Biting your time.
As Mo and I made our way to NYC last weekend, we were amused by the number of strange things we saw while sitting in traffic. One in particular was the kind soul (I say kind because he let us into his lane twice) who was ambitiously biting his nails. And by ambitious I mean there was an onslaught of hand-gnawing. It was hard not to watch.
I’ve always considered nail-biting one of the most disgusting habits out there (this probably has something to do with the fact that my father never let me lick my fingers after eating chips), and Hand-eater just solidified my feelings. Hand-eater also got me comparing nail-biting Muslims to nail-biting Americans. The result: I can’t recall seeing any nail-biting Muslims. Ever.
My father is a big proponent for keeping body parts away from where they shouldn’t naturally be, e.g. finger nails near pimples, fingers in mouth, etc. My mother also has good hygiene, and I can even remember waking up as a little girl in the wee hours of the night only to find her clipping away at my hands and feet (quite an ingenious idea, methinks).
So why is it that I haven’t seen Muslims biting their nails? I believe part of it is just personal hygiene, part of it is contributed by culture, and the remaining part is because of religion. I remember friends once discussing how our fingernails could not grow past a certain length, but it turns out we are not supposed to let them grow for longer than forty days. Why? Because that length likens us to animals, which we are not. Have you ever seen a woman with really long toenails? Scary, huh? Hygiene, if you haven’t been able to tell, is very important in Islam. So yes, you’ll see very few Muslim women with long nails. And if you do, hopefully they’re on her hands and not her feet.
I’m pretty sure I cut my fingernails more frequently than every forty days (I’m going to start keeping track…). I once tested for the amount of bacteria on a common doorknob and was horrified at what my petri dish uncovered. Imagine putting all of that in your mouth. Yum.
Well…I’m not Muslim, but I am South Asian, and despite my parents’ best efforts (and believe me, they have tried everything they could think of), I’ve been a nail-biter since I was very young.
I feel bad about it, but after 25+ years of it, I really can’t stop at this point, haha. I do know other South Asians who bite their nails, too (including my younger brother), so I would argue that it isn’t really cultural at all–it’s a more personal quirk.
I saw a classmate, who says she is Muslim, biting her nails in class today. Go figure. I still think a lot of it has to do with culture, or just upbringing. I’ve always heard/seen Bengali parents telling their kids to get their hands out of and away from their mouths. But these are Bengalis in the west. I can’t be sure since I haven’t been to Bangladesh in a while, but I think the habit is much more common in the west than the east. It seems to have become a socially acceptable behavior.
Ditto. In fact I do know nail biting Muslims too. Besides licking fingers are fun
Interesting tidbit…
I was in the airport recently and I came across a woman with super long nails. They were insanely long; maybe 4 inches or so. I wish she was cutting them every 40 days. They made me sick to look at. (Just thought that I would share the grossness of that memory.)
Thank you for sharing! I saw something like that once in my father’s store. A woman had such long fingernails that they began to spiral. But that wasn’t the scary part. Her toenails were also really long–they were hanging out and over her sandals. *shudder*
I was a nail biter as a child. Later my parents put some bitter polish on my nails so that I would not bite…instead I begin picking at them. It was a nervous habit. Several years ago I switched to clipping them once a week, which has severely cut down on the habit.
I’ve definitely seen Muslim children sucking their thumbs in the airport (where I worked for 6 months) and every other race/religion imaginable. Young children are the worst offenders in terms of hygiene. I think the Japanese are some of the cleanest people in the world.
Nails that are too long do not look fashionable at all. There is a certain length that looks nice but beyond that, it just looks plain bad. I agree with you on nail biting. It is disgusting. I think it’s a nervous habit that some adults carry over from childhood.