In this day and age, we are all no strangers to celebrity culture. From actors to athletes, chances are there is an A-list celebrity that has earned your respect or perhaps inspired you to strive for greatness.
I, myself, am not afraid to admit that I have admired LeBron James for nearly 15 years. As a child, it all first stemmed from pure fascination: seeing a man twice my size sprint coast-to-coast before unleashing his signature tomahawk was simply jaw-dropping. Before long, I found myself imitating his moves – minus the dunks, of course – and celebrations on the basketball court with his jersey draped over me.
But it didn’t end there. Before long, my outlook on life quickly changed with his ups and downs – my mood for the next day entirely dictated on his team winning or losing (don’t get me started with the NBA Finals). I would engage in hours-long disputes with friends and family about why he is the greatest player ever and that the Warriors unfairly sabotaged his legacy. In my teenage-brain, an attack on King James was an attack on me.
Nowadays, however, my fandom has since become more tame in recent years. I was definitely excited to see him break the all-time scoring record a few months back. When I inevitably start to struggle in my classes every quarter, I think back to LeBron’s historic comeback in 2016 as motivation. But I could care less, however, about defending the honor of someone who doesn’t even know I exist.
I’m recalling all of this because of the slippery slope that has become a prominent feature in celebrity culture that, if left unchecked, can at times stray us from Islam’s core messages. Whether it’s Taylor Swift, LeBron, Messi, Chris Hemsworth, or some other mainstream celebrity, there is no shortage of people willing to give up an arm and a leg to watch their games, attend their concerts, or simply take a photo at a meet-and-greet.
I am certainly not opposed to enjoying these events from time to time. It’s part of what makes life enjoyable. But the level of commitment and sacrifice that some people have towards celebrities runs counterintuitive to the notion of tawhid. Ultimately, Allah SWT made His message clear regarding deification: no one shares his divine attributes, and to even idealize celebrities detracts from our remembrance of Allah and the blessings He gives us.
And the consequences of this can be especially dangerous. As Islamic scholar Martin Lings explains, “if his outlook is cut off from the spiritual plane, he will find a God to worship at some lower level, thus endowing something relative with what belongs only to the Absolute.” So even if one doesn’t directly worship a celebrity, being in a constant state of willful distraction from the Qur’an’s message by engaging in celebrity culture can lead to a path towards sin. At such a point, the Qur’an designates such a mindset as ghafla – “desirous heedlessness” – in which people divert their attention from their spirituality towards superficial matters in our dunya.
Furthermore, this mindset can blind us from how celebrities truly behave from behind closed doors. Oftentimes, some fans are quick to excuse celebrities for scandals, crimes, and insensitive actions that exemplify greed, lust, and a flat-out disregard for others. This should warrant our admonition, not our praise. But to do so would shatter the idealized image that some have created that once started out as mere admiration for their talents.
Perhaps, up to this point, we have thought that we wouldn’t engage in that kind of behavior. But I wish to emphasize that as human beings, we are all fallible to this mindset. As Ibn Abbas reported in the Hadith, Shaytan inspired the descendants of Noah to build statues of their ancestors. While not worshipped at first, future generations gradually lost touch with the knowledge surrounding these statues and began worshipping them [Sahih al-Bukhari 4636]. As with celebrities, once a person’s imperfections are stripped away, we are more vulnerable to giving undue praise and devoting less time to our deen.
This isn’t to say that both elements cannot coexist. It is important to strike a balance between fulfilling our spiritual needs and enjoying the blessings that Allah has given us. However, the path from celebrity praise to worship is but a single misstep, so it is especially important that we choose how we spend our time – and who we spend our time for – wisely.