# Have men historically worn earrings, or is it a recent fashion?

*Men's earrings through history: Assyria, Egypt, the Israelites, Persia, Rome, India and Europe*

- URL: https://muftiabulayth.org/r/pkjtq8axgre/s/2/
- Date: 2019-07-24 · Kind: lesson · Transcript tier: machine · Recording: Holistic Overview: Can Men Wear Earrings? -Mufti Abu Layth (2:37–10:22)
- Status: general teaching
- Watch from the start of the segment: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pkjtq8AXGRE&t=157s
- Recording page: https://muftiabulayth.org/r/pkjtq8axgre/

**Topics:** Jewellery, gold and silk for men; The ancient Near East and scripture

**Summary (not a quotation; machine-made, unchecked):** Men have worn earrings for thousands of years, in Assyria, Egypt, among the Israelites, in Persia, India and Europe, usually as a mark of nobility or soldiery. Only the European church restricted them to women, which is why defiant groups such as pirates kept wearing them.

**Checked position (checked by two independent reviews, not by the channel):** Mufti Abu Layth says that men across the ancient world, from Assyria and Egypt to Persia, India and Europe, wore earrings for thousands of years, often as a mark of nobility or soldiery, and that their restriction to women in Europe came from the church.

**Evidence, his words at 8:59:** “the church prohibited men from wearing earrings now so you see the church influenced it starts to say that no these things should be restricted to women” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pkjtq8AXGRE&t=539s)

## Longer summary

Mufti Abu Layth says that inscriptions and rock art show human beings adorning themselves with jewellery for at least seven to nine thousand years. He goes through civilisations in which men wore earrings: the Assyrian kingdoms of some four and a half thousand years ago, whose clay tablets describe aristocrats and nobles wearing earrings to denote status; ancient Egypt, whose papyri describe prominent men with earrings and whose unwrapped mummies have pierced ears; and the Israelites, since in the biblical account of the golden calf, a story the Quran also tells, Harun asks the people to bring him the earrings of their boys as well as their girls. He cites the Achaemenid Persian empire from Cyrus to Darius III, whose surviving paintings at Persepolis show soldiers with earrings, and notes that the Romans generally did not wear them, regarding them as an Eastern and slavish thing, perhaps because of their rivalry with the Persians. He adds the Tamil Chola dynasty of India, whose statues depict kings with earrings, and ancient Europe, where earrings marked class, copper for peasants, gold and silver for merchants and rubies or emeralds for kings, and where Cossack families marked an only son with a right earring and the last male of a line with a left one. He says the church, as it grew in power, prohibited men from wearing earrings and restricted them to women, so that those who defied authority, such as pirates, kept wearing them, and mentions native American peoples too. His point, he says, is that men's earrings are not a recent phenomenon dating from the hippies but something worn for thousands of years, often by nobles and soldiers.

## Sources and names cited

- Musa (Moses)
- Harun (Aaron)
- the golden calf of the Israelites
- the Bible

## Transcript (machine tier, 2:37–10:22)

[2:33] years human beings have used jewelry okay thousands and thousands of years at least from documentation that we and it's not just documents it's inscriptions it's rock art things like this we can see that human beings from at least documented something like opportunity anything between seven to nine thousand years ago were adorning themselves with jewelry we see men many civilizations okay so you've got several kind of dynasties if we go for as far

[3:11] back as almost four and a half thousand years ago the kingdoms of Assyria so with its capital iseul which is probably modern-day Nineveh you see kingdoms like that that the men would often wear earrings especially to denote high status and many of the any whether they were aristocrats or people of any kind of nobility within the Assyrian Empire which is the modern-day Middle East they would wear earrings it's known from the clay tablets when they spoke about things when they give gave descriptions

[3:50] we still have that in the clay tablets we have if you look at places like Egypt for example the Egyptian civilizations in the papyri that has survived from thousands of years going back 4000 years if not more it described their prominent people the men as all wearing earrings and the prominent men they described them as wearing earrings if not all but many amongst them about the Egyptian civilization even any of the great excavations of mummies

[4:29] of mummified figures that went once unwrapped they found the ears to be the men they found the ears to be piece pierced so you have these kind of things if you look at the biblical sources from the time of Moses okay the story the famous story which is mentioned in the Bible in the Koran as well about when Moses went to when he went away the people the Israelites asked Harun to help them make a God in to get gold and the Quran refers to the story as well

[5:07] that he made this kind of that they made this kind of this calf this kind of cow golden cow lah who's that he had a kind of sound to it so and they started worshipping this and then when Moses comes back he's very upset for you know allaha of Bona that he was angry through the kind of the slates that he had these but the point is in the Bible it mentions Harun Aaron when he's asked to make a cow a golden cow for them he says to them that go bring me the gold and he

[5:45] mentions it's in the Bible bring me the earrings from you he says from your boys the earrings and he asks for the girls as well but he asks for the boys the boys earrings so you see that even thousands of years ago the Israelites they had this practice you see the the Achaemenid Empire the persian empire that existed in the middle east that began with cyrus the 1st and ends made our is the third you see in their kingdom their Persepolis then one of the

[6:24] main kind of capitals which is probably north of around modern-day Shiraz many of the paintings of these soldiers that have survived showed that they the soldiers the men would wear earrings okay so you've got this kind of tradition it is true that the Romans didn't wear earrings generally they in fact described it as an Eastern thing an oriental thing and one of the reasons that they never wore him was because a lot of the slaves wore earrings the men so they didn't want they saw it as a

[7:02] lowly thing and an Eastern thing and perhaps this was partly due to their rivalry with the Persians and the Achaemenid and the other sassanid kind of empires but the Persians definitely did wear hearings if you look to the to the east like India the some of the greatest ruling dynasties the tamil dynasties like the chola dynasty which was one of the longest empires ruling empires in India ever centuries and centuries on in a lot of their ancient scriptures and a lot of their statues and drawings and whatever they have and depict the men always especially the kings and other people always wearing

[7:42] earrings if you move to Europe people this is to give us a backdrop and then we'll zoom back in many people in ancient Europe did where men I'm speaking about men specifically they wore earrings in fact you had it was seen as a kind of class thing so the poor people the peasants they usually wore copper earrings the nobility and businessmen merchants wore kind of precious metals like gold and silver and the Kings usually wore earrings out of rubies or emeralds and things like this

[8:20] so this is this seems to be the the if you look at places like the ancient reus dynasties the Russian the ancient Russian dynasties and you look at they had Cossack Ottomans who were they kind of military leaders they often marked their children with earrings so if a boy was the only child the boy would wear a right earring you wear an earring in the right and where they had met children many boys the last of the men would always wear an earring in their left so you see things like that in

[8:59] other parts of Europe the church especially as the church began to get more prominent the church prohibited men from wearing earrings now so you see the church influenced it starts to say that no these things should be restricted to women and the church starts to pass out ruling however many men still especially those who defied Authority often still wore earrings hence pirates throughout history usually wore earrings almost as an act of defiance and to kind of show that thing and many people who challenge the

[9:38] authority sometimes of the church historically wore earrings so you see that because to show this kind of this self Authority in a way you have other other ancient kingdoms like the native Indians them wearing earrings now the reason I'm mentioning all of this is to give a backdrop that some people seem to think that people never wore earring men never wore earrings and this is a very recent phenomenon began since the

[10:15] hippies and so on and and now it's just recent this has been something that has existed for thousands and thousands of years often worn by men usually men of nobility or soldiers this was often I think sailors who travelled around the world often wore earrings as a sign to show that they traveled around the world throughout this is throughout huge parts of history diverse societies this was never seen generally as a thing exclusive to women now I'm just giving us a backdrop now I'm going to kind of

## Cite

Mufti Abu Layth Archive, segment pkjtq8AXGRE/s/2. https://muftiabulayth.org/r/pkjtq8axgre/s/2/

Not a fatwa: these answers were given to specific people at specific times. Ask a qualified scholar about your own situation.