We like things we can measure. How someone dresses. Whether she wears hijab or niqab. How much Qur'an she seems to know. How "practising" her life looks from the outside. And without realising it, we start ranking people.

We do it quickly. We do it quietly. And most of the time we do not even notice we are doing it.

What you are not seeing

The problem with ranking based on appearance is that you are working with a fraction of the picture.

You do not see the salah she fought herself to get up for this morning. You do not see the sin she has been trying to leave for years, quietly, without an audience. You do not see the du'a she made with tears in her eyes at 3am. You do not see the quiet acts of worship that nobody will ever know about, and that she has never mentioned, because they were between her and Allah.

A woman can look like she has everything together while her imaan is barely holding on. Another may have things she is visibly still working on, while privately returning to Allah again and again. We see the surface. Allah sees the substance.

Tawbah may happen that night

The Prophet, peace be upon him, taught us that Allah accepts repentance by night from those who sinned by day, and by day from those who sinned by night. (Sahih Muslim 2759)

Which means the sin you saw yesterday may have been followed by tears and tawbah that very night. The version of someone you have frozen in your mind may be a version Allah has already forgiven.

Freezing someone in a moment and judging them permanently from it is not something Islam asks us to do. It is something our own ego asks us to do, and we give it permission without realising.

The outward does matter — and so does this

This is not an argument that the outward is irrelevant. Modesty matters. Our actions matter. Obedience matters. These are not small things.

But there is a meaningful difference between recognising what Allah has asked of us and believing we can determine someone's standing with Allah from what we can observe. Those are not the same claim. The first is faith. The second is a presumption that belongs to Allah alone.

A niqab does not guarantee a sound heart. An uncovered head does not reveal an empty one. Islamic knowledge beautifully displayed online does not give us access to anyone's private relationship with Allah. None of it does.

Be careful in both directions

The temptation runs two ways. We look down on sisters who do not appear as practising. But we also place others on pedestals simply because they look the part. Both are errors.

The sister you admire from a distance may be carrying something you know nothing about. The sister you have quietly dismissed may be closer to Allah than either of you would guess. Neither conclusion is yours to reach.

What we can do — what we are actually called to do — is advise gently when it is appropriate, assume good where we can, make du'a for one another, and resist the urge to position ourselves as qualified to assess anyone's imaan.

A final reflection

People will always have opinions. About how you dress, how much you cover, how practising you appear to be. Those opinions are not authoritative. They do not have access to your private worship, your struggles, your tawbah, or the state of your heart.

We are all somewhere between who we were and who we are asking Allah to help us become. That is true of every single person in your timeline, your community, and your life.

Leave the ranking of hearts to Allah. He is the only one who actually knows what is in them.