Beauty and Immodesty. One of the biggest misunderstandings within our Ummah?

For a few weeks now i have been searching for the islamic rulings of certain types of beautification that is halal for us muslimahs. I searched on makes up, hair extensions, heels, dress, and even plucking eyebrows. What was interesting is that i found a slightly huge variance between the muslims and scholars. Some said that beautification so long as it doesn't physically change the creation of Allah or is over the top is permissible and others said that ANY kind of beautrification is haraam (even removing upper lip hair :S) because it will attract unwanted attention from men and will make them stare. I just sat there thinking... 'hold on as women we naturally want to make ourselves beautiful and make ourselves look presentable as muslims.' To be honest i got kinda vexed at those who said that beautification alltogether is haraam.

Then i came across this hadeeth:
From ’Abdullaah Ibn Mas’ood radiallaahu ’anhu who said that the Prophet sallallaahu ’alayhi wa sallam said, “No one will enter Paradise who has an atom’s weight of pride in his heart.” A man said, “What if a man likes his clothes to look good and his shoes to look good?” He said, “Allaah is beautiful and loves beauty. Pride means denying the truth and looking down on people.”

Meaning that we SHOULD make ourselves look presentable and approachable and not like some ungroomed farm animal. Dont get me wrong, I'm not saying that us girls then should go out there with a full face of makeup and puckered up lookin 'bum'. I'm saying that we as muslim women should be able to some extent be allowed to beautify ourselves.

Many muslims say that beautification alltogether is haraam in fear of crossing the limits of immodesty. Beauty is not immodesty and immodesty is not beautiful. Allah is beautiful and loves beauty. Many muslims over expose themselves thinking its beauty and many other muslims dont make an effort to look beautiful incase they attract unwanted attention. You can be beautiful AND modest. When a girl gets married how is she meant to make herself pleasing to the eye of her husband? If she doesn't make herself moderately beautiful for him could this dissatisfy him?

One of my muslim friends got a load of people chattin things about her saying how shes 'immodest' and people going up to her face saying how men will not lower their gazes at her. And she was dressed modestly but nicely! she had very subtle make up too, her eyes were only done very subtly. and then all these other muslim ladies jump on her and criticise her for being indecent.... . First of all, the whole 'lowering the gaze' is a mutual thing. its a 2 way streak. You cant put all the responsibility on the women for being 'too beautiful'. Men have to do their part and lower their gaze too. It is hard for them but doable. if they werent able to do so under any circumstances then Allah SWT wouldnt have made it fard upon them.

So my conclusion is that you can be both modest AND beautiful. Infact modesty is the highest form of beauty. It gains respect and is empowering too. So please, don't confuse the two terms when they are at almost opposite ends of the spectrum. Remember that Allah SWT is beautiful and Loves Beauty.

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