All of your actions could be halal.
But in the longterm, they *could* cause more harm than benefit. In ways you never intended.
Sound outrageous? Wrong?
Let me explain.
A lot of us have a tendency to pick out problems or inconsistencies in one aspect of an activity.
Yet we fail to understand the wider impact and consequences that the sum of those parts have towards life and the world in general.
This is often referred to as the meta-narrative.
Or in simpler terms, the 'whole picture'.
Confused?
Let me explain.
Let's assume that theres a young Muslim hijabi woman by the name of Aisha.
She's an influencer on TikTok.
She makes a reel one day that gets 15M views.
In that reel, she talks about living alone in Soho, NYC in an awesome studio apartment.
She shows us a 'Day in the Life of Aisha' video as she goes to work for Meta.
She drinks Kombucha on tap and interacts with her teammates.
She does her own laundry and dishes and shows how she preps up an awesome dinner meal.
We see her preparing a launch deck as a Senior Product Manager.
And then her closing out the day reading the Qur'an or attending a local halaqa.
In other words, we see her showcase her daily life as an independent boss-girl.
Then finally at the end of the video she says,
“All of this was made possible because of my handy assistant Todoist! A productivity app which lets me keep track of all the busy things I need to do as an independent Muslim woman and a kickass Product Lead at Meta”
Has she done something impermissible (haram)?
Let’s break it down.
She works a halal job. She makes a halal income.
She may have needed to live alone due to providing for her family.
There might be extenuating circumstances that caused her to live alone. Maybe her dad was abusive. Maybe she's escaping a bad marriage.
Maybe, maybe, maybe.
So she made this video as part of a corporate effort to show things at Meta. And she got sponsored and paid by Todoist.
So mostly, no harm no foul. It’s a cute video.
But what did we miss?
Like I stated in the beginning, a lot of us have a tendency to pick out the problems or inconsistencies in one aspect of an activity, but fail to understand the impact and consequences that the sum of those parts have towards life and the world in general.
We missed the bigger picture.
The 'meta-narrative'.
The individual parts of what she has done on a private personal scale related to her life may not be problematic.
She may not have done anything haram personally.
But the sum of those parts when taken in totality?
And presented to the world?
Well, they seem to market the idea - sponsored by a company that doesn’t have the best interests of the Ummah in mind btw - that if you become an empowered boss babe, living alone, you too can drink Kombutcha and be a strong independent corporate-minded woman working in a company like Meta or Apple as a Product Lead! The second order consequences of women living alone is a whole other matter.
It’s diametrically opposed to the goals and overarching aims of Islam. On a civilizational level.
The meta-narrative once again.
Or as the scholars would say the Maqasid of the Shariah.
So what harm is there in an 'Islamicized' boss girl? Right?
And so, no one sees the harm.
The imams and thought leaders often fail to account for the wider phenomenon.
The wider trajectory and direction of things.
We often miss the meta narrative.
We missed it with the Islamophobia discourse post-9/11.
We missed it with the wars in the Middle East.
We missed it with Covid.
We missed it with the vaccines and lockdowns.
We missed it with the seeping creep of liberalism as well as postmodern thought injected into Islamic scholarship.
We keep missing it.
Stop paying attention to just the parts, zoom out, and look at the big picture.