Chubby Women

Times have changed, but Arabs used to like chubbiness in women and they did not like chubbiness in men.

1- Imam al-Suyuti wrote a book 600 years ago, titled:
اليواقيت الثمينة في صفات السمينة
‘Precious Pearls [in praise of] the Characteristics of Fat Women.”
This entire book is in praise of chubby women.

2- When Imam Ahmad Ibn Hanbal sent someone to buy him a concubine, he said:
“قَالَ يَعْقُوبُ بْنُ بُخْتَانَ : أَمَرَنَا أَبُو عَبْدِ اللَّهِ (أحمد بن حنبل) أَنْ نَشْتَرِيَ لَهُ جَارِيَةً ، فَمَضَيْتُ أَنَا وَفُورَانُ ، فَتَبِعَنِي أبوعبدِ اللَّهِ ، وَقَالَ : يَا أَبَا يُوسُفَ ، يَكُونُ لَهَا لَحْمٌ .”
“Make sure she’s got some meat on her.”
[“Siyar A’lam al-Nubala”, 10/333].
Others said: ‘bones are for dogs, meat is for men.’

3- In those times, they used to say :
لا شيء أزين على المرأة من الشحم
“Nothing is more beautiful on a woman than fat.”

An Arab friend once used Newton’s Law of Universal Gravitation, saying: ‘more massive objects will attract each other with a greater gravitational force.’

Chubby people were more attractive.

4- But they did not like it when men were fat, even though many great scholars were fat.
Imam Shafi’ii said:
ما أفلح سمين قط إلا أن يكون محمد بن الحسن
“No fat man has ever been successful except Mohammad Ibn Hassan al-Shaybani.”
[“Siyar A’lam al-Nubala”, 10/84].
Imam al-Shaybani was a student of Imam Abu Hanifah and he was very fat.

It was also the same in other countries. If a person was fat, the elders used to consider them healthy. If someone was skinny, they used to consider them undernourished.

In some African tribes, men with big bellies are still considered attractive.

So, chubby people are not ugly … they’re basically born in the wrong century and in the wrong tribe.