This book explores the fascinating world of religious hair observances within six religious traditions that account for 77% of the world's adherents: Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Sikhism. Symbolic use of hair has been, and remains, prevalent in all six and carries significant amounts of religious and social meaning. Hair is a unique body substance. It can be shaped and colored, removed from us without pain but still retain an individual's essence, signal our age, sex, and sexual maturity, and much, much more.

The book's approach is to situate each practice within its tradition. That requires a study of its foundational leaders and their teachings, sacred texts (where they mention hair), its rites and rituals, ideas of religious power and subsequent historical development. Contemporary practitioners are interviewed for their motivations. Even more insight can be gleaned by searching beyond an overt religious purpose. Social scientists from anthropology, sociology, psychology, and related fields bring their research to deliver added perceptions.

The author reveals how hair practices are created from ancient psychological and cultural impulses, become modified by time, culture and religious intent, and are adopted by adherents for reasons ranging from personal religious expression to group identity. This book is written for the interested observer of our increasingly diverse society and for the student of comparative religion and sociology. It will change forever how you see hair.

Auteur
William C. Innes, Jr. earned a PhD in Ecclesiastical History from the University of St. Andrews (Scotland), and has written over his career on religion and society. Currently, he teaches in Africa and Asia in an MAOL program through Development Associates International, and in the University of Delaware's Life-Long Learning program.

Contenu

Introduction: The Introduction starts with the events that inspired the creation of this book and outlines the methodology to be followed. The well-publicized need for better understanding, evidenced by hate crimes against Muslims and Sikhs in the U.S., the French government's battle with the hijab, and some avoidable medical treatment mistakes, are spotlighted. Finally, it describes the unique characteristics of human hair, and why its symbolic use transcends cultures and religious traditions.
2.Judaism: Judaism contains, of the six, the richest collection of hair practices. These begin with some specific mitzvoth in Torah, including requiring a healed leper to shave off all hair in order to be declared clean, and prohibitions against cutting the edges of the beard to create an identity separate from the Canaanites and Egyptians. The Naziritic oath of Numbers 6 ended with a sacrifice of shaving off one's hair, a rite discussed in the Talmud and by Maimonides. Head shaving and body cutting to express personal and corporate grief exist in the prophetic literature. Ancient Israel associated the attractiveness of hair with the strength of one's relationship to God; it also associated hair and fertility.
Female head covering reaches back to ancient Assyria and then halakha. Maimonides and Yosef Caro each offered opinions on male and female head covering. In the Lilith legends, the night demon exposes her red, flowing female hair and leads pious men astray. Today, Hasidic, Haredi and other devoutly Orthodox groups practice forms of female hair cropping and subsequent head covering, whereas its men continue the Torah requirement to keep the beard and sides of the head unshaved. Jewish practices strongly influenced Christianity and, even more so, Islam.
3.Christianity: The Jewish Naziritic vow is mentioned in Acts of the Apostles in connection with Paul. The rite was then incorporated into Latin and Greek Church ordinations. It was the partial reason for the tonsuring for male and female monastics. Greek and Latin Churches used hair as a boundary marker. The Eastern Churches emphasized the full male beard, the West being clean-shaven. Differences on tonsuring appeared in decretals of the Great Schism of 1054. Earlier, they also figured in the Synod of Whitby settlement between the Roman and Celtic Churches.
Female head covering locates its origins in Paul's writings and with the theologians of the Early Church. Covering the head of lay and religious women continued until the twentieth century. Head and beard shaving in the West (and in Buddhist monasticism as well) led to many theories linking monastic hair to shaving and castration. Although Protestants generally dropped all hair practices, two notable exceptions are the Amish/Anabaptists and women of the African American Church. In general, Christianity has been moving away from hair practices.
4.Islam: Hair takes a prominent role in Muslim praxis anchored in three hadiths recalling the teachings of Mohammed. He recommended that men maintain full beards and thin mustaches, which is interpreted differently depending on the school of religious law a believer follows. Mohammed asked his own wives to cover their hair, which quickly became normative. Neither practice is traceable to the Koran.
Male head covering (with the taqiyya) is recommended but varies by culture. The most unusual Muslim practice is Sunan al-Fitrah, which requires men and women to shave all body hair knees to navel and to pluck axillary hair and to keep it removed. This is often connected with puberty or marriage rituals. The Prophet intentionally used hair to create boundary markers between his followers and Jews, Christians and Zoroastrians, and to create gender boundaries between Muslim men and women. At the end of his life he cut his hair and nails and distributed them to his followers. His beard in enshrined within the hajj route in Mecca.
Finally, head shaving for purity and as a rite of passage from sacralized to quotidian time is performed at the end of the hajj or umrah. Children are head shaved and named at 7 days in the aquiqah celebration; howev...