Shaving: A Spiritual Purification

Shaving: A Spiritual Purification

Every journey has a peak,
Every prostration a silence,
Every union a finality.

Umrah is the heart’s walk toward the Kaaba,
The soul’s departure from time and its orientation toward eternity.
And at the end of this sacred walk, the shaving is not merely a bodily act,
But a shaving of the self.

To shave is not just a physical ritual at the end of Umrah,
It is an act of resetting the self.

Hair is part of one’s visible identity,
A fragment of the self-image in the mirror.
To cut it means:
To leave behind all signs of the outer self.

With every strand that falls to the ground,
A fragment of pride drops from the heart.
The hand holding the scissors does not just cut hair —
It cuts ego,
Shedding names,
Washing off titles,
Leaving behind only:
“Servant.”

In Sufi tradition, shaving is seen as the shaving of the nafs (ego).
It’s like silencing the noise of worldly habits,
Desires, polluted intentions —
The loud cry of “I!”

Every lock cut
is a victory in the inner struggle.
For “tahallul” is not only about hair,
But also about shedding ego, ambition, status, title.

“Whoever returns from Hajj or Umrah and shaves their head
is cleansed of past sins.” (Tirmidhi)

This cleansing radiates from outside to within.
Shaving becomes a spiritual rebirth.
The old self dies,
and in its place, a new, pure-intentioned ‘you’ is born.

Now it’s not the hair that grows —
It is the intention.
Not the eyes that see —
but the heart.

During shaving, the servant falls silent,
because this is not the time for words —
but for purification to speak.

With every snip, the scissors declare:

“O soul, step aside.
This path belongs to Allah.”

Exiting ihram is not a return to the world —
It is to view the world with new eyes.

Shaving is the seal of this transformation,
A kind of spiritual diploma.

The hair may be cut —
But something else begins to grow:
Inner submission.

To shave is not just to remove what is on the head —
But to remove the excess from the heart.
To lighten the heart,
Silence the ego,
And be able to say “Labbayk” even more purely.

Each strand is a word.
And together they whisper:

“There is no longer ‘I’...
Only YOU remain.”

Dr. Özer Akpınar
Researcher – Historian