Beauty Pageant – Saudi Style

We are all accustomed to beauty pageants such as the Miss Universe contest. It is pretty straightforward.  Contestants from around the world parade before the judges wearing both the swim suits and the evening gowns.  And then there is that individual interview round before the judges decide on a winner. But what if the contestants are all covered up from head to toe?  Then you do it the Saudi style.

Saudi Arabia has just kicked off its second Miss Beautiful Morals contest.  The inaugural contest last year attracted 75 participants, but this year over 200 girls between 15 and 25 years of age signed up as participants.  And the contest will run over a 10-week period.

The big difference between this Miss Beautiful Morals contest and other beauty contests is that all the contestants are covered up in black robes and their faces veiled up as well. So how are the contestants going to be judged?  Well, the organizers said that the girls will be judged according to their commitment to Islamic morals such as the degree of their respects for their parents. Pageant founder Khadra al-Mubarak said,”The winner won’t necessarily be pretty. We care about the beauty of the soul and the morals.”

What if you have to stand before a judge one day, and that judge is not going to consider your external beauty (your reputation, your status, etc)  but he is going to look at what’s in your heart?  What if he is going to judge you on the basis of your compliance with your moral laws?  But what moral laws? The laws that are written into your conscience! Your conscience is really a law by itself.  Have you ever experienced your conscience telling you to do something or to avoid doing something but you did just the opposite?  There is no way you can obey strictly the laws of your conscience 100% all the time. So where will you stand on such a basis of judgment? What will be the verdict of the judge?  And what will that mean to your soul?

Think about it.  We may learn something from this Miss Beautiful Morals contest, a beauty pageant – Saudi style.