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The prostration mark on the forehead has no positive or negative meaning
Fatwa No: 213244

Question

assalmwalekum, i have black mark in my forehead due to sajda. i heard that this is not good as mentioned in some hadeeths. kindly tell me is it good to have mark on forehead or not. I keep clothes beneath my forehead to reduce the mark. however this mark is present.

Answer

All perfect praise be to Allaah, The Lord of the Worlds. I testify that there is none worthy of worship except Allaah, and that Muhammad is His slave and Messenger.

We do not know which Ahaadeeth you are referring to that mention that the existence of this mark is not good. However, we can say that the existence of this mark does not mean any positive or negative meaning, as it may exist for physical reasons that have nothing to do with the Sharee’ah as is the case with a person who has sensitive skin, and hence, this mark appears because of putting his head on the ground.

Shaykh Ibn ‘Uthaymeen was asked: “Is it reported that the mark that is caused by prostration in the forehead is a sign of pious people?" He answered: “This is not a sign of pious people, but the sign of the pious people is the light that one has on the face, contentment in the heart, good moral conduct and so forth. As regards the mark on the face that is caused by prostrating, then this mark may appear on someone who does not pray except the obligatory prayer because of him having soft or sensitive skin, and it may not appear in the face of someone who prays so many (supererogatory) prayers and prostrates for a long time.” [End of quote]

Hence, our advice to you is that you should not preoccupy yourself with this matter and you should not worry about it. For more benefit, please refer to Fatwa 154581.

By the way, we would like to let you know that we noticed that your name is Abdul Hussein, and such a name is not permissible as the scholars stated that it is not permissible to be named with a name that suggests being a slave to anyone other than Allaah; Ibn Hazm said: “The scholars agreed to forbid any name that suggests being a slave to anyone other than Allaah, like ‘Abd ‘Umar, ‘Abdul Ka’bah and the like with the exception of ‘Abdul Muttalib.”

So you should change this name to a good name, like ‘Abdullaah, ‘Abdur-Rahmaan and other names that suggest being a slave to Allaah alone, and it is also permissible to change your name to ‘Abd Rabb Al-Hussein (i.e. the slave of the Lord of Al-Hussein).

For more benefit, please refer to Fataawa 82724 and 87262.

Allaah Knows best.

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