Living Through Other People’s Eyes

For many of us, life is basically just a performance, and an exhausting one at that. We wake up already behind, checking the group chats before the day has begun, measuring ourselves against someone else’s best moments, going to sleep having spent our hours trying to be good enough for people who were never going to tell us that we are. We work ourselves into the ground, we spend money we do not have and we sit through evenings we do not enjoy, and we always — somehow — find a way to justify it, either it’s ‘keeping up’ or ‘being sociable’ or whatever else we can come up with. Somewhere along the way, sometimes without ever really knowing, we started living our lives through other people’s eyes.

As a headteacher, I see it at the school gate, and as an imam, I hear it in the conversations I become privy to. Not that you have to look that far. It shows up in the photos that circulate after every wedding and every Eid, and in the questions families ask each other when they think they are making small talk. This piece will, however, try to put a finger on what is happening to us, look at what the Quran and the Sunnah say about it, and ask what it would take to step back and simply live.

A game, a diversion, and rivalry in children

Allah describes this world in a single ayah that reads like a description of our group chats:

اعْلَمُوا أَنَّمَا الْحَيَاةُ الدُّنْيَا لَعِبٌ وَلَهْوٌ وَزِينَةٌ وَتَفَاخُرٌ بَيْنَكُمْ وَتَكَاثُرٌ فِي الْأَمْوَالِ وَالْأَوْلَادِ

“Bear in mind that the present life is just a game, a diversion, an attraction, a cause of boasting among you, of rivalry in wealth and children.” (Surat al-Hadid, 57:20)

Boasting, rivalry, wealth, and then children. Why children? Because Allah knows us better than we know ourselves. We all know someone who competes over cars and kitchens, and we would have nodded along had the ayah stopped at wealth. He named our children as well, and that addition might make some of us a little uncomfortable.

We overextend in ways we would never admit to. We have weddings we cannot afford, with halls, stages and favours that someone will still be paying off when the couple’s first child starts school. We book holidays we regret before we have even landed, because the destination was chosen with the photos in mind. We go out to places we do not enjoy, with people we do not much like, and we wear clothes we feel ridiculous in because everyone else was wearing them. We are spending our own money to perform in someone else’s show, and nobody is even clapping. And still, it is never enough. Enough is never truly enough.

Then it reaches our children, and this is where it should frighten us. We enrol them in hifz because the family down the road did, and because it will sound good at the next gathering. We sit them for the eleven-plus grammar school test because our friends’ children are sitting it, and we cannot bear the question, “Which school is yours going to?” Our children notice. They learn early that their worth is measured in what can be announced, and they will spend their adult lives chasing the same approval we are chasing now. It goes without saying that hifz is among the greatest gifts a parent can give a child, and that a good education is an amana we will be asked about. The question is why we are doing it, and whether our child has become one more trophy on our shelf.

The Prophet ﷺ warned of this in the starkest terms. Among the first people to be judged on the Day of Judgement, he said, will be a man who learned knowledge, taught it and recited the Quran. He will be shown the blessings he was given and asked what he did with them. He will say he learned and taught for Allah’s sake, and he will be told that he learned so that it would be said, “He is a scholar,” and recited so that it would be said, “He is a reciter,” and that it has already been said (Sahih Muslim, 1905). The Quran was in his chest, and it did not save him, because of who he had memorised it for.

That is why the very first hadith in Sahih al-Bukhari is the one it is:

إِنَّمَا الْأَعْمَالُ بِالنِّيَّاتِ، وَإِنَّمَا لِكُلِّ امْرِئٍ مَا نَوَى

“Actions are only by intentions, and each person will have only what they intended.” (Sahih al-Bukhari, 1; Sahih Muslim, 1907)

A child who memorises the Quran for Allah is a blessing on an entire family. A child who memorises it so that his parents can keep up with their friends has been given a burden that was never his.

The great Sufi Fudayl ibn Iyad rahimahu-Allah, one of the great early ascetics of Makkah, saw both sides of this trap:

“Leaving a deed because of people is showing off, doing a deed for people is shirk, and sincerity is that Allah frees you from both.” (Siyar A’lam al-Nubala, 8/426)

The parent who pushes a child into hifz to impress the family, and the parent who keeps a child out of it because of what the family might say, are stuck in the same place. In both homes, people outside the home are making the decision.

Left to the people

Who are these people we are trying so hard to impress? When we stop and look at them, they are often people we do not even like. They are the cousins whose opinion we would never ask on anything that mattered, the acquaintances whose lives we privately pity, the accounts in a WhatsApp group we muted months ago and still check every evening. We have given them the right to decide whether our lives are successful, and they never even asked for it.

When Sayyiduna Mu’awiyah radhi-Allahu anhu wrote to our mother Aisha radhi-Allahu anha asking for a short piece of advice he could live by, she wrote back with the words of the Prophet ﷺ:

مَنِ الْتَمَسَ رِضَا اللَّهِ بِسَخَطِ النَّاسِ كَفَاهُ اللَّهُ مُؤْنَةَ النَّاسِ، وَمَنِ الْتَمَسَ رِضَا النَّاسِ بِسَخَطِ اللَّهِ وَكَلَهُ اللَّهُ إِلَى النَّاسِ

“Whoever seeks the pleasure of Allah at the cost of people’s displeasure, Allah will suffice him against the burden of people. And whoever seeks the pleasure of people at the cost of Allah’s displeasure, Allah will leave him to the people.” (Jami’ al-Tirmidhi, 2414)

Left to the people. Anyone who has lived for the approval of others already knows what that sentence feels like, and it is a harsher punishment than we realise. Their approval is fickle, it moves the moment we think we have earned it, and a compliment at one wedding becomes a comparison whispered and gossiped about at the next. People make a poor master. They are never satisfied with us, because they are too busy worrying about what we think of them.

Another narration makes it even clearer. Whoever seeks Allah’s pleasure at the cost of people’s anger, Allah is pleased with him and makes the people pleased with him too, and whoever seeks people’s pleasure at the cost of Allah’s anger, Allah is displeased with him and turns the people against him as well (al-Ihsan fi Taqrib Sahih Ibn Hibban, 1/509).

We sell our principles to buy people’s approval, and we end up with neither. The scholars noticed how this plays out in ordinary life: the very person who praised us for bending eventually becomes the one who criticises us for it.

That last point should set us free. The family we are trying to impress is trying to impress someone else, who is trying to impress someone else again, and nobody in the chain is enjoying a second of it.

Nobody is ever pleased

Allah described the hypocrites of Madina, who would swear oath after oath to keep the believers on side:

يَحْلِفُونَ بِاللَّهِ لَكُمْ لِيُرْضُوكُمْ وَاللَّهُ وَرَسُولُهُ أَحَقُّ أَن يُرْضُوهُ إِن كَانُوا مُؤْمِنِينَ

“They swear by God in order to please you: it is more fitting that they should please God and His Messenger if they are true believers.” (Surat al-Tawbah, 9:62)

It is uncomfortable to find our own habits described in an ayah about hypocrisy, but the pattern is the same. We bend ourselves out of shape to please people, and the One most deserving of our effort gets whatever is left over.

Imam Shafi’i rahimahu-Allah is reported to have told his student Yunus ibn Abd al-A’la:

“Pleasing people is a goal that can never be reached, and there is no way to be safe from their criticism, so take what benefits you and stick to it.” (Itqan ma Yahsun min al-Akhbar al-Da’ira ‘ala al-Alsun, 1/282)

This was a man whose knowledge filled the Muslim world, and even he had given up trying to keep everyone happy. Which of us thinks we will manage it?

Ibn Abi al-Izz rahimahu-Allah, the Hanafi judge of Damascus, put it in one line in his commentary on the Aqidah of Imam al-Tahawi: pleasing the creation is neither possible nor commanded, whilst pleasing the Creator is both possible and commanded (Sharh al-Aqida al-Tahawiyya, 2/349). We have been exhausting ourselves on the one goal we were never asked to reach, and neglecting the one we were.

Ibn Hazm rahimahu-Allah, the great scholar of Andalus (modern day Spain and Portugal), went further. He wrote that anyone who imagines he can stay safe from people’s criticism and fault-finding is mad, and then described the way out:

“A great door to good sense and peace of mind is to stop caring about what people say, and to care instead about what the Creator, Mighty and Majestic, says. In fact, that is the whole of good sense and the whole of peace.” (Ibn Hazm, al-Akhlaq wa al-Siyar)

Peace of mind, by his reckoning, comes down to whose words we allow into our heads.

There is an old story recorded among the popular tales, of a wise man who wanted to teach his son never to live for people’s praise. He put the boy on a donkey and walked behind, and the first people they passed said, “What an ill-mannered youth, riding in comfort whilst his old father walks.” The father took his place, and the next group said, “What a harsh father, riding whilst his little boy struggles on foot.” They both climbed on, and people said, “How cruel, two of them on that poor animal when one would have done.” So they both walked beside it, and people laughed at the fools trudging through the dust with an empty donkey. The father turned to his son and told him he had heard it all for himself, and that nobody ever escapes the criticism of people, whatever state they are in (Isaf al-Akhyar, 1/374). People will talk whatever we do, so we may as well do what is right according to our Rabb.

The same dilemma was captured in a classical Arabic poem. The poet laughs and is asked whether he has no modesty, weeps and is told to smile, smiles and is accused of showing off, frowns and is told his hidden malice has finally surfaced. He keeps quiet and is called tongue-tied, speaks and is called a chatterbox, forgives and is called a coward who would have taken revenge if he could. By the last line he has reached the same conclusion as Imam Shafi’i: whatever he does, if it is people’s pleasure he is after, blame is guaranteed.

We will never be slim enough, rich enough, pious enough or successful enough for the people watching us, because for them the watching and the talking are the attraction. Meet one standard and they will simply find the next.

Allah, meanwhile, is looking at something else entirely. The Prophet ﷺ said:

إِنَّ اللَّهَ لَا يَنْظُرُ إِلَى صُوَرِكُمْ وَأَمْوَالِكُمْ، وَلَكِنْ يَنْظُرُ إِلَى قُلُوبِكُمْ وَأَعْمَالِكُمْ

“Allah does not look at your appearance or your wealth; He looks at your hearts and your deeds.” (Sahih Muslim, 2564)

The wedding hall, the outfit, the holiday photos and the certificates on the wall are exactly what the people around us look at, and exactly what Allah has told us He does not. We have spent our lives dressing up for the wrong audience.

Working ourselves into the ground

The cost of all this is paid in our health, our marriages and our bank accounts. We take on extra hours, second jobs and side ventures, and when we are honest about why, a good part of the reason is that we need to be seen to have what they pay for. We borrow for things that will be forgotten within a month, and then we lie awake working out how to cover them.

The Prophet ﷺ used to seek refuge from debt in his prayer, and when he was asked why he did so often, he explained that a person in debt speaks and lies, and promises and breaks his promise (Sahih al-Bukhari, 832). Debt changes who we are. It makes honest people evasive and generous people anxious.

When the Prophet ﷺ learned that Abdullah ibn Amr radhi-Allahu anhuma, the son of Amr ibn al-As, was fasting every day and praying all night, he told him to stop, and reminded him that his body had a right over him, his eyes had a right over him and his wife had a right over him (Sahih al-Bukhari, 1975). That was a young man exhausting himself in worship. How much more does that advice apply to those of us exhausting ourselves for a status we do not even want?

Compare our weddings with that of Sayyiduna Abd al-Rahman ibn Awf radhi-Allahu anhu, one of the ten promised Jannah and among the wealthiest of the Companions. The Prophet ﷺ only found out that he had married when he noticed a trace of yellow perfume on him and asked about it. Abd al-Rahman told him he had married a woman from the Ansar, and the Prophet ﷺ made dua for him and told him to hold a walima, even if only with a single sheep (Sahih al-Bukhari, 5155). One of his closest Companions married, and the Prophet ﷺ had not even been told beforehand. He didn’t feel slighted, he didn’t keep score, and the marriage was blessed through his dua.

Look at those below you

To find a way out of this mire we have to breathe, pause and take a step back. We rarely give ourselves enough space, or enough love, to stop and notice how much we have been given. The Prophet ﷺ gave us a method for it:

انْظُرُوا إِلَى مَنْ أَسْفَلَ مِنْكُمْ، وَلَا تَنْظُرُوا إِلَى مَنْ هُوَ فَوْقَكُمْ، فَهُوَ أَجْدَرُ أَنْ لَا تَزْدَرُوا نِعْمَةَ اللَّهِ عَلَيْكُمْ

“Look at those below you and do not look at those above you, for that is more fitting so that you do not belittle the blessings of Allah upon you.” (Sahih Muslim, 2963)

Our phones train us to do the opposite. Every scroll and every swipe shows us someone with a bigger house, a better holiday, a child with more accolades, and every one of those images makes what we have look smaller. Our blessings are also great, if only we look at them rather than compare them with what others have.

He ﷺ also told us what a full life looks like, and the list is short; far shorter than we would expect:

“Whoever among you wakes up secure in his home, healthy in his body, and with food for his day, it is as if the whole world has been gathered for him” (Jami’ al-Tirmidhi, 2346).

Most of us reading this woke up this morning with all three. By the Prophet’s own measure, we have the world, and we have been too busy proving ourselves to notice.

Richness of the soul

There is a second trap, and it is easy to miss. Having stopped obsessing over what others think, we can just as easily start obsessing over ourselves, our self-care, our boundaries, our image of ourselves as people who no longer care. That is the same illness in a different coat.

The Prophet ﷺ described the cure in one line:

لَيْسَ الْغِنَى عَنْ كَثْرَةِ الْعَرَضِ، وَلَكِنَّ الْغِنَى غِنَى النَّفْسِ

“Richness is not having many possessions. Richness is the richness of the soul.” (Sahih al-Bukhari, 6446; Sahih Muslim, 1051)

A soul that is rich does not need to be watched in order to feel full. It can enjoy a meal without photographing it, take a holiday without announcing it, and let a child choose the path that suits them. It can also let other people live. Much of the pressure we feel is pressure we put on each other, through the comments we make, the questions we ask at weddings and the way we talk about other families once they have left the room. If we want to step out of this cycle, we have to stop feeding it.

There is an irony in all of this. The less we need from people, the more they tend to respect us. A man once asked the Prophet ﷺ for a deed that would make Allah love him and make people love him too, and he replied:

ازْهَدْ فِي الدُّنْيَا يُحِبَّكَ اللَّهُ، وَازْهَدْ فِيمَا فِي أَيْدِي النَّاسِ يُحِبُّوكَ

“Be detached from this world and Allah will love you, and be detached from what people have and people will love you.” (Sunan Ibn Majah, 4102)

What people have includes their praise. When a Bedouin arrived in Basra and asked who led the town, he was told it was the great Hasan al-Basri. He asked how he had come to lead them, and was told that people needed his knowledge whilst he had no need of their world. The man said that was a fine quality indeed (al-Futuhat al-Rabbaniyya, 7/336).

A rich soul also turns outward. The Prophet ﷺ said that Allah remains in the help of His servant for as long as the servant is in the help of his brother (Sahih Muslim, 2699). The energy we spend trying to impress people could be spent helping them. The money we spend on a stage at a wedding could cover someone’s rent, a widow’s shopping or an orphan’s fees, and that kind of spending leaves us feeling full in a way no compliment ever has.

Travellers on the road

Sayyiduna Abdullah Ibn Umar radhi-Allahu anhuma narrated that the Prophet ﷺ took him by the shoulder and said,

“Be in this world as though you were a stranger or a traveller passing through” (Sahih al-Bukhari, 6416).

A traveller resting under a tree for an afternoon does not redecorate it to impress whoever passes next. He rests, he gives thanks, he shares what he has with the person sitting beside him, and he moves on.

If you leave this post with anything, it should be to pause, and to stop living for tomorrow and for the next WhatsApp update. We can have the wedding we can afford and the holiday we will enjoy, raise our children for Allah and for themselves, and let go of the opinions of people whose approval we never needed. We can live, let others live, and help them along the way. This is easier written than lived, but we have to start somewhere.

We will be asked about our lives by the One who gave them to us, and He will not ask what the group chat thought. The people we are performing for will have moved on to someone else’s wedding photos within a week of our janazah. So why are we still living for them?