Shaving Hair and the Maintenance of Confessional Boundaries in Jewish Sources from the Early Islamic Period

In the early Islamic period, a new requirement for converts to Judaism emerges in Jewish legal sources: shaving the head and paring the nails. In one of the versions, facial hair is also explicitly mentioned. In the present article this requirement is examined in the context of punitive shaving of head and facial hair, which also first appears in the same period. These Jewish sources are studied with the broader background of such requirements in Byzantine and Muslim law, and additional demands not to imitate hairstyles prevalent in other confessional communities

Confessional · Context (archaeology) · Islam · Judaism · Period (music) · Punitive damages · Archaeology and Historical Studies · Medieval and Classical Philosophy · Medieval History and Crusades