Is It Permissible for Women to Wear a Wig or a Hair Topper?

Answered by Shaykh Yusuf Weltch

Question

Is it permissible for a woman who is losing her hair due to sickness to cover her head with a wig or a hair topper?

Answer

In the Name of Allah, the Most Merciful and Compassionate

It is permissible for a woman suffering from a condition that causes her to lose her hair to cover her head with a wig or a hair topper, as long as it is not made of human or pig hair.

Human hair is impermissible to use due to Allah Most Highs ennobling of the human being. This applies to any and every part of the human. Pig hair is prohibited as it is intrinsically impure. [Tahtawi/Shurunbulali, Hashiyat Maraqi al-Falah]

Additionally, the color of the wig or the like should be a normal hair color. This is an addition that I have heard from my teacher Sayyidi al-Habib Umar, and perhaps the reasoning is that a colored wig (i.e., not a natural hair color) resembles sinful people.

Hope this helps
Allah knows best
[Shaykh] Yusuf Weltch
Checked and Approved by Shaykh Faraz Rabbani

Shaykh Yusuf Weltch is a teacher of Arabic, Islamic law, and spirituality. After accepting Islam in 2008, he then completed four years at the Darul Uloom seminary in New York where he studied Arabic and the traditional sciences. He then traveled to Tarim, Yemen, where he stayed for three years studying in Dar Al-Mustafa under some of the greatest scholars of our time, including Habib Umar Bin Hafiz, Habib Kadhim al-Saqqaf, and Shaykh Umar al-Khatib. In Tarim, Shaykh Yusuf completed the memorization of the Qur’an and studied beliefs, legal methodology, hadith methodology, Qur’anic exegesis, Islamic history, and a number of texts on spirituality. He joined the SeekersGuidance faculty in the summer of 2019.