Who Put Modesty on Trial?

A civilization reveals its soul in the way it dresses its bodies. Clothes are not innocent fabric; they are moving architecture around the human form, declaring what we think a human being is, what is sacred and what is expendable, what must be veiled and what may be sold. In the Qur’anic vision, garments are described first as a covering for nakedness and as an adornment, but even more profoundly as a “garment of God-consciousness”. That is: the real clothing is taqwā, and physical clothing is meant to serve it. The Qur’an addresses us and explicitly says that God has sent down clothes to cover our nakedness and as a means of beauty, then immediately adds that the “garment of righteousness” is better than both. It is as if the text pulls the believer from the surface to the core: from cloth on skin to consciousness before the Lord of the worlds. Covering the body is not denied, nor is adornment condemned, but they are both subordinated to a higher purpose – that the human being walks in the world remembering his exposure before God even when his body is hidden from human eyes. Once that metaphysical hierarchy is inverted, once bodies are offered to the gaze while hearts are left exposed to corrosion, a society begins to call its sickness “freedom” and its cure “oppression”.

In the modern world, we see a strange pattern repeat with almost mechanical precision. Whenever religious modesty is linked to any social difficulty – whether it is security policies, employment barriers, stereotypes, or patriarchal abuse – the modesty itself is dragged into the dock. The garment is treated as the main suspect. It must explain itself, justify its existence, apologize for inconvenience, negotiate its permission to appear in public. On the other hand, if hypersexualised clothing is tied to observable harms – harassment, commodification of women, collapsing family life, addiction to pornography, the annihilation of any distinction between intimate and public – the garment is absolved in advance. Suddenly, the problem is not the norm of dress, but an abstract “society”, a vague “male gaze”, a shapeless “culture”. Here, clothing becomes untouchable, beyond critique, a sacred animal of liberal dogma.

We see this clearly in European debates over the face veil. A handful of women covering their faces become a “security threat”, a “symbol of parallel societies”, a justification for emergency legislation and police intervention. Yet entire industries that flood public space with semi-naked bodies, that train men to consume women visually from childhood, are never named as a structural danger to social peace. One niqab is treated as a crisis for civilisation; a thousand billboards of commodified flesh are treated as the harmless background of “modern life”. Think of a university campus in summer. Female students are constantly encouraged, through films, music videos, influencer culture and even campus events, to “own” their sexuality by dressing in ways that maximise exposure. Predictably, this creates corridors, parties and nightlife spaces saturated with visual stimuli designed to trigger desire in already untrained young men, and harassment spikes: crude comments, groping, drunken assault, all wrong and worthy of most severe punishment. Tweets, opinion pieces etc. then appear saying “Clothes are never the problem – educate men”, workshops are held on toxic masculinity, and disciplinary codes are tightened, but the culture of deliberate visual sexual provocation is never questioned. A whole ecosystem that manufactures temptation, fragments attention, and turns women’s bodies into entertainment is treated as morally neutral; only individual men are blamed, never the shared decision of masses to build public space around near-nudity and erotic display.

This is not an accident; it is the result of an ideological hierarchy that has already been smuggled into our thinking. In that hierarchy, anything associated with religion, and particularly Islam, is marked with suspicion. It is assumed to be repressive until proven otherwise. Meanwhile, anything born of Western modernity – even if only a few generations old – is treated as the neutral baseline, as common sense, as universal. Religion must constantly defend itself: “Why do you cover? Why do you segregate? Why do you lower your gaze?” Secular norms never have to answer: “Why do you undress? Why do you sexualise every surface? Why do you commercialize desire?” One side is on permanent trial; the other is the permanant judge.

What makes this worse is that Muslims themselves have internalized this gaze. We have started using borrowed eyes to look at our own mothers and daughters. The coloniser’s camera has entered the colonised mind. Suddenly, a woman covering her face out of reverence and spiritual shame before God is seen not as dignified but as “erased”. Yet a woman reducing her dress to the minimum legally permitted fabric in order to satisfy the demands of an industry built on lust is praised as “empowered”. Modesty is framed as an abnormal intervention that must justify itself in the otherwise “natural” flow of nakedness. But in fact, the natural state of the fitrah inclines toward guarding the awrah, toward shyness in exposure, toward a healthy instinct against being turned into spectacle. The truly forced state is this relentless exhibitionism, maintained not by inner conviction but by fear of ridicule and exile from the manufactured “modern”.

At the root of this inversion lies a rebellion against the very idea that the human body is entrusted to us as an amanah from God. If the body is only a canvas for self-expression, then the primary question becomes: “What do I feel like doing with it?” But if the body is a trust that must be returned to its Owner, then the dominant question is: “What does my Lord want from me?” Islamic clothing codes are not about male insecurity or cultural chauvinism; they are about orienting the whole life toward that second question. They weave the remembrance of Allah into the daily act of dressing. When that is forgotten, clothing becomes a tool for marketing ego, selling fantasy, and engineering desire. What we now call “fashion” is largely an industry dedicated to producing permanent dissatisfaction: with one’s own body, with one’s spouse, with one’s station in life. Yet the anxiety, depression and relational instability that follow are never seriously laid at the feet of the culture that generated them.

In the discourse of modern activism, this double standard appears in sophisticated language. If a man harasses a woman who is half naked, we are told the problem lies entirely with him and with “rape culture”. And of course, he is guilty; Islam condemns him absolutely, secular law condemns him absolutely and in my heart is nothing but contempt for such a person who has dropped down from his humanity and let his animal run him. However, the point that we wish to make is when a man makes a lewd remark about a fully covered woman, the problem suddenly becomes the “oppressive dress code” that makes her stand out, that “provokes curiosity”, that “symbolises extremism”. Notice how the same act of male wrongdoing is explained in opposite ways: in the first case, clothing is above reproach, so we talk only of structures and psychology; in the second case, clothing itself is criminalized, as if the cloth had committed the act. The logic is not principled; it is ideological. It is designed to protect one set of norms from critique and to expose another endlessly to blame.

Deep down, the question is: who gets to define what is normal? Normality is one of the most powerful weapons in the cultural arsenal. People will do almost anything to avoid being seen as weird. Modern media, advertising, cinema and social networks bombard us with images of what “normal” femininity looks like: uncovered hair, emphasized curves, perpetual readiness for display — the sculpted “hourglass” figure with a cinched waist and exaggerated hips and chest, push-up bras and tight tops engineered to lift and separate, stiletto heels that tilt the pelvis so that the backside arches out and the breasts are pushed forward, skirts and jeans that cling to every contour, makeup that imitates the biology of arousal with reddened lips, darkened eyes, flushed cheeks, and carefully highlighted skin to catch the light on cheekbones, collarbones and cleavage. Legs are lengthened and sexualised by shaving or waxing away every trace of natural hair, then framed in short skirts or skin-tight trousers; even casual clothes are cut, torn or cropped to reveal slivers of midriff, lower back, or shoulders, so that the female body is constantly packaged as a sequence of tease and promise, a curated spectacle optimised for maximum visual impact in every public interaction. The woman who steps outside of this visual script is portrayed either as a victim of barbaric religion or as a suspicious political statement. Her very presence disturbs the empire of images. Meanwhile, the one who conforms to the script can be exploited endlessly – as a consumer, a product, a demographic. In such a system, it is rational from the standpoint of capital to attack modesty: every square inch of covered flesh is a lost opportunity for profit.

When Muslims accept this framing, they are not being neutral or balanced; they are being ruled by someone else’s gods. The gods of this age are not carved out of stone; they are embedded in assumptions. One assumption is that the liberated human is the one whose desires are least constrained. Another is that public life must be scrubbed of explicit reference to God, while being saturated with sex. A woman in full hijab or niqab walking through a city street is a visible rejection of these assumptions. She is silently proclaiming another sovereignty. No wonder she is treated as a provocation, even when her intention is humility. But note: the anger is never admitted as spiritual insecurity; it is instead dressed up as concern for her “rights” or “mental health” or “integration”.

We must not pretend that clothing alone purifies society. A fully covered body combined with an unguarded tongue, a shameless gaze, a corrupt heart, is not the ideal. Yet, we must not fall for the illusion that clothing is irrelevant. Bodies are not separate from souls; forms are not detached from meanings. Religion binds together inner and outer, commanding both sincerity and visible markers of obedience. Segregation in some spaces, lowering of the gaze, dress codes, and the regulation of public intimacy are all strands in a single protective weave around human dignity. To tear out one thread and then ask why the whole cloth is weakened is dishonest. A society that punishes those who try to weave that cloth, while rewarding those who rip it apart, is not morally confused by accident; it is directed by an alternative metaphysics.

Consider Muslim societies like Kashmir, where traditional clothing such as the pheran and various forms of head coverings were once simply part of the landscape, unremarkable as the mountains and rivers. There was no tortured debate over whether modesty was “backward”; it was the air people breathed. Colonial disruption, followed by the arrival of global media, has not just added new options to this landscape; it has slowly turned old norms into embarrassments. The same garment that Grandma wore with quiet confidence becomes the subject of mocking social media skits, while imported cuts and styles are sold as sophistication. Young girls are torn between the love of their elders and the fear of being seen as outdated. In their confusion, they often end up wearing a patchwork of both, inwardly apologising for the most Kashmiri parts of their appearance. This is how a civilisation is carefully uprooted: not by argument, but by sneer and spectacle.

The same corrosion is visible in the way men now dress, though it is far less discussed. Where the traditional Kashmiri man once wore loose garments that neither advertised his shape nor begged for attention, the contemporary ideal of masculinity has been imported from gyms, music videos, and sports brands. The “modern” man is expected to display himself: tight T-shirts stretched across pumped chests and arms, fabric clinging to every contour of the torso, trousers cut so narrowly that the thighs and buttocks are sculpted for the public gaze, buttons opened low to expose chest and collarbone, waistbands lowered to reveal the branded strip of underwear beneath. Instead of clothes that conceal and dignify, we now have clothes that trace the body like a second skin, revealing more than they hide, leaving nothing to the imagination.

Add to this the cult of the topless male body. Social media is flooded with images of young men photographing themselves half-naked in front of mirrors, flexing their abs, angling the camera to highlight the “V-line” of the pelvis, posting beach shots and “progress pictures” from the gym where the entire point is to invite admiration of the physique. Shorts grow shorter, gym leggings grow tighter, vests grow smaller, until the male form too is broken down into fragments for consumption: arms, chest, shoulders, abdomen, and ultimately the crotch, all separated and displayed. What was once the private satisfaction of being healthy and strong is turned into a public exhibition staged offline for invitation for the opposite gender and online for likes, comments and hidden lust. The same logic of packaging the human being as a visual commodity that we rightly criticise in the case of women is now fully operative for men as well.

Yet this male indecency passes almost unnoticed in the wider noise about clothing. Entire khutbahs, debates and controversies erupt over how women dress, while men walk around in garments that mould their awrah and broadcast their bodies without so much as a raised eyebrow. Part of this imbalance is understandable: the fitnah of women for men has a different intensity, and the tradition has always given special emphasis to protecting female honour. But that does not absolve men. A man who dresses in a way that seeks hungry eyes, that invites flirtation and visual attention, is revealing something about his inner state: a heart craving to be desired, an ego feeding on being looked at, a nafs that has learned to measure its worth in the reactions of others. His clothing is not neutral; it is a mirror of his yearning for sexual validation.

Islamic modesty was never a one-sided command. Men were ordered to lower their gaze. The ideal of male dress is calm, dignified, loose; it does not scream for notice. When men adopt the revealing, exhibitionist fashions of a culture drunk on the body, they participate in the same project of turning human beings into moving advertisements for desire. Any serious revival of hayā’ must therefore confront not only the miniaturised garments of women, but also the sculpted, clinging, hyper-sexualised wardrobes of men. Until men recognise that their own clothing choices are moral acts – either aiding the spread of fitnah or helping to restrain it – they will remain hypocrites, demanding modesty from others while secretly enjoying the attention they themselves illicitly seek.

The way out of this is not to shout louder in the language of liberalism, trying to prove that modesty “also” aligns with individual autonomy or secular freedom. That is to accept the wrong court, the wrong judge, the wrong law. We must recover the courage to say: we do not start from your assumptions at all. Our starting point is that God created us and commanded what leads to our flourishing in both worlds. From that starting point, we examine East or West. Does it help us remember Him or forget Him? Does it guard the vulnerable or expose them? Does it strengthen families or dissolve them? If a mode of dress leads to constant incitement of desire, if it trains men and women alike to treat the other as an endless buffet for the eyes, then it is a problem – no matter how many magazines celebrate it. And if a mode of dress limits the field of the gaze, shields the awrah, and affirms that a woman’s worth is not measured in skin shown, then it is a mercy – even if the secular world chokes on it.

This requires a deep work of decolonising the imagination. The heart must be taught again to feel jealousy for the sacred, to feel discomfort at the reduction of the human being to a body, to feel delight in covering that which God has asked to be covered. Parents must raise sons who understand that their masculinity is expressed not in conquest and commentary, but in protection and restraint; and daughters who know that their honour is not a frail thing that needs Western validation to survive. Scholars, artists and thinkers must build parallel spaces – in writing, film, architecture, digital media – where aesthetics of modesty are not always on the defensive but are presented as beautiful in their own right, as extensions of our religiousity into colour and cloth.

If we fail to do this, we will continue to inhabit a schizophrenic state: reciting verses about modesty at home, while treating them as awkward relics in public; placing our mothers in hijab and our idealised selves in advertising fantasies; speaking of honour from the pulpit and scrolling through images that undermine it. The double standard we apply to clothing is not just an intellectual inconsistency; it is a symptom of a deeper spiritual surrender. We have given up the right to name things. As long as we allow someone else to decide what counts as a “problem” and what counts as “progress”, our responses will always be reactive, apologetic, and fragmented.

The time has come to reverse the direction of judgment. Let us no longer rush to put our own symbols of obedience on trial while granting immunity to the idols of the age. Instead, we must drag into the light the culture of commodified bodies, the industries that feed on insecurity, the ideologies that celebrate nakedness while producing loneliness. Before we blame the garment that tries, however imperfectly, to protect chastity, let us interrogate the civilisation that profits from its destruction. Only when we ground our reasoning again in the metaphysics of tawḥīd and the reality of fitrah will our vision clear. Then we will recognise that the problem is not that some people dress in accordance with divine command; the problem is a world that has forgotten that such commands exist at all.