The Selfie and the God Fearing Muslim

Your selfies will soon be consigned to oblivion irretrievably, while the good-quality, high-res images, and videos being captured by professional angels will be kept hanging on your wall in the Illiyyeen for eternity, duly liked, watched, shared and commented on by millions of angels, and rewarded by your Lord with a fortune.

Selfie is one of the buzzwords of our time. It has been so ubiquitous in our day-to-day vocabulary for quite some time now, that Oxford English Dictionary named it ‘the word of year’ a few years ago. Hardly can you spend a few minutes in a social media channel without confronting some selfies scramble for your attention, no matter whether you give it a thumbs up or down!  

A self-taken photograph in its literal sense, the selfie has marked a phenomenal shift in the way we handle the creative art of photography. But this shift reflects not just in using the latest technology as such, but in the way, style, methodology and purpose of taking pictures as a whole. 

One of the most disastrous outcomes of this development is that selfie is no longer a harmless word for taking one’s own pictures, but it refers to a culture of narcissism, exhibitionism, and shameless promotion that have become deeply entrenched in our society. With the advent of selfie, your camera is no longer focused on the beauty and marvel of what you see around in this wonderful world, but it is awkwardly turned on ‘you’- to capture your smile, your sunglasses, angularities of your face, thickness of your lipstick and facials, your fancy clothes, your excitement, frustrations and all the nine emotions unfolding on your face!  

Showing off has never been easier and more celebrated. Posting a selfie has become a craze, an obsession, and a way of life where you unabashedly show yourself to the world in your multiple avatars and manifestations. With the selfie, you delude yourself into thinking that you are the pivot of the world.

This craze makes you celebrate every mundane event of life with a selfie. You want to show to the world all your achievements, seeking immediate gratification. The places you visit, the food you eat, celebrities you meet, events you attend, even the shrines you go on a pilgrimage…nothing can escape from this gargantuan appetite for a selfie.  But everywhere the focus is ‘you’, while all other important people and things around are of secondary importance.

Selfie takers are obsessed with taking pictures of themselves so that they are not touched by what is going on around. We now see selfies from accident scenes showing a stunning lack of compassion to the victims. It has already grown to the level of a physic disorder.

Psychologists say that because of this rampant selfie craze, an irresponsible and impulsive behaviour has taken root among our young population, especially our teenagers and twenty-somethings, triggering serious psychic disorders and making them virtually incapable of dealing with change or disappointment in actual life.  There is a desperate need for immediate gratification, and once this gratification is denied you grow depressed and frustrated.

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But a selfie is a nine days’ wonder. The gratification you obtain while someone likes your photo or comments on it is short-lived. Nobody remembers it after a few days. Bear in mind that all your struggle is for a fleeting pleasure which does not have any lasting value. Even the acknowledgments and citations you get are momentary and have no value on its own.   

Let the Angels Click Your Snaps 

If you are looking for true recognition and lasting pleasure, get rid of your selfies and this craving for presentability. Instead, turn to the one and only source which can give you lasting pleasure and peace of mind. As the Holy Quran says, you will exhaust all you have, while what Allah has will endure (forever).  Therefore, try to make yourself presentable to Him and strive for getting His likes.

Ibadat is the one and only means to make yourself endeared to Him and get everlasting ‘divine likes’ for your pursuits. Don’t forget that there are highly skilled professional photographers (the angels) taking your high-resolution images and videos while you are alone with your Lord in the thick of night, or when you extend a helping hand secretly to the needy! Those photos are saved and preserved for eternity in the Illiyyeen, and with such photos, you will be popular amongst the angels in heaven.

Don’t crave for momentary pleasures, immediate gratification, and fleeting accolades; but aim for the enduring pleasure and eternal glories.