Is it not unfair that some people are created beautiful and some people ugly?

Dear Brother / Sister,

This world is a place of testing. The test is a measure of justice that tests what people do with their free will. A person is not evaluated for his physical structure that he has been given. What matters is to pass the test in the short life and to achieve a very good quality of life - with a beautiful physical structure - in the eternal Paradise. As a result of the test, many beautiful people become eternally ugly in the hereafter while many ugly people gain eternal beauty.

It should not be forgotten that it is not unjust that Allah creates some people beautiful and others ugly because injustice means violating someone’s right. Who was beautiful before but Allah made him ugly when He created him?

All human beings are works of art of Allah. The fact that the arts are different shows the skill of the artist. Each person - beautiful or ugly - has a different artistic esthetic. So, the things we consider ugly are actually very beautiful works of art.

Since the entire universe was created afterwards in all its details, everyone/ everything is indebted to their creator with all their existence. It is sheer injustice to try to seek a right as if one of his rights has been lost, and to think that Allah has been unfair to him in this matter though he does not thank Allah properly, which is Allah’s right.

Every being is obliged to think about and give thanks for the bounty of existence bestowed upon him by Allah. A person cannot say, “Why did I not become a prophet?”. Then, if a mouse says, “Why did I not become a man?”, it will go on and on.

To sum up, belief in Allah also requires believing that He is just. Allah is the owner of all property; the owner has the right to use his property as he wishes.

We should not forget that this world serves as a stage for a beauty contest - for people. However, this beauty contest is not a physical, but a spiritual and ethical beauty contest. In a hadith, our Prophet (pbuh) teaches us the following:

“Allah does not evaluate you by looking at your forms/shapes; on the contrary, He looks at your hearts, your beauty in your inner world, and evaluates you accordingly.” (Muslim, Birr, 33; Ibn Majah, Zuhd, 9; Ahmad b. Hanbal, 2/285, 539)

Questions on Islam