Chasing Validation

To care, or not to care

It’s been a weird few weeks, bouncing from joy to despair to ennui to hope to rage. First, the shooting at a mosque in San Diego in late May, followed soon after by Eid, followed by summer weather and regular cycling, the start of the competitive soccer season, a few health scares, prep for final exams, and upcoming trips. The undercurrent—and I’m ashamed and disgusted to call it an undercurrent—is constant footage of carnage in Gaza, in the West Bank, in Lebanon.

Last week I read a viral piece by Sam Harris (I will let you look for it yourself. I refuse to link it) that filled me with disgust and despair. I don’t know why I clicked through when it was obviously going to hurt and upset me. Sam Harris has spent his years as a public persona talking about how Islam is the most backward, dangerous ideology in the world. He avoids being labeled an Islamophobe by making the distinction that his target is “radical Islam” as he likes to call it, except then he labels all Muslims as radical, thereby erasing any daylight between the two.

So I read this piece, and I read it while I was already reeling from the mosque attack in San Diego, and I read it after having watched a video of a father in Gaza carry what was left of his nine year-old daughter out of the rubble towards whatever potential salvation there was for her, but it was already too late, her leg was dangling down at a grotesque angle away from her torso, her whole body limp as a rag doll. And I read it the day after the fifth anniversary of the killing of Madiha Salman and Yumna and Salman and Talat Afzaal in London, Ontario when a man who hates Muslims saw them out for an evening walk and ran them over with his truck, leaving their nine year-old orphaned.

That there are respected, famous, popular Islamophobes in the culture is hardly shocking. You could argue that it’s not in a Muslim’s best interest to read their words, especially when they have explicitly declared that they have no interest in an exchange of ideas and that they refuse to acknowledge what many genocide scholars have deemed an active genocide.

So why? Why did I read through all the way to the bottom of the piece? And why did it bother me so much? I know at least part of the answer is my ongoing quest for external validation. This becomes awkward, given that I’m quite literally in the middle of writing a book about how I no longer care what people think of me. Clearly, this is not true.

In the aftermath of my piece on the San Diego mosque shooting, Janan Delgado wrote a thoughtful comment on how she deals with being hated by others as a Muslim. The part that stood out to me was this:

“No, I don’t think people and their hatred can hurt me. Not at any true level.

My life and safety are in God’s hands alone.

I fear nothing and nobody except His displeasure.

So when I feel like correcting people’s ideas— I think it’s really out of endearment and love for them. I love easily. I love humans easily.

And I wish the best for everyone.”

“I fear nothing and nobody except His displeasure.”

This. This is my problem. Much of Islamic spirituality relies on full trust and faith in God, and an understanding that everything that happens is in His control. In Islam, this is called tawakkul. Internalizing and understanding this necessitates that you stop seeking external validation, because you care less about what people think. And while I may understand all of this intellectually, I clearly haven’t internalized it. I am still, to quote Janan’s words, doing things out of “endearment and love for” humans, not for God.

To clarify: Setting my intention for the sake of God and not people does not mean that I get a pass in how I treat people. Islam’s moral code is strict on justice and filled with rules on how to treat others in nearly every situation. There’s also a teaching to “respond with better” when attacked, to forgive, and to simply say “peace” when people treat us with ignorance.

I fail at this often. If someone slings mud in my direction, I get mad, I take it personally, I shake my head and call them idiots or racists. This tells me I have more to work on, starting with my personal relationship with God. Strengthening that would help me get over what anyone thinks. Essentially, to stop caring because I want to be liked, and to care instead for the sake of justice and equality. It’s a fine line, but a critical one.

Allegory of Vanity, by Antonio de Pereda

Do you chase external validation? How do you turn off that voice in your head that wants to be loved by others? Do you distinguish between wanting to be liked and being hurt or angered by bigotry?