Issue 3: The link between performing for male gaze and gossiping
The community's obligation to lift the bar to prevent spiritual violation
A traveler on a journey to Allah SWT understands that she needs to pack her bags with many essentials: yaqeen (conviction), ikhlaas (sincerity), taqwa (God-consciousness), ihsaan (excellence), good deeds, tawwakul (reliance on Allah), sabr (patience), shukr (gratitude). The risk of being attacked by thieves and wayfarers in the form of desires and shortcomings also looms, and of course there’s no forgetting shaytaan. It is a difficult journey, but if she keeps on track, and if she is successful, she is rewarded with the sweetness of seeing the Perfection of Allah SWT’s Face.
As such, this journey is not one a person can embark on alone; whilst it requires individual effort in self-rectification, it also requires others to help self-development. As the adage goes, ‘it takes a village to raise a child’, but the journey towards Allah does not end once an individual reaches maturity – how do we as a community continue to uplift and raise one another even into adulthood and old age?
Narrated by Abu Musa: ‘The Prophet (ﷺ) said, "A faithful believer to a faithful believer is like the bricks of a wall, enforcing each other." While (saying that) the Prophet (ﷺ) clasped his hands, by interlacing his fingers.’ – Bukhari.
An example of one way of looking at this is considering the social ill of gossiping:
‘One reason women have traditionally gossiped more than men is because gossip has been a social interaction wherein women have felt comfortable stating what they really think and feel. Often, rather than asserting what they think at the appropriate moment, women say what they think will please the listener. Later, they gossip, stating at that moment their true thoughts. This division between a false self invented to please others and a more authentic self need not exist when we cultivate positive self-esteem.’ – “All About Love” - bell hooks
Society has taught women the need to perform for the male gaze, to be the ‘good girl’, a pliant, pretty, perfect thing, a caricature that extinguishes our fire and nurtures a deep rage and hunger to be seen as our authentic selves. Gossiping is the ugly manifestation of that internal battle between performance and desire for authenticity.
Whilst the onus of withholding oneself from falling into sin falls on the individual, it’s worth asking, at what point do we as a community need to intervene? If the roots of backbiting are feelings of powerlessness and rage created by a stifling environment, do we not, as a community, have to then create spaces where women and men feel secure, safe, and powerful enough to voice concerns in the moment to help prevent our brothers and sisters from falling into acts of self-violation and acts that are displeasing to Allah SWT later on?
The development of these non-judgmental spaces often start within female environments before involving the wider community as a whole, where we, as women, can shed the masks of our performances, where we no longer have to pretend, where we can embrace our true selves, or at least begin to understand her. Audre Lorde says in her collection of essays, “Sister Outsider” how she:
‘grew up in largely female environments and I know how crucial that has been to my own development. I feel the want and need often for the society of women exclusively. I recognise that our own spaces are essential for developing and recharging’
Imagine: the community, using a combination of nurturing self-worth within men and women, on a foundation of love for Allah, as well as creating environments of openness and safety so that our voices flow freely – the erasure of toxic feelings and relationships being damaged because of unexpressed thoughts and feelings, an enriched community like that would be on the path to thrive and shine.
-Shaheen Sardar
Welcome to the the Hawaa Newsletter
Asalaamalaykum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuhu (May Allah shower you in tranquility, His Mercy and His Divine Aid)
This is an age of fast news, algorithms favouring the churning out of daily content with no heart and no soul embedded into it. An abundance of smiles and serenity on our screens - there seems to be so much love to go around, and yet we somehow still remain hungry. Starved. Women who seem to be bathing in Divine Light with their talk of closeness and connection with our Lord, yet we feel immobile and enfolded in darkness. Trauma that doesn’t seem like it wants to leave. And yet:
‘there is beauty yet in this brutal, damaged world of ours. hidden, fierce, immense’ - a. roy
We want these monthly newsletters to be a journey of creating and solidifying our sisterhood - the Newsletter aims to centre on Muslim women’s voices, with all of its rawness, wit, spirituality and strength and use it as a means of encouraging ourselves to reestablish our relationship with Allah with a foundation of Love and Hope. We truly believe in the power of story telling, and ultimately the Mercy of Allah SWT
This is a journey we hope you’ll take with us, one that will, bi’ithnillah, be filled with some healing, growth and inspiration.