Month: August 2008

Categories
Arabic Religion Yemen

American being held in Yemen

There is a man from Philadelphia being held in Yemen. Read about it here. Everyone claims to have no idea as to why he is being held, but there are clues in the article. He had just come back from Sa’ada, the area up north (by the Saudi border) where there had up until recently been lots of fighting. That is supposedly over now, but the government is no fan of some of the Imams up there. Why was he up there? He had come to Yemen to lean Arabic, and the learn about Islam. I can tell you from experience that there’s no problem going there to learn Arabic. And learning about Islam isn’t necessarily a big deal either. But if you go to Imams that the government doesn’t like, they will be all over you. Ever since John Lindh got his training in Yemen, the Yemeni government has been uptight about foreigners coming there to study Islam.

I knew a couple from South Africa that had a terrible time getting through immigration in Yemen. They were dressed in their usual garb. The muslim population in South Africa tends to be pretty conservative, and both of them were obviously muslims. The government had multiple people question them about where they were going, what they would be studying, etc. They were only there to study Arabic, and he thought the only reason they let them in was because he was going to a state run Arabic school. On the other hand, I knew an Australian muslim that came to Yemen to learn the language. She dressed like any other Aussie, no problems. I also knew an Italian who cam there to learn Arabic, but he went to a mosque in the old city to learn about Islam. No problems.

So here’s my advice. If you want to learn about Islam in Yemen, don’t tell anyone you’re going to do that when you get to the country. And then, stay in the larger cities, there are plenty of Imams of all different viewpoints in the cities. If you go to hadramont, Sa’ada, Marib, etc. and it’s known that you are hanging out with the more radical types, the government will harass you.

I’m pretty sure the government has recently rescinded the do not travel warning, and there are lots of reasons to go to Yemen (unlike the ignorance shown in the article), but you have to be smart about going there. Don’t do stupid things and you’ll be fine…

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Categories
Culture Religion Yemen

Why are they so paranoid?

There have been several articles about Yemen dealing with other religions recently. They have arrested 9 Christians in Hodedia and now are talking about deporting 3 Ba’hais back to Iran where they will undoubtedly face some serious problems. All of these people have been arrested for proselytizing. What, exactly, is the big deal?

Yes, I understand that many muslims see people that try to convert people to other faiths as undermining the social fabric of Yemen. But come on… If people are strong in their faith, there’s no problem. If they aren’t… well, let me put it this way.. What’s worse, a bad muslim or a good Ba’hai or Christian?

On a more serious note, their desire to remove any competition from their culture is what makes it so weak, and so venerable to outside influence. It’s a bit of a catch 22, one that the powers that be don’t seem to get. They need to understand that no one can “force” someone to convert, that person has to decide. If they are on the brink, they are not going to be a good muslim, and they certainly are not going to be happy. Why is it so difficult for Yemenis (and muslims in Arab countries in general) to allow people to do what they like when it comes to religion? It smacks of desperation and fear, not things I would associate with people with a lot of faith…

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Categories
Culture Religion

Another child bride story

This one is from Saudi. Apparently, a 16 year old girl drank bleach in order to kill herself so that she wouldn’t be forced to marry a 75 year old guy. The father of the 16 year old was doing it so that the 75 year old would let him marry the 75 year old’s 13 year old daughter. You can read about it here.

There are several things wrong with this picture. Forcing girls to marry, the huge age discrepancies in age, and of course the desire to marry a 13 year old. I think it’s safe to assume that we’re dealing with a couple of first class creeps…

The comments on that article are pretty interesting as well. There are a ton of people that basically say, “See, Islam is a barbaric religion,” despite the fact that one of the first things said in the article is that forced marriages are haraam. So these guys are operating outside of accepted religious guidelines.

“But what about the marrying of a 13 year old? Isn’t that nasty? Shouldn’t Islam ban that?” Oh come on, like there has never been a 13 year old bride in the US. And please point out to me where in the Bible it says what a good age is to be married… Religion isn’t a cut and dried affair, and it always bows down to cultural norms in the mainstream.

To me, that is a more damning aspect of this. Many places in the middle east (and especially Saudi) are stuck in the 5th century when it comes to things like this. I can sort of, kind of understand the importance of marrying off a girl at 9 back then. Life was pretty different, and much harder in 500AD. Things are much different now, and so people that want to marry young girls really strike everyone as people trying to take advantage of “the law” for their own, creepy agenda.

So I’m not laying this at the feet of Islam, but I do wish that more Imams would take on some leadership roles when it comes to things like this. I wish they would say, “Yes, the prophet (PBUH) did marry a 9 year old, and yes, he waited until she was 12 before consummating the marriage HOWEVER, you are not him and there really isn’t a good reason to marry a girl that young any more.” Would that be so difficult?

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Categories
odds and ends

An even newer layout for the blog

I’ve changed my website again. The home page is still at isaharr.com, but now it’s just a navigation page to the other blogs. You can get to the Blogging in Yemen page directly by going to http://www.isaharr.com/blog/page27.php.

Categories
odds and ends

A new layout for my blog…

I have decided to separate out my Blogging in Yemen from my general ramblings. I’m going to strip out the general stuff and put it in the new one that will now be found at www.isaharr.com. I’m not exactly sure what’s going to happen with the RSS feeds, so those of you using those, you might want to go to the new home page (which will be up soonish) and redo the rss settings in your readers… We’ll see how this goes.

Categories
Music

New blog for music

Hmm, talking about sitar music and Mozart operas in a blog entitled “Blogging in Yemen” is a little silly. I have lots of other things I’d like to blog about music, so I’ve started a new one just for my music ramblings. I’ve started it out with an ABBA clip that is, well, interesting… You can see the new blog here.