It is often said that keeping a beard is sunnah, or prophet's practice. Wearing a cap and eating pulses are also sunnah. But these notions are a reduced form of sunnah.

What is sunnah? Sunnah, or prophet's practice, is to love humans beings. It is to adopt the way of avoidance. Sunnah is to not hate the enemy. Sunnah is to convey God's message to people. Sunnah is to contemplate over the Quran. These are the real sunnah. Eating pulses or gourd will not fulfil the requirement of sunnah. This is a completely reduced form of sunnah. People have devised some rituals, which they have named as sunnah. If the real sunnah isn't alive, then everything else is only rituals. They will have no value before God.