lice. Perhaps this was the reason that Muhammad advised removing pubic hair. With all his sexual conquests it is very likely that he had pubic lice and found that shaving off the pubic hair gave some preventative relief. I would suggest that Muhammad gave his advice because he almost certainly had pubic lice.

NAKED TRUTH
Is it safe to remove your pubic hair? Is it hygienic and is it best to shave it off?

While some people may think that removing their pubic hair is the best option, it can actually be quite dangerous
By Alison Maloney
28th March 2018, 2:06 pm
Updated: 28th March 2018, 2:07 pm

THE debate about whether to go hair-free in your private areas has long been raging.
Doctors have warned removing pubic hair can increase the risk of an STI, yet a huge percentage of women still chose to go bare down there.

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A quarter of groomers had injured themselves while removing pubic hair

Is it safe to remove your pubic hair?
Last year, a survey in JAMA Dermatology found that about a quarter of people who groomed their pubic hair by shaving, waxing or using scissors had experienced injuries.
The most common accidents were cuts, followed by rashes or burns.
Researchers also found that 1.5 per cent of groomers have sustained injuries that required medical attention.
The study was carried out by Dr Benjamin Brever, a urologist at the University of California San Franciso.
He found that 3 per cent of the adults who came to Accident and Emergency department at the university’s hospital had grooming injuries, according to Time.

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Shaving, waxing and snipping can be a dangerous thing to do
Should you shave or wax it off?
Dr Brever launched the survey to try and determine which method of hair removal was the safest and discovered more than 60 per cent of the injuries were related to cuts, meaning shaving was more dangerous.
Cuts in the pubic area leaves people more vulnerable to infections, including STIs.
Waxing is slightly safer, but still leaves the skin exposed for cuts or ingrown hairs.
Dr Brever advised grooming less often and removing less hair to minimise the risk.

Is it hygienic?
In the JAMA Dermatology survey, 59 per cent of respondents said that they removed their hair for hygiene reasons.
However, as mentioned previously, removing the hair can cause cuts where bacteria and viruses can penetrate.
Therefore, removing all your pubic hair leaves the skin unprotected - the only thing it removes the risk of is pubic lice.

How did Muhammad and his contemporaries remove their pubic hair?

sum

[manfred]

I think you hit the nail on the head, sum. It was all about LICE. We know from hadith that Mohammed himself suffered from head lice, so pubic lice are a high probability too, given the scarcity of water for washing and Mohammed's promiscuity. If you have sex with some 30 or more partners in a month (Mohammed himself boasted much more than even that) it would be a miracle not to catch something or another, lice being the most common thing. It would be a incredible he got away without a dose of gonorrhoea or even syphilis in all those years, too. The later develops in three stages, and the last stage can come many years after the first two, and Mohammed died quite young, so he may have been lucky enough to escape the disfigurement and madness.

As to the method used, from the sources, as they had no scissors, we must assume knives were used for cutting and scraping (no soap, either), so it must have created a terrible rash. Plucking was used for longer hair, which is painful.

[Fernando]

As to the method used, from the sources, as they had no scissors, we must assume knives were used for cutting and scraping (no soap, either), so it must have created a terrible rash. Plucking was used for longer hair, which is painful.

Talk about being a martyr...

[sum]

Years ago, before I retired, I had noticed that some muslims had shaved their pubic area. I thought that this was rather curious but never asked why this was done. If I had known as much about Islam then as I do now I would certainly have asked. I wonder what explanation the Imams would give.

Lice usually leave their eggs - nits - attached to hair and so shaving the hair would break the reproductive cycle. I am convinced that Muhammad had pubic lice - crabs - and realised that shaving his pubic hair off was of benefit for him and so advised his sycophantic followers to do the same.

Muhammad and is merry men were paying the price for free sex and even today they follow his example.

sum

[Fernando]

Manfred wondered that Mo hadn't caught syphilis. I wonder - could a dose have contributed to his mental state?

[idesigner1]

Pubic lices not only dwell in pubic hairs but also under the skin. Same is true about head and body lices.. Cutting hair gives some relief but doesn't cure it, it can come back. Complete application on hair as well as riubbing skin with kerosene based chemicals is prescribed by dermatologist. . Dont use alchohol , lices get drunk and run riot!!Mo didn't had any knowledge about lices they didn't even wash their wooden or leather garments.

[manfred]

True, shaving the hair does not give an instant cure, but, as sum mentioned, it disrupts the reproductive cycle, so given time they will just die out ...I think they live about one to three months or so, which would mean after about three months the problem should be over, provided the area is kept shaved meticulously.

There are various chemical treatment which produce a much quicker result, but I don't think they were known at Mohammed's times. There certainly was no effective cure for head lice at his time, and people just lived with them.

[Fernando]

What about head lice: would wearing a hijab make it more cosy for the lice or somewhat suffocate them?

[manfred]

head lice or pubic lice need to be attached to hair or skin, as otherwise they cannot find their source of food. So they rarely hang around on a piece of cloth, such as a headscarf. However a headscarf is not a very good preventative measure to keep the little pests away. They can get round it or even through it, if the weave is not extremely fine.

I doubt the headscarf was introduced for such a reason, as far as the sources say, it came about because of a follower of Mohammed being a sort of "peeping Tom" in the area women used as a toilet....So women were told to "cover up", rather that the guy being told not to behave in such a gross way....

[idesigner1]

Yes Manfred if eggs of lice are not killed whole cycle can continue. These microscopic eggs attached to skin. Cutting hairs won't help.First shave hair, expose skin and then then apply potions.Clean all sheet and laundry in house. In MO's time they had no idea about microscopic eggs.

Pubic lice infestation can explain anger and extraordinary aggression of Mohemmed , Saracen warriors and his Allah!!

Also they blamed women for the nasty infestation!! Hence their misogyny

Mo and all his followers suffered from infestation of pubic and other lices, which can be often pretty nasty. There was no cure. Other cultures had herbal cures, get relief by using boiled water or freezing by ice

[manfred]

I thought the eggs get attached to hairs... Sum, do you know ?

[idesigner1]

Tiny eggs live everywhere and attach to both hair and skin if I am not wrong.

[sum]

Lice - head, body and pubic - do not burrow under the skin. Articles on lice do not mention eggs on the skin. Hair is the site for eggs. Scabies burrow under the skin and cause a lot of itching.

There are many articles on the net about lice.

Is anyone aware of any reasons given by muslims to explain why Muhamad advised removing hair from the pubic area and armpits but not the head? Was hair on the head special in Muhammad`s eyes?

sum

[manfred]

Hi Sum, in most Asian cultures, and specially among the Arabs, the head is "special"... You do not touch someone else's head, and the hair on someone's head is sort of semi-sexual. It is out of bounds for all except very close relatives. Remember the images when Saddam Hussein fell? The locals hit the head of his statue with shoes.

This is a supreme insult in the Arab world, and it was used in the Ottoman empire too: when non-Muslim had to pay the jizyia they had to do so in person, kneeling down, and they were hit on the head with a slipper.

Just ruffle an Arab's hair, even a kid's, and you will be surprised at the reaction you get. I remember a teacher who had done that in a London school to a six year old boy, as a way to say "well done"... To cut a long story short, she had to go home with an escort for days, and eventually she transferred to another school.

So in Mohammed's days, hair on the head was cut somewhat, but not regularly and generally by a close relative or a slave if you had one. Barbers are quite a late arrival in the Arab world (not in India though). To this day being a barber in Turkey is a "dubious" profession, much like "actor" was years ago here, and until the mid 1800s they were generally slaves.

[idesigner1]

Lice - head, body and pubic - do not burrow under the skin. Articles on lice do not mention eggs on the skin. Hair is the site for eggs. Scabies burrow under the skin and cause a lot of itching.

There are many articles on the net about lice.

Is anyone aware of any reasons given by muslims to explain why Muhamad advised removing hair from the pubic area and armpits but not the head? Was hair on the head special in Muhammad`s eyes?

sum

Yes scabies are different from pubic lices but both can spread by sexual contact. Scabies are tiny mites and can live underneath skin. When treatment is sought both are considered present and removed. Mo might have got both!

Mohemmed was obsessed with sex with very young women. When he had sex with Ayesha she had no pubic hairs.In MO's time they believed that pubic lices can be controlled by shaving where as they lived with head lices.For many men long pubic hairs on woman and hairy arm pit is turn off! Have you seen any western woman in swimming pool with long hairs inside under arm or long hairs on crouch when they were bikini?In nude magazines they show female externals well shaved or with tiny hairs.

[sum]

Thanks, manfred.

sum

[Fernando]

Is anyone aware of any reasons given by muslims to explain why Muhamad advised removing hair from the pubic area and armpits but not the head? Was hair on the head special in Muhammad`s eyes?

Semen, sum, semen! I believe it originated with or before Aristotle but I can't find a definitive statement. However,

The author of a medical text entitled Nature of the Child explained the mechanism thus: the flow of semen acted on certain kinds of porous flesh to cause hair to grow, much as a plant would grow from fertile soil. Because both men and women had semen, both sexes grew hair on their bodies, particularly on the head, where the semen was stored. But men’s bodies were different in two ways. First, they had greater heat, which made the skin more porous, and second, they had more semen. The beard could also be explained by the way semen flowed in the body. Stored in the head, it traveled to the rest of the body when necessary, particularly during sex. For men, the hair on the chin grew thick “when the fluid in its course from the head during intercourse is delayed by its arrival in the chin, which projects forward of the breast.” Presumably, men had sex facing downward most of the time. This made the face the repository of more semen and more hair growth.

Aristotle agreed that hot fluids were the ultimate source of hair, and that men with “strong sexual passions” had especially full, thick beards because of an abundance of semen. These men were also more likely to go bald from the depletion of semen through repeated intercourse. “That is why,” Aristotle concluded, “no one goes bald before the time of sexual intercourse, and also why that is the time when those who are naturally prone to intercourse go bald.”[my emphasis]

https://harpers.org/archive/2015/12/seminal-theories/
I've seen this as an explanation of the hijab - women shouldn't go around waving their "semen" at men!

[sum]

Hello Fernando

I am lost for words!!!

At least people did not have to believe Aristotle and his predecessors but other nonsense spouted by Allah could not be rejected by muslims - or else!

sum

[idesigner1]

Yes Fernando ancient cultures equated long beard and long hairs on head with virility and strength. . Well known example is biblical myth of Samsons' hair. Once hairs on his head chopped he lost his strength.Mohemmed knew this story!

Many Sikhs who don't cut hair also believe in miraculous as well as spiritual power in hairs on their head and beard.