My teacher was telling me about some of his experiences when he went on Haj. That is the pilgrimage that all muslims should take to Mecca if they can. He, his wife, and his mother all went together by bus. When they got to the Saudi border, the men and the women were separated into different busses. From that point onwards, the only time he could actually be in the presence of his wife and mother was in the main mosque in Mecca, everywhere else it was forbidden for the sexes to mingle. There were even separate hotels for the men and the women, even though he was married to one of them. The idea was that he needed to be protected from seeing any other man’s wife, it might incite lust in him…
It gets better than that, he learned of some real bizarre practices by some Whabis. There are apparently hadiths (Islamic writings used by the faithful to guide their practice) against men hugging or kissing their sisters or daughters because of the fear of arousing sexual feelings. Also, if a husband and wife have sex, it must be in total darkness. To be fair, I think that the orthodox Jews have similar restrictions, or at least the ultra orthodox Hasidim do… Here’s my favorite one, some people believe that it is dangerous for women to chop cucumbers or carrots. Yes, it’s for the reason that you think. How twisted is that? Actually, it wouldn’t surprise me if they don’t want women to cut those vegetables due to fear of them getting vengeful ideas in their heads…
At some point you have to wonder if all of these restrictions have the opposite effect. Instead of avoiding lustful thoughts, people will get the idea that every single thing can, and does relate to sex and sexual feelings. By keeping it in the forefront all the time, they may be twisting people more than protecting them.
We talked a little about the treatment of women in Saudi, you know its repressive if a Yemeni thinks they are crazy. It wasn’t too long ago that the law in Saudi allowed women to go to school and work unescorted, but many people do not approve of these laws. My teacher is constantly pained by the idea that people world wide associate wahabism with muslims in general. As a matter of fact, I have yet to meet a single muslim that didn’t think that the wahabis are crazy. Unfortunately, I think that many people do think of wahabis when they think of muslims, especially in the US. It’s too bad… My teacher believes that the reason that the Arab world is in such bad shape is because God is punishing them for the actions of the Wahabis. Now there’s something to think about….