How do we identify beauty? Does it distract us from more pressing issues? Is beauty the handmaiden of privilege? Or can it be found in everyday, ordinary things? How does contemporary Islam see beauty? Do Muslims consider it significant? The keenly observed essays in Critical Muslim: Beauty in Islam turn conventional ideas of beauty on their head. From the Qur’an and the Beautiful Divine Names to racism and the beauty industry, politics of fashion to calligraphy, plastic surgery and female wrestling, Muslim beauty contests to the male and female gaze, these are voices that grapple with an urgent and compelling notion.