Guest guest Posted May 21, 1999 Report Share Posted May 21, 1999 > "sudarshan madabushi" <sudarshanm > I live and work in the Islamic world where sartorial propriety is defined by > strict religious prescription. The Arab menfolk are proud of their > "dish-dAshA" or "thobe" and the women of their "abaaya". > As for entering a mosque in anything but the traditional attire... > it is simply unthinkable for any Muslim here! > I have seen personally that the willingness of the average Arab Muslim to > abide by the religious dress code is spontaneous. It is not induced by any > fear of "fatwa" or some severe mullah's ire. Only the Western media (who > consider themselves "experts" on all aspects of Islamic culture)project it > as such. The average Egyptian or Kuwaiti or Bahraini here wears his dress > with great pride. Just a quick note w.r.t. the terms "Arab", "Egyptian", etc. Arab is a race, Islam is a religion, while Egyptian/Kuwaiti/Bahraini etc. are nationalities. Arabs can be either Moslem or Christian; there are Christian Arabs all across the mid-east belonging to various countries. A common mistake is to confuse Islamic traditions with Arabic ones. The women's veil for instance, is a good example of this; it is of Arabic origin and was later incorporated into Islamic dress code. Today only about 12% of the world's Moslems are Arab, and they all speak varying dialects of Arabic. I apologize for introducing a very unrelated subject (i.e. Islam/Arab) into the list but I simply wanted to address the misconception among many Hindus that Arabic is the same as Islamic or vice-versa. -Srinath Chakravarty email: xsrinath Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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