Fairly Unfair Society

A striking issue that has risen nowadays is extreme dissatisfaction regarding your own body image. Owing to the advent of marriage bureaus and the rishta-seeking culture, people are becoming increasingly conscious about the color of their skin. Dusky people seem to have taken a fetish for skin-lightening products such as creams, pills and even injections. As was perceived of old, only girls were facing peer pressure to apply ubtans, fairness creams and totkas, the surprising factor is that nowadays even their male counterparts are seen to be resorting to this questionable activity.

This makes you seriously wonder where our society is headed. If this is the basis of finding spouses, I wonder how concrete the marriages, which form based on these foundations, would be. Body-shaming is so prevalent in our society that we’re willing to pretend to be of a different color and fake it in front of the one individual, with whom the only basis of our relationship is trust. If this is a standard, what would become of the children that come out of these unions? These medications aren’t going to change or affect the genes in any way. So, if the babies turn out to be “shockingly” dark, would they be thrown away? Or be subject to just such humiliating bouts of medication and injections to turn out fairer?

All throughout my childhood and adulthood, I have fought with obesity. Being plump as a child did not allow me to fit into the “normal” body category. Kids can be inadvertently mean but so can older people. Our society tends to believe that if you’re not “normal” (by its own twisted standards), you are not allowed to have feelings, or maybe, they just don’t matter. As a kid, this affected my self-confidence and I grew up to be an extremely shy person. As someone who has struggled with her body image all throughout her life, I have worked hard to build up my self-esteem from the ground up.

My story and the accounts of countless others who were made to feel ashamed of their weight, height, skin color or any other aspect of how they look, provide a strong indication that we, as people, are morally spiraling downwards – and fast. As an aunt to a niece, who appears to be facing the same kinds of issues as me, I can tell why she feels shy or doesn’t speak up in class. It is because she’s afraid of being made fun of, of being shamed for who she is. It is because of this that I cannot stress enough on how important it is to raise children who are kind, respectful, helpful, friendly, compassionate, empathetic and considerate of others.

If we ourselves can find peace with being discontented with who we are, how we appear and are consistently in the habit of comparing ourselves to others, incessantly trying to “adapt” to the society’s standards without any qualms, we’re going to teach our children that it’s okay for others to criticize them based on how they look and their material achievements. Are these the values we want to inculcate within our future generation? Are we going to teach them to be forever unhappy about who they are and how they look? Are we going to be okay with them comparing themselves to others and nurturing jealousies? Or instead, are we going to educate them to be satisfied in their own skin?

It is high time we bring up children with the right priorities in life. We need to make them people, who can look beyond the skin and beneath the physical beauty. They should be encouraged to identify their own unique talents and capabilities. They should be directed to make decisions that promote healthier lifestyles. They should be supported in becoming people of character and intellect. So that they become individuals with a strong sense of self-worth. 

We, as responsible adults, should instill within them, the wonderful core values our religion teaches us. We need to train them to be thankful for everything Allah has Blessed them with, to be content and satisfied with what they have. We need to coach them to look for the good in themselves and in others. We need to raise them up as confident and skilled individuals, who contribute compassionately to the welfare of others, who are kind and helpful, considerate and patient, who benefit others and have beautiful hearts.

The Worldly Quest

I’ve only now realized that it’s very easy to lose focus, to allow yourself to be so consumed within the Dunya that you start to wither away, essence-wise. You don’t put in enough effort to nourish your starving soul. You let yourself drift away, from the Light, from your closeness with the Supreme Being. This leads to an emptiness within your core and gives rise to a hollowness that is reflected not only in your behavior or words but also starts to eat away at you from the inside. It’s a kind of depression, the reason of which you are unable to comprehend.

This is the time when you must take some time out for reflection. When you feel you’ve distanced yourself from your spirituality. When life gets so busy, running after worldly affairs that you rarely get time to focus on the little things in life or the small efforts that matter, which could eventually become your doorway to Jannah (Insha Allah).

When you reach a point where you just sit down to ponder over what life has become, and when you realize it is now no more than a surge of anxious accomplishments that may appear outwardly as commendable achievements but are never able to fulfill or satisfy you internally. This is the time when you need to take a pause, sit down and just think. The questions we need to ask ourselves are what are we doing exactly? Where are we headed? Are we contributing in the least bit towards the welfare of others? Are we making any significant efforts to make life easy for another human being? Are we providing any support to make other people more secure and happy? Do we even spare just a moment to make Dua for the ones who are suffering or ailing or are in trouble – without their reminding us to do so? I know, for a fact, that I’m not. And it is certainly not because I am unwilling to do so but mostly because I’m rushing to accomplish my daily tasks. Things such as my class work, the tasks at my job are so much more important. I find myself scurrying hurriedly to work and then rushing through to get home early so I can get more things done in little time.

We lead our lives as if we are in absolute control of whatever happens in our lives. But are we really? Why is it that we lose this sense that there’s this Being, the All-Supreme, who is in Control of everything? We can never be productive or successful without His Will. So then why do we let this false sense of self, cloud over the wiser part of us that knows that without His Help, we are nothing? Shouldn’t this reason be sufficient enough for us to extend help to our troubled fellow beings?

I was recently approached by someone for help and what left me surprised was my attitude towards it. This compelled me to question myself. Was I not usually the kind of person who would jump at the thought of helping out someone in distress despite not knowing them very well? But today, as I’m trying to juggle so many things at a time, I also find myself weighing the prospects of sacrificing my “precious” time that could be of use elsewhere. This is just how materialistic, selfish and inconsiderate we can become as human beings once we let this never-ending quest for the world and the worldly enter us.

For most of us, this realization that we’re heading in the wrong direction would only have taken a backseat and would not be completely lost. This is owing to the inherent light within us and our natural inclination towards the good in life, which is an undeniable Blessing from Allah. And we have to continue making a conscious effort to rid ourselves of this rat-race mentality and focus on the greater things in life, otherwise, we just keep sinking deeper and deeper into this vicious, monotonous circle that deprives us of connecting with the Almighty. We need to keep pushing ourselves out of it. We need to allow this need for connectivity with Allah to resurface because it forms the very basis of the calmness and serenity that nourishes us from within, that calms our consciences, illuminates our soul and even with our imperfections, makes us whole.