[MD] Muslim Mechanisms

[John Carl]

>
> [Khaled]
> I see your point here. A lack of centralized church allows anyone to
> claim to be an imam ( locally) and declare his own fatwa. I can see how
> that could happen. Also ( and I am not making excuses) it's the new
> immigrants' fear of the unknown, now that they are in a new land. They
> are afraid that their daughters will become immoral if they don't dress
> right. All that is Bull shit of course, and if you are going to screw
> around you will do it regardless of what the dress code is. Hell, it sure
> makes it a lot easier to get about and do whatever the hell you want if
> you are hiding under a veil. Incognita.
>


Its a universal problem, Khaled, honoring and perpetuating one's social
patterns in the face of the Giant's obliteration and homogenization
campaign.  You can see the same conflicts working their way through various
cultures.

For instance, when I was in (parochial )grade school, they had the girls
line up and kneel in front of the class to check their attire against the
dress code, because the Seventh Day Adventists also had their prophet, who
decreed that the proper length for a girl's dress was less than 6 inches off
the floor while kneeling.  Sound familiar?

This didn't go over very well in Santa Cruz in the swingin' seventies and
the look of humiliation that burned in the eyes of those girls as they had
to kneel in front of a male teacher with a ruler in his hand and a classroom
of seventh and eighth grade boys looking on, did not bode well for the
future perpetuation of this particular society.


And what ompletely mystified me was if modesty was the issue. why not let
the girls wear pants?  But that was the biggest social/moral faux pas of
all!  I never understood that, until I read Pirsig.  People ask all the time
what good the MoQ does, but the inquiry into values is immensely
enlightening and valuable in all kinds of conundrums.

See, in the pioneer days, before fast food restaurants with their privately
stalled bathrooms, the only way a woman could relieve her biological need in
the woods in a modest manner would be with a dress on.  Just imagine a girl
with a male escort, cousin, brother or friend, having to pull her pants and
undergarment down to her knees and wave her naked sex in the air like a
beckoning ape in heat.

No wonder my grandma and great grandma would talk about "girls who wear
pants" as some kind of immoral hussy.  Thus practical good sense gets
transmitted as a moral imperative, and a culture trying to keep its identity
in a homogenizing world hammers on such details as important; long past the
date when the original practical need has been obviated by the evolution of
society at large.



>
> Pirsig said something to the effect " do we believe in god because we do
> the ceremonies, or do we do the ceremonies because we believe in God"
> For these people, they believe because they do the ceremonies.
>


Exactly.  For without the ceremonies, the culture dies.


>
> Last week in my yoga class, the instructor was talking about a certain
> pose, how to do it right and all the nuances that are involved with it,


I started doing Pilates with my wife this week, she'd been taking a class
and the teacher allowed her to videotape a  class so  she  follows the
teacher on the screen and I follow my wife on the floor.  I highly
recommend  laying on a mat and exercising and stretching, especially if you
enjoy observing feminine flexing and musculature as much as I do.  Very
inspiring.

John