Ahmed Danyal Arif, UK
Introduction: The Age of Manufactured Desire
The 20th century witnessed a fundamental transformation in capitalism: the shift from producing necessities to manufacturing desires. After the two world wars, consumerism became the driving force of social organisation. Individuals were no longer encouraged to cultivate frugality but were urged to indulge and to seek fleeting satisfaction in commodities that demanded constant renewal.
This shift produced what has been described as a system of signs and seductions: commodities became less about utility and more about the promise of happiness and identity. Capitalism thus thrives not on fulfilment, but on dissatisfaction. Within this cultural and economic landscape, discourses of women’s liberation were often reframed around the notion of ‘choice.’ While framed as empowerment, ‘choice’ frequently became indistinguishable from consumer sovereignty, thereby aligning with capitalist logic.
The present article argues that the Islamic practice of modesty can be understood as a counter-measure to this system: a form of resistance against the objectification of the female body, the economy of the gaze, and the broader capitalist project of reification.
Desire, Economics, and the Illusion of Freedom
Economic theory traditionally assumes that individuals are rational agents capable of discerning and satisfying their preferences. Yet, in practice, capitalism collapses the distinction between needs and desires, treating both as ‘demand.’ This conflation is not neutral: it legitimises an economic system that manufactures desires and presents them as authentic expressions of selfhood.
The female body occupies a central place in this dynamic. Capitalism commodifies the body, especially the female body, turning it into a vehicle for visibility, attention, and profit. This can be seen in industries such as cosmetics and fashion, where marketing constantly associates female desirability with consumption: global beauty industry revenues surpassed $650 billion worldwide, according to 2025 estimate [1]. Sexual liberation, framed as empowerment, often plays directly into this system: by displaying the body, women participate in a spectacle that sustains industries from advertising to pornography. For instance, pornography alone accounts for $97 billion annually worldwide [2], exceeding the revenues of the NFL, NBA, and MLB combined [3]. What appears as liberation is thus compromised, as gestures that seem subversive often end up reinforcing the very capitalist system they seek to resist.
The penetrative nature of capitalism means that modern freedom or liberation must always take the form of capital gain, seen as the highest measure of success. Within this framework, so-called ‘choice feminism’ often encourages women to appropriate the very male gaze that objectifies them, turning it into a supposed tool of empowerment. Yet this inversion remains within the same economy of desire: it is the same gaze, only redirected toward profit rather than critique. What appears as freedom is, in reality, the internalisation of capitalism’s logic – where visibility and desirability become currencies of value rather than signs of autonomy.
The Female Body as Commodity
In consumer society, the female body is saturated with exchange value. Beauty, youth, and desirability are mobilised to sell products, to generate fantasies, and to sustain entire sectors of the economy. Advertising offers a stark example: research shows that women’s bodies appear in nearly half of all ads, often sexualised, because ‘sex sells’ [4]. Fashion, cosmetics, and pornography are not peripheral but central industries within this economy of the gaze.
The feminist slogan ‘my body, my choice,’ while powerful in intent, often functions within this framework. On platforms such as Instagram and TikTok, visibility itself has become capital: influencers monetise their appearance through likes, followers, and sponsorships, creating an economy where women’s visibility directly generates profit [5]. Exposure and visibility risk reinforcing, rather than resisting, the capitalist imperative of circulation and display. The alienation lies in mistaking manufactured visibility for authentic liberation, when in reality it supplies the very raw material – the image of the body – upon which the system depends.
Modesty as Economic Resistance and Liberation from Reification
Capitalism advances through what is termed reification: the transformation of human beings, relationships, and experiences into commodities. Its ‘holy war’ is that everything must become marketable. Capitalism, by its very logic, commodifies everything, including the body. Under its gaze, nothing is sacred, and everything can (and must) be turned into a marketable object. The female body, in particular, becomes a site of visual consumption, a canvas upon which desire and profit converge. Thus, what appears as subversion, such as dressing in a sexually liberating way, often turns out to be precisely what the system demands: participation in the spectacle of visibility, the continuous replenishment of attention, fantasy, and merchandise turnover.
It is against this backdrop that the Islamic ethic of modesty interrupts this logic. By withdrawing the female body from cycles of display, it removes the raw material of industries built on visibility such as advertising, fashion, pornography, and entertainment. In doing so, it performs an act of economic resistance, destabilising an economy of desire that depends on the female body as spectacle. Where visibility functions as currency, modesty is deflationary; where the gaze generates profit, modesty withdraws supply.
At the same time, modesty functions as an act of liberation from reification, refusing the capitalist imperative that women must exist as objects of display. By choosing discretion over exhibition, the woman affirms that she is not reducible to a commodity and that her body does not exist to serve the market. In this way, modesty constitutes both a resistance to the capitalist economy of the gaze and an affirmation of subjectivity beyond objectification.
Modesty challenges this dictatorship of the image by affirming that the woman is more than what is visible, more than what is desired. This is the true meaning of ‘my body belongs to me’ – not through exposure, but through real autonomy and empowerment.
The Qur’anic Ethics of the Gaze
In the Islamic tradition, the body is not an object of seduction, but a sanctuary and a trust from God. The Holy Qur’an situates modesty within a universal ethic that begins not with women, but with men:
‘Say to the believing men that they restrain their eyes and guard their private parts. That is purer for them. Surely, Allah is well aware of what they do.‘ [6]
This is immediately extended to women:
‘And say to the believing women that they restrain their eyes and guard their private parts, and that they disclose not their natural and artificial beauty except that which is apparent thereof (…)‘ [7]
The command to ‘lower the gaze’ strikes at the very foundation of capitalist commodification: the economy of the gaze. By regulating both looking and being looked at, the Holy Qur’an anticipates and resists the mechanisms through which bodies are transformed into commodities. Modesty is thus not a burden but a practice of dignity, a stewardship (amanah) over the body as a trust from God.
By showing that capitalism not only commodifies women but corrupts men, the Qur’anic ethic restores moral symmetry. The economy of the gaze deforms both sides: women are reduced to products, and men to consumers conditioned to desire ownership. Islam disciplines both the gaze and being gazed at, purifying desire by reorienting it from possession to respect.
This balance is profound: before addressing women, the Holy Qur’an commands men to restrain their eyes – acknowledging that moral corruption begins with unregulated desire. The gaze, when ungoverned, becomes an instrument of consumption; when governed, it becomes an act of reverence. Thus, Islam’s ethic of modesty is not anti-woman – it is anti-commodification on both sides, liberating both buyer and product from a system that degrades them spiritually.
Contrary to secular readings that equate modesty with shame, the Islamic modesty restores intimacy in a culture obsessed with exhibition. It protects the sacred dimension of the body, affirming that not everything belongs to the public domain. To veil is not to hide in disgrace, but to preserve in honour – a reminder that not all value is visible, and not all dignity is for sale.
In other words, modesty subverts the capitalist equation that equates woman with visibility and visibility with market value. It articulates true freedom not rooted in exposure but in sovereignty over one’s body, dignity, and identity.
Conclusion: Spiritual Feminism as Capitalist Sabotage
Modesty embodies a dual act of resistance. Economically, it drains the lifeblood of industries predicated on the commodification of the gaze, dismantling billion-dollar sectors reliant on the visibility of the female body. Ontologically, it liberates the self from reification, refusing to be reduced to commodity form.
In this sense, the Islamic concept of modesty can be understood as a form of spiritual feminism – not one that mimics men or integrates into capitalist logic, but one that rejects objectification altogether and thus sabotages the system from within, drawing from a spiritual foundation.
Modesty is neither submission nor retreat. Far from submission or backwardness, veiling emerges as true sovereignty: an act of faith and a refusal of capitalism’s command that everything must become a commodity. It challenges the economy of the gaze and opens a horizon where liberation is rooted not in exposure, but in sacred selfhood.
About the Author: Ahmed Danyal Arif is a French economist by education and currently working in London. He has a Masters degree in Economics and Politics. After working for the French tax administration system, he published two books in French: Islam & Capitalism: For an Economic Justice (2016), and Economic History of the Islamic World: From Pre-Islamic Arabia to the Umayyad Dynasty (2019). He currently serves as the Editor for the Economics Section in The Review of Religions.
[1] Exploding Topics, “The Ultimate List of Beauty Industry Stats”, 2025: https://explodingtopics.com/blog/beauty-industry-stats.
[2] NBC News, “Things Are Looking Up in America’s Porn Industry”, 2015: https://www.nbcnews.com/business/business-news/things-are-looking-americas-porn-industry-n289431.
[3] Forbes, “How Porn Went From Boom To Bust”, 2012: https://www.forbes.com/sites/susannahbreslin/2012/07/11/how-porn-went-from-boom-to-bust/.
[4] American Psychological Association, Report of APA Task Force on the Sexualization of Girls, 2007: Sexualization of Girls 2010.
[5] Crystal Abidin, Internet Celebrity: Understanding Fame Online, Emerald Publishing Limited, 2018.
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