This is a common question and one that people are always wondering about. It is understandable that some Muslims think this to be a trivial piece of legislature in Islam.

While I am not one to comment on any ruling in Islam, I do want to make clear the different viewpoints on this issue. There are basically two views that I’ve found:

One says it is obligatory and a MAJOR sin to let the pants, or lower garment, touch the ankles.

The other says it is haraam to let the lower garment go below the ankles out of pride. But if it is not done with pride then it is Makruh (despised but not haraam).

As I mentioned in my post about Muslim Men and the beard, I use two different sources when looking for Islamic rulings. For the stricter point of view, I go through IslamQA and for a more lenient point of view, I go through Islam Online.

The scholars at Islam QA were of the opinion that letting the pants touch the ankles was a sin.

“The ruling is that letting the garment come below the ankles is haraam, and there is no room for paying attention to people’s views on this matter.”

The scholars at Islam-Online had a slightly different opinion:

“Men should keep their trousers a little bit above the ankles but trousers may be lengthened to the ankles. However, below the ankles is forbidden if it implies showing off.”

We can conclude from these two opinions that Muslim men should be very careful about wearing their pants below the ankles. And if they can wear them above the ankles, that is by far the safer thing to do.

And Allah knows best.