JAKARTA: A Nigerian woman tearfully prayed and recited Qur'anic verses as she won a beauty pageant exclusively for Muslim women in the Indonesian capital Wednesday, a riposte to the Miss World contest that has sparked hard-line anger.
The 20 finalists, who were all required to wear headscarves, put on a glittering show for the final of Muslimah World, strolling up and down a catwalk in elaborately embroidered dresses and stilettos.
But the contestants from six countries were covered from head to foot, and as well as beauty they were judged on how well they recited Qur'anic verses and their views on Islam in the modern world.
After a show in front of an audience of mainly religious scholars and devout Muslims, a panel of judges picked Obabiyi Aishah Ajibola from Nigeria as the winner.
While the event in a Jakarta shopping mall paled in comparison to Miss World on the resort island of Bali, in which scores of contestants are competing, Ajibola was nevertheless overwhelmed.
Upon hearing her name, the 21-year-old knelt down and prayed, then wept as she recited a Qur'anic verse.
She said it was “thanks to almighty Allah” that she had won the contest. She received 25 million rupiah ($2,200) and trips to Makkah and India as prizes.
Ajibola told AFP before the final that the event “was not really about competition.”
“We’re just trying to show the world that Islam is beautiful,” she said.
Organizers said the pageant challenged the idea of beauty put forward by the British-run Miss World pageant, and also showed that opposition to the event could be expressed non-violently.
Eka Shanti, who founded the pageant three years ago after losing her job as a TV news anchor for refusing to remove her headscarf, bills the contest as “Islam’s answer to Miss World.”
“This year we deliberately held our event just before the Miss World final to show that there are alternative role models for Muslim women,” she told AFP.
“But it’s about more than Miss World. Muslim women are increasingly working in the entertainment industry in a sexually explicit way, and they become role models, which is a concern.”
Hosted by Dewi Sandra, an Indonesian actress and pop star who recently hung up her racy dresses for a headscarf, the pageant featured both Muslim and pop music performances, including one about modesty, a trait the judges sought in the winner.
The pageant, which also featured bright Indonesian Islamic designer wear, is a starkly different way of protesting Miss World than the approach taken by Islamic radicals.
Thousands have taken to the streets in Indonesia in recent weeks to protest Miss World, denouncing the contest as “pornography” and burning effigies of the organizers.
Despite a pledge by Miss World organizers to drop the famous bikini round, radical anger was not appeased and the protest movement snowballed.
The government eventually bowed to pressure and ordered the whole pageant be moved to the Hindu-majority island of Bali, where it opened on September 8.
Later rounds and the September 28 final were to be held in and around Jakarta, where there is considerable hard-line influence.
But there are still fears that extremists may target the event — the US, British and Australian embassies in Jakarta have warned their nationals in recent days of the potential for radical attacks.
More than 500 contestants competed in online rounds to get to the Muslimah World final in Indonesia, one of which involved the contenders comparing stories of how they came to wear the headscarf.
The contest was first held in 2011 under a different name and was only open to Indonesians, Shanti said, but after the media began comparing it to Miss World, it was rebranded as a Muslim alternative to the world-famous pageant.
Because of its popularity, organizers accepted foreign contestants this year for the first time, with Iran, Malaysia, Bangladesh, Brunei, Nigeria and Indonesia represented.
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Nigerian wins Muslim beauty pageant rival to Miss World
Nigerian wins Muslim beauty pageant rival to Miss World
As an uncertain 2026 begins, virtual journeys back to 2016 become a trend
- Over the past few weeks, millions have been sharing throwback photos to that time on social media, kicking off one of the first viral trends of the year
LONDON: The year is 2016. Somehow it feels carefree, driven by Internet culture. Everyone is wearing over-the-top makeup.
At least, that’s how Maren Nævdal, 27, remembers it — and has seen it on her social feeds in recent days.
For Njeri Allen, also 27, the year was defined by the artists topping the charts that year, from Beyonce to Drake to Rihanna’s last music releases. She also remembers the Snapchat stories and an unforgettable summer with her loved ones. “Everything felt new, different, interesting and fun,” Allen says.
Many people, particularly those in their 20s and 30s, are thinking about 2016 these days. Over the past few weeks, millions have been sharing throwback photos to that time on social media, kicking off one of the first viral trends of the year — the year 2026, that is.
With it have come the memes about how various factors — the sepia hues over Instagram photos, the dog filters on Snapchat and the music — made even 2016’s worst day feel like the best of times.
Part of the look-back trend’s popularity has come from the realization that 2016 was already a decade ago – a time when Nævdal says she felt like people were doing “fun, unserious things” before having to grow up.
But experts point to 2016 as a year when the world was on the edge of the social, political and technological developments that make up our lives today. Those same advances — such as developments under US President Donald Trump and the rise of AI — have increased a yearning for even the recent past, and made it easier to get there.
2016 marked a year of transition
Nostalgia is often driven by a generation coming of age — and its members realizing they miss what childhood and adolescence felt like. That’s certainly true here. But some of those indulging in the online journeys through time say something more is at play as well.
It has to do with the state of the world — then and now.
By the end of 2016, people would be looking ahead to moments like Trump’s first presidential term and repercussions of the United Kingdom leaving the EU after the Brexit referendum. A few years after that, the COVID-19 pandemic would send most of the world into lockdown and upend life for nearly two years.
Janelle Wilson, a professor of sociology at the University of Minnesota-Duluth, says the world was “on the cusp of things, but not fully thrown into the dark days that were to come.”
“The nostalgia being expressed now, for 2016, is due in large part to what has transpired since then,” she says, also referencing the rise of populism and increased polarization. “For there to be nostalgia for 2016 in the present,” she added, “I still think those kinds of transitions are significant.”
For Nævdal, 2016 “was before a lot of the things we’re dealing with now.” She loved seeing “how embarrassing everyone was, not just me,” in the photos people have shared.
“It felt more authentic in some ways,” she says. Today, Nævdal says, “the world is going downhill.”
Nina van Volkinburg, a professor of strategic fashion marketing at University of the Arts, London, says 2016 marked the beginning of “a new world order” and of “fractured trust in institutions and the establishment.” She says it also represented a time of possibility — and, on social media, “the maximalism of it all.”
This was represented in the bohemian fashion popularized in Coachella that year, the “cut crease” makeup Nævdal loved and the dance music Allen remembers.
“People were new to platforms and online trends, so were having fun with their identity,” van Volkinburg says. “There was authenticity around that.”
And 2016 was also the year of the “boss babe” and the popularity of millennial pink, van Volkinburg says, indications of young people coming into adulthood in a year that felt hopeful.
Allen remembers that as the summer she and her friends came of age as high school graduates. She says they all knew then that they would remember 2016 forever.
Ten years on, having moved again to Taiwan, she said “unprecedented things are happening” in the world. “Both of my homes are not safe,” she said of the US and Taiwan, “it’s easier to go back to a time that’s more comfortable and that you felt safe in.”
Feelings of nostalgia are speeding up
In the last few days, Nævdal decided to hide the social media apps on her phone. AI was a big part of that decision. “It freaks me out that you can’t tell what’s real anymore,” she said.
“When I’ve come off of social media, I feel that at least now I know the things I’m seeing are real,” she added, “which is quite terrifying.”
The revival of vinyl record collections, letter writing and a fresh focus on the aesthetics of yesterday point to nostalgia continuing to dominate trends and culture. Wilson says the feeling has increased as technology makes nostalgia more accessible.
“We can so readily access the past or, at least, versions of it,” she said. “We’re to the point where we can say, ‘Remember last week when we were doing XYZ? That was such a good time!’”
Both Nævdal and Allen described themselves as nostalgic people. Nævdal said she enjoys looking back to old photos – especially when they show up as “On This Day” updates on her phone, She sends them to friends and family when their photos come up.
Allen wished that she documented more of her 2016 and younger years overall, to reflect on how much she has evolved and experienced since.
“I didn’t know what life could be,” she said of that time. “I would love to be able to capture my thought process and my feelings, just to know how much I have grown.”
