On 11 August 2014, the world was shocked to hear that the Oscar-winning actor and stand-up comedian Robin Williams was found dead in his California home. His representative, Mara Buxbaum, said in a statement that he had lately been "battling severe depression." In a statement, the local sheriff's office said that it was treating the death of the 63-year-old star as a suspected suicide quoted Guardian. And then confirmation came that Robin Williams had committed suicide.

The suicide of Robin Williams has raised some very serious questions regarding the Western civilization and its goal in life. Despite money and fame, he suffered from a life of substance abuse and depression, leading to his eventual suicide. In fact, many in the Western world suffer from depression and anxiety, as recently emphasized in an MMWR report on depression amongst US adults, where every 1 out of 10 American adult is suffering from depression. The statistics revealed that those who most suffer from depression are men and women in the 45-64 years age, at an age where they would have expected to achieve what they set out to achieve. Such depression arises from what the Western civilization sets out as a goal in life, which is seeking the worldly, sensual pleasures. A hollow goal which leaves people unsatisfied and restless, as it does not address the questions of the fundamental purpose of humankind. Some realize the folly late, plunging into depression, and others decide that life is not worth living anymore.

Western civilization has set men and women in a doomed rat-race. Pursuit of sensual pleasure as a goal in life has led the whole society to strive for a goal that does not satisfy people. Moreover pursuit of this folly, the people are exploited by an ugly industry of consumerism, adorned with advertising and the manufacturing of celebrities to follow. Men with set goals for achieving wealth and status, which, even when achieved in the case of Robin Williams, leave a soul unfulfilled and desolate. And the race for achieving such wealth and status, that only a few will achieve, contributes to immense stress. The TUC surveyed 6,000 UK organizations and found stress at work to be a severe problem and now consider stress to be the UK's top workplace hazard. Men and women are made to feel the need to buy, buy, buy, so they have a sudden urge to acquire a fitted-kitchen, a Mexican bathroom, an African bedroom or a Scandinavian style living room and so on. They work harder than they would really like, in order to buy things that they don't really need, in order to impress people in a way that is shallow. A rat-race where even the winner feels that he has become a rat.

Women are additionally given goals of beauty which are unachievable for most. Consider, for instance, the average model is less than 23% of the weight of the average American woman. Such unrealistic standards for happiness serve only to increase depression and other forms of mental illness in the women. Yet, immersed in the Western values, many women feel that they should achieve these standards. A survey performed by Cincinnati College of Medicine on 33,000 women found that 75% of those aged 18 to 35 believed that they were fat, while only 25% were medically overweight; 45% of the underweight women thought that they were too fat. The National Institute of Mental Health in the US claimed that every day in the US, Americans spend on average $109 million on diet or diet related products; 1 in 20 women in the US have anorexia, bulimia, or binge eating disorder and 1,000 women die every year from anorexia (American Anorexia/Bulimia Association). In the year 2000, the British Medical Association published a report discussing the reasons for the increasing levels of anorexia in the UK and elsewhere and wrote, "The media's obsession with painfully thin fashion models has contributed to the growth in eating disorders among young girls...The degree of thinness exhibited by models chosen to promote products is both unachievable and biologically inappropriate."

Allah (swt) describes this miserable reality as only He can,

((وَالَّذِينَ كَفَرُوا أَعْمَالُهُمْ كَسَرَابٍ بِقِيعَةٍ يَحْسَبُهُ الظَّمْآنُ مَاءً حَتَّى إِذَا جَاءَهُ لَمْ يَجِدْهُ شَيْئًا وَوَجَدَ اللَّهَ عِنْدَهُ فَوَفَّاهُ حِسَابَهُ وَاللَّهُ سَرِيعُ الْحِسَابِ))

"But the Unbelievers - their deeds are like a mirage in sandy deserts which the man parched with thirst mistakes for water, until when he comes up to it, he finds it to be nothing." [Surah Al-Nur 24: 39]

In contrast, Islam, the only true way of life, does not set hollow goals for men and women to pursue for happiness. Moreover, Islam does not allow the exploitation of the needs and instincts of man through rampant consumerism. Uniquely, Islam has organized the instincts and needs of men and women in order to fulfil the profound goal of seeking the pleasure of Allah (swt).

It has embedded this goal within every deed that is undertaken, from smiling upon a child, to giving charity, from earning for the family to speaking truthfully before the tyrant. Every action is a worship of Allah (swt) which builds tranquillity and happiness, as the soul yearns for the abundant rewards in the next life. Thus the Khilafah "Caliphate" that was, and which will return again soon inshaaAllah, is characterised as a society that is striving for the pleasure of the Creator of life itself.

Written for The Central Media Office of Hizb ut Tahrir by
Engineer Saham, Pakistan