Der Islam 2021; 98 (2): 394–424 Majid Daneshgar* The Prophet Shaving: Persians and the Origin of the Malay Hikayat Nabi Bercukur https://doi.org/10.1515/islam-2021-0028 Abstract: This article is about a well-known anonymous folk story in the Malay-In- donesian world, called Hikayat Nabi Bercukur (“The Story of Prophet Shaving”), found in various different languages across the region. The only scholarly conjec- ture about its origin is based on the copy of a Malay manuscript held in Leiden which has been deliberately blackened and struck through by a reader who stated in the margin that the story is written by a Rāfiḍī and should not be believed. Although earlier scholars mentioned the title or the synopsis of this story in their works and bibliographical catalogues, the question “what is the origin of this story?” remained unanswered. In order to follow up on previous studies and to find an answer, this essay examines numerous original manuscripts and texts in various languages and provides a comparison between the Malay versions and their prototype. Also, to the best of my knowledge, the first edition and English translation of the prototype are presented. Keywords: The Prophet Shaving, Nabi Bercukur, Sufism, Persians, Qalandar, Salmān al-Fārisī, Barber, Malay Hikayat Introduction That God commanded Muḥammad to shave his hair,1 and sent the angel Gabriel to do it, and that subsequently other heavenly nymphs became engaged in the undertaking and grabbed his hair strands before they touched the ground, are the main themes of a commonly known Malay story entitled Hikayat Nabi Bercukur (“The Story of Prophet Shaving”), around which other issues on the divine virtues 1 E.g., see the manuscript KITLV Or. 62 “Ini hikayat tatkala Nabi Allah kita Muhammad Rasul Allah s.a.w. bercukur dengan firman Allah Taʿala”. See also: T. Iskandar, Catalogue of Malay, Minangkabau, and South Sumatran Manuscripts in the Netherlands, Leiden: Documentatiebureau Islam-Christendom, 1999, 752. *Corresponding author: Majid Daneshgar, Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg, Freiburg, Germany, majid.daneshgar@orient.uni-freiburg.de