wednesday
16th december 2020
2:10 am

i cannot even start about the past week. all six subject teachers assigned us assignments, two presentations and one project. i had to go through the increased trouble of finding myself a group (of 5 members) for the project. i was quite literally playing recruit, asking here and there if anyone needed to be in a group. thankfully, i now have a group of 5 friends :D i've also been struggling with getting my sleep schedule straight. i sleep through morning classes after having my attendance marked. and to top it all off, i accidentally called a male classfellow of mine on whatsapp and had to further apologize to him for it (which he was totally chill about).

the only good thing that has come out of all of this is how actively i've participated in my classes which i'm actually proud of because i'm the kind who knows the answer but will wait for someone else to say it 🙄

anyway, something has been on my mind the past few days. last week, i held a q&a session on my instagram and this one reader came forward with some confusions she had about pakistani books. apparently, the pakistani books she read portrayed pakistanis in a completely different light from what i've written them as in my own book. i won't go into details about which book she read, who was the writer, and why she wrote pakistanis that way. i'm not even saying my own portrayals of pakistanis are correct. i'll just let these lines remain ambiguous, you're free to dissect them any way you want.

but i will say this-if there's a specific culture/race/nation/religion you're writing about, make sure to do your research and portray who you're writing about in the correct light.

often at times, i'll forget wattpad is home to billions of people and not my personal diary. often, i'll forget that what i write will be read, understood and scrutinized. that there are actual people, with minds and hearts like mine, who will read my work. but we-including myself-have to remember that books are the easiest mode of educating one's mind, and we as writers with the pen in our hands, whether willingly or unwillingly are responsible for the mindsets our readers form after they read our books, for the thoughts they process, for the ideas they harbour. we are majorly behind it.

i am not throwing dirt on anyone, but i've read books on wattpad that claim haram relationships, drinking, nudity and pornography, mistreating one's parents, being a rude and inconsiderate brat, skipping prayers, and just generally being an awful person are all okay. that they are the norm. that life is too short to live it within bounds. that Allah's going to forgive you anyway.

if anyone who romanticizes such topics in their books is reading this, please know that you can't control who your audience is. there may be 12-14 year old children, or even younger, who may be reading your books behind their guardians' backs, and being completely misguided about Islam. they may grow up learning to be okay with all this just because one faceless person on the internet said so, and go on to adopt the same lifestyle.

do you realize what you are doing? nobody cares if it is just a wattpad book. in fact, just a wattpad book is not even a valid excuse. you are directly responsible for the damage that child may go on to cause to themselves or future generations. agreed, the same child has their own mind and they can differ between right and wrong, but what you're putting out there in the public domain for the public to read will indefinitely influence the reader. you can say it is just a book, just a fun read, just a fictional story, you can claim the characters don't have to be perfect. that's fine. as long as you eventually show right from wrong. as long as you educate the reader about the wrongdoings of the character, and make them learn, and hence make the reader learn.

now i know majority of responsibility falls on the reader, they are supposed to use their own mind to know what they should and shouldn't read. but what about youngsters and teenagers who just got into their teens? what about a non-muslim who decides to go through a muslim book and forms an opinion of the entire ummah based on that one book?

personally, i've always tried my best to do my research on Islamic rulings before i put anything in my books. if my male and female characters interacted, it was also shown why they should have never interacted. and if a reader corrects something you got wrong, don't be offended. we're all here to learn and grow. allow yourself to learn, and then teach others.

tell right from wrong. you have the pen in your hand. the world is at your fingertips. you can portray it any way you want. but make sure it is something you can imagine would please Allah.

do i get too serious? yes, i get too serious 😂