As the long and protracted details of The “Epstein files” are slowly drip-fed to the public, mainstream and independent media sources are scrambling to make sense of what it all means. The unsealed court documents and records tied to Jeffrey Epstein’s sex-trafficking case, including testimony, emails, and names mentioned in lawsuits run in the literal millions.
The questions abound: Who was in the network? Who visited the island? What exactly happened there? How deep did the connections go, involving the world’s most elite rich and famous? While there are those looking at the case from an academic or salacious lens, as Muslims, the truest lessons we can take from this trending global news story can be reduced to this: Epstein—and his known and hidden allies—are a parable of dunya. From his case, we glean several timeless and damning lessons that help us to understand this world—and this life—for what it truly is.
1. Dunya will feed every insatiable appetite
Let’s be real. Epstein—like all men in power—could easily access any of the vices his heart desired. From women to drugs, power to influence, all of it was open to him with no consequence. When he could have freely had endless consensual relationships with adult women (paid for or otherwise), why did he choose to go for children to sexually exploit instead?
Because human appetite grows the more you feed it. And what it wants to be fed with must be more severe each time. When relationships with adult women become too normal, too boring, sights turn to teenage girls. When relations with teenage girls are maxed out, what about pre-teens? Pubescents? Young children? Toddlers? Animals, dead bodies, incest? Where does it stop? To get the same hit of pleasure, the desires become darker and more deviant with every indulgence.
Few things in this world are as unanimously condemned as child sexual abuse. When every other kind of carnal desire has already been indulged to the point of boredom, attention turns to what is the most taboo, most risky and therefore most exciting way to get that same high. Couple this with a belief that you are above all law and any consequence, and you see how Epstein thrived.
Even when it comes to our halal and haram boundary as believers, we are advised not to overindulge even in permissible matters, as this can leave us numb to pleasure, so that eventually our sight drifts to the doubtful or impermissible instead. Understanding ourselves is to understand our spiritual, physical, mental and emotional appetites, and that true freedom is to be able to identify, manage and gain mastery over them. The alternative—as we see here—is nothing but a bottomless, depraved pit.
2. Power has one priority: self-preservation
No doubt what has been released is only the tip of the iceberg. No doubt the names and identities of the real big players have been redacted, obscured or erased into oblivion. The institutions responsible for releasing the truth will never prosecute themselves. Instead, a mere mirage of accountability will be brought forward where the low level, more dispensable, public figures are outed, named and shamed. Those who truly pull the strings will not use them to hang themselves. Justice, therefore, can never be delivered in this life the way it must be. Power, by its nature, has a mechanism of self-preservation, deception and collusion that secures it.
Power, by its nature, is an overwhelmingly corrupting force. So much so, in fact, that we all applaud, marvel and can count on one hand those in positions of great authority who have retained a moral conscience and use their positions to genuinely bring positive change. Power requires complicity and obedience to authority, it requires a level of group think, placidity and the suspension of moral fortitude. Those who wield corrupting influence can only do it on the compliance of everyone in the networks surrounding them. This is, and has always been, the nature of the dunya.
Unsurprisingly, when Epstein decided he wanted large samples of the Kiswa cloth covering the Ka’ba, it was his UAE aides who arranged and exported this for him; a female businesswoman in particular. No small feat considering how sought-after this material is.[1] What was the intention here exactly? And how could apparently believing Muslims move to send items like this to a convicted child sex trafficker, boasting, “The black piece was touched by minimum 10 million Muslims of different denominations, Sunni, Shia and others.” as if selling a used car. What did Epstein himself want with it? To desecrate the sacred, to perform dark rituals? To feel powerful in a new, more perverse way? Dunya feeds all of this, and the UAE agents around him were holding the spoons.
When dunya reveals itself to you through cases like the Epstein Files, the question we should ask ourselves is how we manage the power in our own hands, and how we may—knowingly or unknowingly—be bolstering the corrupt power of others. The overwhelming exploitation of the global elite isn’t a source of despair for believers, it is a motivation to never resemble them in thought, practice and worldview. It is to see what drives them, and witness where it lands them—not just in the ākhirah, but right here in the dunya now.
Moreover, in times like this when more people are waking up to the depravity of what happens in privileged circles, our messaging should first expose this and secondly offer a robust, principled and firm alternative in the security of Islam and the highest of moral principles it stands on.
3. Allah hides, delays, exposes and sometimes forever buries
Epstein is not the first, will definitely not be the last, and has many equals in debauchery. Throughout the ages, open and hidden figures like him have existed—as have the networks around him to enable it all. Sometimes, the extent of their crimes is exposed, but most of the time they never will be. Sometimes, like now, there will be global attention called to what was done, but the real crimes happen in the dark, far from BBC rolling news coverage or talking points on podcasts. In fact, many could argue Epstein is now being used as a distraction ploy in legacy media, or he is an easy “fall guy” to manufacture outrage and divert everyone’s attention from the real criminality taking place behind closed doors.
Whatever it is, what is clear is that some crimes and criminals will die never being exposed, let alone accounted. Some may be outed quickly, fully and punished accordingly. Others will slip and slide under radars undetected. Over it all, is the Hand of Allah moving the pieces and deciding whose crimes will be exposed, to what extent and with whom. Other times it will never come—in this life. As we bear witness to it all happening on a public stage to others, we must also look at how these divine choices cover us all. The praise people have of us is only evidence of how gracefully Allah has covered our sins and shortcomings. The times we are exposed is an urgent and devastating wake-up call, delivering shame and humiliation no doubt, but also gifting us with the chance to rectify our affairs.
4. Webs of harm in this world are all intertwined
Politicians, bankers, musicians, academics, media moguls, lawyers, superstars, heads of global conglomerates and everyone in-between are implicated as being part of Epstein’s web of influence. There is a uniting factor in the people pulled into this depraved orbit: they were all intoxicated by their own power. They believed they were beyond accountability, as they backed one another up. Networks of people eased business opportunities, sold wars, profiteered from abuse rings, sent each other private jets, protected one another in court, bought politicians, engineered elections, coups and uprisings and yes, even usurped and stole whole nations in plain sight of the world.
When Epstein signed a $25M agreement with Rothschild Group,[2] this was not a neutral business partner, but the latest in a long and fruitful relationship with the Rothschild family. Does the name ring a bell? It should. The infamous letter from British Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour that announced the British government would use its “best endeavours” to facilitate “the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people” was something many of us are familiar with. The letter was addressed to none other than Lionel Walter, 2nd Lord Rothschild (1868-1937), the unofficial leader of the British Jewish community. These connections paid dividends. His known connections with Mossad are not a conspiracy theory either,[3] neither is the idea that one of the purposes of the island was to collect high-grade blackmail material to ensure you had the most powerful men in the world in your pocket. Which country today acts with total impunity, with the most powerful men (and women) in the world blindly dedicated to its defence? Answers on a postcard.
5. Divine boundaries are not just for our safety, but our very survival
The truth is, as we look at Epstein and even more is revealed of the files, it is easy for the debauchery to feel far away. Something we scoff at, mock or salaciously follow as a more respectable form of gossip. The truth is that the worst excesses of human behaviour are not far from any of us. The worst of all human beings were born as babies, pure in nature. How they grew and the decisions they took led them down paths that cement them as monsters in the public psyche, however we are vulnerable to weaknesses, corruption, falling prey to the worst of our instincts. Every so often, we see caricatured versions of human beings gone wrong. Netflix is full of true crime documentaries that has us marvelling at the sociopathy of serial killers, mothers killing their own children or perfectly ‘nice guys’ in public running underground torture networks online. We must be vigilant to ourselves. We need to understand our own spiritual psychology, be familiar with the weaknesses that Shaytān will exploit to get to us, and protect our most vulnerable areas of potential attack. None of us are immune from falling, and this fact should humble us, and keep us on guard always.
When Islam puts in seemingly stringent cautions around seeking power, social status, money, taming ego, maintaining public decency and accounting ourselves regularly, these aren’t mere spiritual recommendations, they are necessary for our soul’s survival. The boundaries of Islam aren’t there as some kind of individual protection from the harm of sin (or needless policing of behaviour), the boundaries exist because human beings cannot thrive in this world without knowing, respecting and excelling within the boundaries of Allah.
6. The hallmark of this world is deception
Sometimes the easiest way to understand this world is to accept everything is upside down. Vice is framed as virtue, and virtue is scoffed at as vice. Everything pleasurable in the dunya has a price—from accountability to all-out punishment. The pain and suffering that saturates our hearts and news screens will be a source of immense relief in the Hereafter. Lies are presented as mainstream news narratives, and truth is dismissed as fringe conspiracy theories not even worthy of consideration. Those we celebrate on public platforms are often the worst of us all, living in the hollow mirage of fame and exposure, pumping out saccharine dreams that only lead to night terrors.
If you feel like you cannot understand this world, perhaps you are doing something right. If you feel like an alien living in a clown show, then perhaps that’s because our natural home is not planet earth at all.
This dunya is shining white teeth set a top rotting gums. Let the Epstein and enablers of the world feast on all the plaque that it offers, while we focus on the foundations of faith to give us real, lasting stability.
Source: Islam21c
Notes
[2] https://www.telegraph.co.uk/us/news/2025/08/23/lady-de-rothschild-jeffrey-epstein-prince-andrew/
