As-selam Alaykum all. Coming to this thread after a long time. My family and I happened to have a deep discussion on this topic a couple of days ago. With reference to the Quran, my question is simple and brief. The portion of Ayat 48:27 we're trying to clarify is "
muḥalliqīna ruūsakum wa-muqaṣṣirīna" which translates to (without taking anything in bracket and using
Corpus Quran word-by-word translation) "
having shaved your heads and shortened,"
The common Arabic word used even today for
shortened is "
qasir." Now, shaving of the head is clearly expressed. After that comes the word "
and shortened" (
wa-muqaṣṣirīna). The question is, shortening of what? Obviously not the hair because it's already stated that the head is to be shaven. It's apparently also not a choice of either shaving or shortening hair of the head. Firstly, shaving is obligatory as expressed in Verse 2:196 unless one is suffering from a skin disease of the scalp. Secondly, the expression
"having shaved your heads and shortened" does not sound like a choice between shaving or shortening. It does not say 'shaved your heads or shortened.' It's shaved and shortened. Sounds more like two different aspects / obligations. So, isn't it possible that the reference is to shortening of the beard, though the word beard isn't mentioned? Quite often references in the Quran to the obvious are made without mentioning the precise word because that's supposed to be understood .. and that's when translators bring in words within brackets to express their opinion. I think it's very possible that the reference here is shortening of the beard. But since the traditional "sunnah" beard, which is supposed to be uncut, untrimmed at all times, has become an inseparable interpolation in Islam, therefore no translation nor any tafsir will ever seek to explain the term
wa-muqaṣṣirīna as shortening the beard.
From what I gather, Sister Zeynab had a similar point.
Hope I've made myself clear.
P.S.
Abdel Haleem's translation of this Verse seems more inaccurate than Pickthall's if you compare with Corpus Quran. Quoting his translation below.
"God has truly fulfilled His Messenger’s vision: ‘God willing, you will most certainly enter the Sacred Mosque in safety, shaven headed or with cropped hair" (48:27). As you can see, Haleem has translated
wa-muqassirina as "cropped hair." He has used the term "hair" without brackets even though this term is used nowhere in the original. This is another clear example of how they're trying to dodge the possibility of
wa-muqassirina referring to beard.