Reconstructing Beauty Series: Part I | Part II | Part III | Part IV | Part V | Part VI

In an enlightening hadith (prophetic narration), the Prophet ﷺ tells us that no one with an ounce of arrogance in his heart will enter Paradise. In seeking to understand what arrogance means, the companions asked “O Prophet of Allah, what if a person likes to dress well?” The Prophet ﷺ responded, “Allah is beautiful and loves beauty. Arrogance is rejecting truth and looking down on people” [Muslim]

Allah is Beautiful

Let us first think about Allah’s Beauty. None of us have seen Allah subhanahu wa ta`ala (exalted is He), so how can we even begin to contemplate His magnificence?

Allah (swt) gives us clues. He calls the sun, the moon, the stars, the skies, and the mountains ‘signs’. And what is a sign except something that leads us to something greater—to a logical conclusion, to the source of that sign?

Instead of writing, I want to just post some breathtaking pictures and videos of the universe. I can describe their beauty all I want, but there is nothing like experiencing something for yourself. If you are able to take a few moments to reflect in nature, please do.

Ibn Al-Qayyim said, “And it is enough to realize Allah’s Beauty when we know that every internal and external beauty in this life and the next are created by Him, so what of the beauty of their Creator?”

Our faith in Allah’s beauty should strengthen our connection with our Lord. It increases our love for Him and our longing to return to Him—to be able to see just a glimpse of Him. The Prophet ﷺ made the following du`a’ (supplication): “I ask of You the joy of looking on Your noble countenance and of my longing to be with You.” [Nisa’i]

Another aspect of Allah’s Beauty is in His actions. Allah is Beautiful in His Mercy, and His Mercy is manifested in the mercy He has bestowed upon people in terms of what he has proved for them, but also in the mercy that His creation show to each other. Look at a mother’s ability to forget the pains of childbirth as soon as she holds her newborn in her arms. A father’s patient answering of the same question his child asks for the 60th time. A stranger who helps an elderly person cross the street.

This is all part of Allah’s Beauty – so how can we not long to meet Him on the Day of Judgment?

He loves Beauty

The One who is the Most-Beautiful, and who is the source of all Beauty, surely knows what true beauty is. So what is the beauty that Allah (swt) loves? Ibn Al-Qayyim said that it pertains to two things: Firstly beautifying ourselves outwardly, and secondly beautifying ourselves inwardly.

Contrary to what some might think, outward beauty is important in Islam. At the very basic level is cleanliness. We are told “Cleanliness is half of faith” [Muslim]. Moreover, people are discouraged from attending the mosque if they have eaten garlic or onion because the odor may bother other people.

At the aesthetic level, we are encouraged to be well-dressed and presentable. As the hadith showed us, dressing well is not considered showing off, unless it is done for that purpose or to show that one is better than others. But dressing well is a sign of dignity. The Prophet ﷺ said “Allah loves to see the affects of His grace upon His servant.” [Tirmidhi] All of this pertains to outward beauty. We all incline towards that kind of beauty, in one way or another.

But if what we consider beautiful is touched by what doesn’t please Allah (swt), it ceases to be beautiful. It is just hawa (our own whims) which are affected by the messages that bombard us everyday in advertisements, magazines and movies. Allah tells us about the hypocrites “And when you see them, their forms please you, and if they speak, you listen to their speech.” [Qur’an, 63:4] They looked a certain way that was pleasing to other people, and they were charismatic when they spoke—but they were hypocrites. Their outward form did not make up for what was missing in their hearts. The Prophet ﷺ also says “Allah does not look at your appearance or your possessions; but He looks at your heart and your deeds.” [Muslim] So beautifying ourselves outwardly, while commendable and can take different forms in different cultures, is tempered by what is beautiful to Allah. No matter how elegant a shirt is, if it does not cover our ‘awra (parts of the body that must be covered), it is not beautiful to Allah (swt). Once a companion was wearing a gold ring, presumably because he did not know that it was prohibited for men. When he heard the Prophet ﷺ say it is forbidden, he immediately removed it and threw it away. It may have been a beautiful ring, it may have been an expensive ring, but in his eyes it was nothing because it was not beautiful to the Creator of beauty.

The real beauty that is evident to anyone is inner beauty. If the inside is beautiful, it beautifies what is outside. How many of us have met people whose inner light shines through? The Prophet ﷺ describes a “seemingly disheveled, dusty, negligible person, but if he would swear to God, He would respond to him,” (Tirmidhi). These are the people of true beauty to Allah (swt) because of the beauty in their hearts. They are a people who love to spend time with Allah, and if they are with people, they are in their service.

Look at the inner beauty of the Prophet ﷺ. There was an old woman who detested the Prophet ﷺ even though she had never met him. One day the Prophet ﷺ saw that she needed help and he proceeded to help her. So she thought she would give him advice, and the ‘advice’ was to warn him against the Prophet ﷺ. He simply smiled and listened to what she said. She later found out that he was the Prophet ﷺ. You cannot help but love someone with that kind of inner light.

And if Allah loves your inner beauty, what happens? Allah tells us in a hadith Qudsi:

“When I love him I am his hearing with which he hears, his seeing with which he sees, his hand with which he strikes and his foot with which he walks. Were he to ask [something] of Me, I would surely give it to him, and were he to ask Me for refuge, I would surely grant him it.” [Bukhari]

So let us beautify ourselves outwardly for His sake by being clean and presentable ambassadors of His religion, and let us beautify ourselves inwardly by adorning ourselves with God-consciousness and good manners.

To be honest, I don’t know when it happened. I don’t know if it was a subconscious decision to somehow physically manifest the change in my mindset. But I’m glad it happened. Because the day my make-up bag became my pencil case was the day I truly became myself.

I remember the days in which I was testing a natural face, and I still remember how people reacted to me. Most people thought I was sick. That something had happened to me. That the dark circles under my eyes were somehow a commentary of a hard and suddenly traumatic life. The truth was that nothing had changed. Pimples often occupy my forehead, my skin is not flawless, I am usually sleep-deprived and, even when I’m not, dark circles dominate my eye sockets.

We are told that unless our face is masked and our blemishes covered, we are not beautiful. Unless our faces are colored, we are not as beautiful as we have the potential to be. There is a multi-billion dollar industry that thrives on this very belief: that we look better and can feel better if we cover our blemishes and color ourselves pretty (or dizzy). We become obsessed with the way that we look, the amount that we weigh and the way that we dress. The number of compliments that our beauty warrants becomes an indicator of how accomplished we feel, and being ‘ugly’ is worse than being stupid. It is an obsession and addiction in every sense of the words.

I would tell myself that I was wearing make-up for myself, not for others. But the damning truth is that every time I wiped my face away, I would see the blemishes and cringe at my own face without the self-inflicted photoshoping. And I did not feel better about myself; I felt worse. I had to rely on paint to feel comfortable with my own face. When I quit the madness, I began to appreciate myself in a different way. I can’t say that I’m in love with my blemishes or dark circles—but I can say that I’m now okay with the face that stares back at me every day. Because that face doesn’t matter to me anymore. I am my writing; I am my accomplishments; I am my own person devoid of the beauty of my face. This is a person that needs work, but it’s a person that does not rely on her face to determine her worth.

Now, when I wear make-up, I’m told how amazing I look. And to me, it’s insulting — because how I look with my blemishes and my imperfections is who I am. The woman I am without the mask is the same woman I am with it — but that mask makes a difference to people. The question we never ask is ‘Why? What difference does it make if you can see that my face is discolored? Does a face consistent in its color make me more worthy of admiration? Why is the inflection of admiration in “She’s so pretty” so much greater than in “She’s so accomplished”?’

I’m not here to say that when I wore make-up I was incapable of being intelligent (or that I didn’t own a pencil case). But I am here to say that wearing make-up or subscribing to the cosmetics industry was not an expression of my individuality, nor will it ever be for the majority of us. It was an expression of my conformation. It was an expression that I had succumbed to a multi-billion dollar industry that thrives on the self-consciousness of women worldwide who are expected to look a certain way and to become flawless in a way that no woman naturally is. It was an admission that I preferred the way I looked unnaturally; that what was natural to me was somehow ‘less’. An admission that, with make-up, I was somehow ‘more’. After all, why would I wear it if it truly meant nothing to me and if I truly believed that it made no difference?

When I began writing this, I wanted to find statistics on the cosmetics industry and how women’s self-image is related to the industry’s boom. Then I realized that there was no need. Every woman who reads this will know exactly what I’m talking about because being seen without make-up is somehow a source of embarrassment. Our self-consciousness peaks when we have no make-up on. If we’re seen without make-up, or post pictures without make-up, we crave compliments to assure ourselves that we are ‘naturally’ beautiful, and that although we wear make-up, we don’t really ‘need’ it to be beautiful.

The day that my make-up bag became my pencil case was the day that I finally gave myself some agency and some self-respect. It was the day I realized that it’s what I write and do that matters, not how I color my face or my image. When I refused to wear make-up, I refused to let my face or physical imperfections matter, either to me or to others. My physical imperfections are not my choice, but my other imperfections are.

I used to complain about women being objectified, but I would objectify myself. I used to tell myself that it’s what is on the inside that counts, but I would pay more attention to my pimples than my pride. Then I realized that a flawless face will not tell you of a flawless soul and the blemishes on my face will tell you nothing of the blemishes on my heart.

“Know that the life of this world is but amusement and diversion and adornment and boasting to one another and competition in increase of wealth and children – like the example of a rain whose [resulting] plant growth pleases the tillers; then it dries and you see it turned yellow; then it becomes [scattered] debris. And in the Hereafter is severe punishment and forgiveness from Allah and approval. And what is the worldly life except the enjoyment of delusion.” (Qur’an 57:20)

Fatimah Amirali is an aspiring writer from Vancouver, Canada with an interest in politics and religion. She graduated with a Bachelor of Arts from the University of British Columbia in English and Religious Studies.