[Sca-cooks] sometimes I love this list

[lilinah at earthlink.net]

Christianna wrote:
>The laurels are coming out in force today (I've only made it about half way
>through the posts so far, but several folks have waded into the fray with
>our 'yutz' (I like Phlip's term), explaining why 'chance finds' 'oral
>evidence' and 'tertiary sources' won't do in convincing us that the commonly
>held Western beliefs are all Euro-centric Turk-bashing.  He's falling back
>on "I know the ways of my people, and you can't tell me any different", so
>it's getting really silly now, but I have to say everyone is being
>incredibly polite while trying to point out the flaws in his logic.

I have had similar problems with American converts to Islam on 
SCA-Middle Eastern lists. When data has come up that conflicts with 
the religious laws *as they have been taught*, they have insisted the 
information was all wrong as no Muslim would ever break any of the 
rules.

The laws used in Islamic countries come from a variety of sources, 
however, even discounting those from European colonizers and other 
Western influence. The most important come from the Qur'an which 
every good Muslim is expected to follow, but in fact not all do.

Some are from the Hadith, which are commentaries rather like the 
Jewish Talmud (in concept, not content), and thus open to 
interpretation, so not all religious branches agree. For example, in 
modern times there are four major Sunni interpretations (which don't 
all agree with each other) and i've found four Shi'a, and there are 
others - and in SCA-period there were even *more*. Shrimp, for 
example, are they halal (sorta like Kosher - religiously "clean" to 
eat) or not? The answer is, it depends. Most Sunni schools say yes, 
most Shi'a schools say no...

And some come from cultural or ethnic traditions that many Muslims 
mistakenly think are unbreakable laws, such as women wearing facial 
coverings. What is there is modesty for both men and women - covering 
the hair and upper chest. Women coving their faces with what are 
essentially masks is not in Qur'anic law.

This has come up especially over such things as men wearing gold 
anything or silk anything, since it is true that there are laws in 
Islam that say men should not wear silk garments or gold jewelry 
either to show off their wealth. Yet there are plenty of surviving 
men's garments with gold threads or gold leaf and men's gold jewelry, 
not to mention all the paintings of men in gold jewelry and garments 
with gold threads woven or embroidered or as trim. And what about all 
the men's silk garments?

I always present factual information. Then i am accused of using 
tainted sources - either badly translated or intentional Western 
propaganda attempting to discredit Islam. It is hard for some people 
to admit that not everybody follows all the rules all the time. At 
this point i mention biographies - even autobiographies - written in 
period and translated by Muslims into English.

Anyway, at least one person lost it completely and began raving (and 
i don't use this term lightly), accusing the one other person who 
dared to contradict her and me of making it all up and being 
degenerates, at which point we directed her to the Topkapi Seraye, 
the Ottoman palace in Istanbul, now a museum, to see gold jewlery and 
silk garments worn by men to show off their wealth.

These e-mail threads often turn into conversation stoppers altogether 
- with a silent list for several days or even longer.

For some people, facts do not work when these contradict strongly held beliefs.
-- 
Urtatim, formerly Anahita