Shumail 🇵🇰🍁

Sorry but I had vent about this a little. More so because millions of ppl watch. I understand why Dar-e-Nijaat has become so popular. I actually appreciate Abu Bakar’s character- a calm, compassionate, emotionally available man who offers Zaryab safety without judging her past. But I have a real problem with Umera Ahmed’s portrayal of female redemption. We’re told the drama is challenging the double standards around men and women being allowed to repent and move on. Fair enough. But why does Zaryab’s redemption increasingly look like the complete transformation of her personality? And perhaps what’s most troubling is that her supposed adultery was actually coercion. Yet somehow, the shame and guilt are entirely hers to carry. Instead of properly examining the coercion and what happened to her, the entire narrative seems to revolve around her sins, her shame and her need for redemption. Her feeling unworthy of love and acceptance only coming from a man choosing her. Where is the ambitious woman who had dreams of Harvard? Why is giving up sleeveless clothes, becoming more ‘domesticated’ and gradually adopting her husband’s way of life being presented as moral growth? My issue isn’t with her finding religion or choosing modesty. That’s entirely her choice. My issue is with the writer’s recurring idea of what a morally good woman should look like. The modern woman in jeans, with ambitions and an independent identity, is somehow the woman who needs redemption. And the woman who covers up, becomes more traditional and centres her life around her husband is the one who has finally become worthy. Abu Bakar isn’t asking her to change, I like that. But my criticism is of the narrative itself and the values it seems to endorse. It’s 2026. Why are we still reducing women’s morality to their clothes and their willingness to conform to a particular idea of femininity? A woman can find faith without losing her individuality. She can be modest and ambitious. She can be a loving wife and still have a life, opinions and dreams of her own. I honestly wish our writers would stop treating the gradual disappearance of a woman’s individuality as evidence that she’s becoming a better person. It’s very problematic.