To dhimmi no more

Submitted by Vijay (United Kingdom), Nov 9, 2006 at 09:12

>Submitted by dhimmi no more, Nov 8, 2006 at 07:39

Hi DNM,

my opinions below

>1. I noticed that Tablighees and "pious" Muslims from the above countries shave their moustaches and have a beard that they stain with _henna_ and when one asks where does this come from? One is told that this is what Muhammad did (the sunna of Muhammad) but you will never see an Arab with a beard stained with henna. It just looks odd. But if you think about it for a minute (and no I'm not a cultural anthropologist) I supect that the henna stain is the answer to the saffron color of Buddhism/Hinduism.

Evern though this is information to me that dyeing the beard is an Indian Muslim thing, I have no opinion on the origin of it. I have taken Muslim claim that they are doing it in imitation of prophet Mohammed at face value. And I wish that imitation of Mohammed stops there and does not spill over into ethics or politics.

>2. The so called Shalwar Qamiz is a very alien dress to the Arabs and I suspect that it is the product of the Indian civilization and it was conjured by Muslims in India and claimed to be the way that Muhammad dressed which is another illusion.

Shalwar Kameez comes from Central Asia. Hindu traditional dress for women is saree. But shalwar kameez has become popular perhaps due to Bollywood films. Even in south India, where I come from, 30 years back , no girl wore shalwar kameez. Now that has become a la mode among younger generation

>3. The hafiz thing: where young men are sent to a madrassa where they memorize the Qur'an. There is no >such tradition in the Arab world and I suspect that the origin of such practice is from Hinduism where we >have the tradition of Brahmans memorizing the Hindu holy books.

It is possible. Hindu Vedas were transmitted orally , even when writing materials were available. That is becuase Veda chanting depends upon exact pronouciation and creating exact sounds. Orthodox veda transmission discouraged putting them to writing. On the other hand, something like Quran depends upon book and writing it down. The printed copies of Quran has taken the place of idols of the old civilization. Any alleged disrecpect to the printed copies of Quran is met with savage punishments. Muslims have replaced Idolatory with Quranotary. Amazon.com incident in the US comes to mind. In Pakistan , lives have been lost due to real or imagined disrespect to Quran

>It would be very interesting to conduct a study of the practices of Muslims in the above countries and I can bet you a buck or two that and to use the old saying: "you can take the girl out of Brooklyn but you cannot take Brooklyn out of the girl" in other words: "Old civilizations are not conjured away" not by Islam and not by Arabian imperialism.

That is a small consolation.

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