Don’t we have it a bit back to front here?
Given that all males (with a few medical exceptions) grow facial hair in adulthood, and that it isn’t “considered” a sign of manliness, it is a sign of masculinity, and that it takes much less effort to have facial hair than to not have it, then if there is any explaining to be done it should be done by those who **don’t ** have a moustache and beard.
So any Iraqi man has a much more valid question; Why shave? Is it the law or custom or what?
waitaminute.
Arabic women shave their hoohas?
Oh man.
No Tristan - WAX. Sugar, pluck, thread - whatever. From the very root
Just like the Brazilian, but without the little landing strip…
Jomo: The same thing can be said about what many people say is in the Bible.
God, that’s sad.
Istara, are women allowed to go to beauty salons? You mentioned above that they get waxed, so I’m assuming that they get their hair and nails done, as well. I had read newspapers saying that in fundamentalist parts of town, truckloads of young men would race down the streets, bombing beauty salons and throwing acid in the faces of women who didn’t cover their hair. From what you’ve said about the UAE, I would imagine that country is more modern and wouldn’t have a problem with this.
Yes - there’s no problem with personal grooming as long as it’s covered up in public, ie in front of male non-relations. That’s in Saudi.
Here, although they wear the abaya by custom, not all cover their faces, often it’s sheer and flaps open to show clothes, and some don’t even cover their hair.
In Iraq, things are very much more liberal, AFAIK most young women don’t wear the abaya at all.
I was curious as to the relative number of Muslims versus Christians in Iraq so I went to the CIA Factbook. For some reason I can’t access the Iraq page (or Iran and Afghanistan). Hmm, information blackout? Probably not, but several other countries came up immediately.
Anyway, the Google cache revealed that 97% of Iraqis are Muslim with the remaining 3% Christian or other.
AFAIK numbers in Iraq on the various religious breakdowns are very dodgy, especially when you try to determine how many sunni v shia muslims there are. This is due to political reasons, Saddam’s party is sunni (minority) so they effectively rule the shia majority.
I was trying to work out how many sunni, shia, Iraqis, kurds etc there were once, and got wildly, wildly varying results from various (reputable) news and information sources.
That all said, some of you might be surprised how very tolerant and respectful most muslims are towards christians. Jesus is revered, in particular Mary - lots of muslim girls are named with derivatives of Mary - eg “Maryam”.
As I understand it, the tensions between factions within Islam are often much more bitter than the tensions between muslims and christians in predominantly muslim countries. (Not in all cases, particularly certain African countries though).
It seems that there is a strong cultural imperative for Iraqi men to grow moustaches.
Today, the Iraqi vice president publically insulted a delegate from Kuwait at an emergency summit of Islamic nations.
**
Apparently, the moustache is closely associated with “honor.”
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2003-03-05-islamic-summit_x.htm
Slate’s “Explainer” column just took a shot at this too: Does Saddam Impose a Mustache Mandate in Iraq?
Regarding medstar’s question as to whether Muslim or Arab women are ALLOWED to go to beauty salons…
Body waxing was probably invented, if not perfected, in Turkey. Why would you think that being a devout or even not-so-devout Muslim woman would prevent a woman from
What are you thinking? Only Western women like sex or want to be beautiful and well-maintained?