Travels in the Riel World

Since the Christmas season is upon us, it’s an appropriate time to take a look at holiday and religious-themed topics from around the world. Today, it’s a view into the ancient Christian community of Syria. Although this Middle Eastern nation has had a Muslim majority for well over a millennium, the region plays a central role in the history of Christianity and Christians still account for about a tenth of the Syrian population. Steven Roberts recently wrote about a journey into the Christian culture of Syria, and specifically into the town of Maaloula, for the travel section of the Washington Post.

Syria is known in the West for its combustible politics…Many friends who heard that we were vacationing in Syria thought we were daft, but few realized that the country’s extensive Christian heritage — St. Paul was converted on the road to Damascus, after all — is still here to be seen and heard and felt…

Not far from Maaloula sits the Krak des Chevaliers, a mountain fortress built by Crusaders in the 12th and 13th centuries. In the old city of Damascus, a chapel marks the spot where Paul was nursed and taught by a local Christian, St. Ananias, after his vision. Several of the country’s bewildering array of Christian sects — from Armenian Orthodox to Syrian Catholic — maintain headquarters in Damascus, and we were surprised to see crosses, outlined in vivid bluish-white neon, shimmering in the evening sky.

As soon as you enter Maaloula, its religious heritage is evident. A large statue of the Virgin Mary dominates one hillside; many houses are painted in a pale blue wash, a gesture of respect to the mother of Jesus. Hana pointed out the mountaintops where every year fires are lighted to celebrate the Festival of the Holy Cross…We went first to St. Sergius, the highest point in town, and though not every traveler gets to see a baptism in Aramaic, there are usually guides or schoolgirls present to recite the Lord’s Prayer in the language.

Whirling dervishes. The term is a familiar one to many people, but what exactly is a whirling dervish? That is, beyond some exotic Middle Eastern man who twirls round and round while dressed in a white robe and tall hat? Not many people know that the dance of a whirling dervish is actually a spiritual activity, most often performed by Sufi Muslim mystics. The Intelligent Travel blog of National Geographic Traveler recently published a spectator’s view of the whirling dervishes, complete with a video. It’s worth a look.

I first heard the term “Whirling Dervishes” as a young child and, reasonably enough, surmised that they were dervishes who loved to whirl. What a dervish was, exactly, remained a mystery to me until last Friday, when I stepped into a 500-year-old Turkish bathhouse (repurposed as the Hodjapasha Culture Center) in the Sirkeci area of old Istanbul. Here, monks of a mystical Sufi order of Muslims–known traditionally for their spirituality, self denial, and tolerance–perform a centuries-old dance ritual…

I glanced at the notes I had taken as our guide, Etem Öztürk, explained the significance of the dervishes’ clothing: “They wear tall felt hats, white gowns with long skirts, and black capes that they remove,” he said. “The hats represent tombstones. The gowns are burial shrouds. The black capes are the dirt of the grave.” The point of the ritual, Öztürk continued, was to leave everything of the world behind and to become one with God, with Allah. “That only truly happens in death,” he said. “These monks are mimicking death. When they’re performing, it’s as though they are dead.”

Fair enough, though, as we watched, the dervishes seemed quite alive to me, the hems of their gowns lifting centrifugally from the floor as they spun, always counterclockwise, sending a gentle breeze out over us spectators. I watched for the movements Öztürk had described: the tilting of the head, the opening of the arms–the palm of the right hand facing up, the left palm facing down, in order to transmit the positive energy of heaven earthward, spreading peace and wisdom.

National culture changes very slowly, but there is no doubt that it is something that constantly evolves. Sometimes in small ways over centuries, and sometimes in bigger ways over shorter periods of time. One example of this is the role of women in the Middle East, and particularly in the conservative nation of Saudi Arabia. Saudi women have few rights when compared to their Western counterparts, as they still aren’t allowed to drive or to participate in many things outside the home without permission from a male family member. But there are glimmers of hope and pockets of openness, as shown in this recent story in Time magazine, which looked at the small steps toward freedom that have been achieved by some women in Saudi society.

Like those of its competitors in New York or London, the sleek glass and steel offices of media company Rotana are filled with preening attitude and fashion-conscious staffers: assistants teeter in shoes that might have absorbed much of their monthly paycheck; executives parade the halls in power suits and pencil skirts. But Rotana isn’t in New York or London; it’s in Riyadh, capital of Saudi Arabia, a country in which women normally adhere to a strict dress code in public — a black cloak called an abaya, a headscarf and a veil, the niqab, which covers everything but their eyes.

There’s another reason many Saudis would find Rotana shocking: men and women working side by side. The sight unnerves enough men who come looking for a job that human-resources manager Sultana al-Rowaili has developed a trick to see if a male applicant can handle working in a mixed-gender office. She arranges for a female colleague to interrupt the initial interview, and watches to see if the man loses concentration or stares too much. Sometimes even that isn’t necessary. Many men are undone by the very idea of being interviewed by a woman. “They are in a state of shock to see a woman in a position of authority and to have to ask her for a job,” al-Rowaili says.

Saudi men may have to start getting used to such situations. True, Rotana remains an anomaly protected by the position and progressive ideals of its owner  — global investor Prince Alwaleed bin Talal bin Abdulaziz al-Saud. And Saudi women still can’t drive and legally can’t even leave the house to shop, let alone get a job, without a male family member’s permission. Yet under the guidance of a few members of the Saudi royal family — in particular the current King, Abdullah — the kingdom is slowly changing. Mixed-gender workplaces are becoming more common, especially in banks and good hospitals, where female doctors are not unusual. “People used to say, ‘Why is she working? Why does she need the money?’ Now they say, ‘It takes a woman to solve a problem,’” says Norah al-Malhooq, an administrator at King Faisal Specialist Hospital and Research Center in Riyadh.

The government is expanding educational opportunities for women by building women’s universities (as opposed to segregated campuses at male-dominated universities); last month it even launched the kingdom’s first coeducational university. The state is trying to encourage women’s entry into the workforce, and is sponsoring initiatives to protect women and children from domestic abuse. And it is pushing Saudis to discuss the notion of empowerment, formerly such a taboo subject that even the word was off-limits in newspapers. “The message is that women are coming,” says Dr. Maha Almuneef, one of six women named earlier this year to the Shura council, a 156-person advisory body appointed by the King. “It’s a good first step. The King and the political system are saying that the time has come. There are small steps now. There are giant steps coming. But most Saudis have been taught the traditional ways. You can’t just change the social order all at once.”

Check out the entire article. It’s a fascinating glimpse into a relatively closed society, and an intriguing look at the cultural tensions that often arise between tradition and modernity.

It’s no secret that culture plays a role in health care, from our systems of medicine to our personal decisions. When a person receives health care in his or her home country, there are unlikely to be many clashes over culture because it’s a medical system that he or she knows and understand well. The United States is not a homogeneous culture, though, but rather one that attracts a regular influx of immigrants from around the world. Health care misunderstandings are more likely to occur when individuals or families from other cultures, particularly non-Western cultures, meet American medicine. So I read with interest this recent story about a California hospital that makes allowances for Hmong immigrants from Laos to receive treatment from a shaman as well as from a physician.

The patient in Room 328 had diabetes and hypertension. But when Va Meng Lee, a Hmong shaman, began the healing process by looping a coiled thread around the patient’s wrist, Mr. Lee’s chief concern was summoning the ailing man’s runaway soul.

“Doctors are good at disease,” Mr. Lee said as he encircled the patient, Chang Teng Thao, a widower from Laos, in an invisible “protective shield” traced in the air with his finger. “The soul is the shaman’s responsibility.”

At Mercy Medical Center in Merced, where roughly four patients a day are Hmong from northern Laos, healing includes more than IV drips, syringes and blood glucose monitors. Because many Hmong rely on their spiritual beliefs to get them through illnesses, the hospital’s new Hmong shaman policy, the country’s first, formally recognizes the cultural role of traditional healers like Mr. Lee, inviting them to perform nine approved ceremonies in the hospital, including “soul calling” and chanting in a soft voice.

The policy and a novel training program to introduce shamans to the principles of Western medicine are part of a national movement to consider patients’ cultural beliefs and values when deciding their medical treatment. The approach is being adopted by dozens of medical institutions and clinics across the country that cater to immigrant, refugee and ethnic-minority populations…

A recent survey of 60 hospitals in the United States by the Joint Commission, the country’s largest hospital accrediting group, found that the hospitals were increasingly embracing cultural beliefs, driven sometimes by marketing, whether by adding calcium- and iron-rich Korean seaweed soup to the maternity ward menu at Good Samaritan Hospital in Los Angeles, on the edge of Koreatown, or providing birthing doulas for Somali women in Minneapolis.

By the way, if the story of Hmong immigrants dealing with American doctors sounds vaguely familiar, that’s because it was also the subject of an excellent book about 10 years ago, called The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down. If you’re at all interested in cross-cultural topics, especially as they involve health care, you should check out the book.

We’re currently in the midst of Ramadan, the Islamic holy month in which Muslims are expected to fast each day between dawn and sunset. This practice is supposed to increase spiritual self-discipline and help one to focus on non-worldly activities. Although people understandably get hungry during the day, the fast is practiced by most Muslims. There are exceptions for some individuals who may be harmed by a fast, but George Vecsey recently wrote an interesting article for the NY Times about some Muslims who face a difficult choice during Ramadan between their faith and their livelihood: athletes.

Indeed, an athlete who needs nourishment in order to perform at a high level during a sporting event would face a tough decision over fasting. Vecsey profiled a Muslim tennis player from Pakistan, Aisam-ul-Haq Qureshi, who said that he fasts if he is at home and not competing, but that he doesn’t fast if he is involved in a tournament.

The public-address announcer was advising everybody to drink a lot of fluids (presumably those sold on the grounds) to avoid dehydration. On a warm, mostly sunny day, that seemed like a good idea. Aisam-ul-Haq Qureshi of Pakistan had a few bottles of water arrayed below his chair on Court 10, although it is the holy month of Ramadan, when many Muslims abstain from food or liquid from sunrise to sundown…

Qureshi, who is 29 years old and from the grass-court hub of Lahore, is one of a few Muslim players on the tour. He speaks with high respect of Ramadan, which this year lasts from Aug. 22 (a day earlier elsewhere in the world) through Sept. 19. There can be exemptions from fasting for pregnant women, soldiers, the mentally ill, children and people with a strenuous livelihood. Qureshi puts himself in that category.

Other Muslim athletes have worked out their response to their sport and to Ramadan, which ranges around the calendar from winter to summer. In these still long days of early September in the Northern Hemisphere, European soccer players and American football players are making their own decision as to how to observe the holy month.

I think the story is worth reading and is an interesting example of a clash not just between religion and sports, but between culture and a globalized world.

There are so many interesting cultures around the world, with their own traditions and ways of life, but never before have I come across an article on running cultures. Yes, a culture in which long distance running is a way of life, as much a part of the people’s heritage as their food and their music. But Turner Wright wrote an interesting feature for Vagabondish on just that topic, focusing on four truly unique cultures from around the world.

… with many nations (even third-world countries) becoming modernized as the world gets smaller, there are few remaining places on Earth where running is still a way of life, essential to survival, not thought of as fitness or a way to relieve stress after a day of TPS reports. Cultures in which running is life, deeply ingrained in the minds and hearts of natives and impossible to imagine what it would be like otherwise. But where can we find such “running cultures”?

He profiles the marathon monks of Mt. Hiei, Japan; the Tarahumara Indians of Copper Canyon, Mexico; the Kenyans of East Africa, and the Kalahari Bushmen of southern Africa. Here is some of what he writes about the marathon monks of Japan:

The marathon monks, who live in the Enryaku Temple atop Mount Hiei, are quite possibly the greatest anomaly in Japanese society, if not the world. Few choose to live their lives according to such strict guidelines, especially when it comes to feats of physical prowess…

Wearing only straw sandals (replaced often), white robes, a staff, and hat, each marathon monk begins walking or running approximately 50 km around the mountain to return in time for meditation and the meal. This is done over 100, 700, or 1000 days, depending on how far along the initiated is in his monastic training…

In reality, meditation is nothing more than training oneself to focus entirely on the present: the breath going in and out of the lungs, the wind caressing your face, the birds chirping from a nearby tree … Running meditation is only natural, by focusing on putting one foot in front of the other and communing with nature one step at a time.

See the entire piece for more about these running cultures.

Sure, you know about Christianity, Islam and Buddhism. But what do you know about Zoroastrianism or Yoruba? A number of readers may be familiar with the Baha’i faith, but have you actually heard of the African Mami Wata religion? Chris Wary published a unique and interesting article recently on Matador Travel, profiling six unique religions that he suggests are virtually unknown in the West. Following are his overviews of two of the six religions. The entire story is definitely worth a read.

Zoroastrianism- Zoroastrianism is based on the teachings of the first millennium BCE Iranian prophet Zoroaster. There are estimated to be between 150,000 and 210,000 Zoroastrians in the world today, mostly in India and the United States.

These small numbers mask the historical importance of this religion. Both Eastern and Western religions can trace ties back to Zoroastrianism, meaning the religion has most likely had more impact on the world than any other belief system.

Zoroastrians believe in one universal God, Ahura Mazda, who is in conflict with the forces of chaos, led by Angra Mainyu. Humans need to take an active role in the conflict by performing good deeds and having good thoughts and words. The conflict will ultimately be brought to an end when Soashyant, a savior, comes to Earth and reanimates the dead.

Yoruba- The Yoruba religion is the beliefs and practices of the people located in the areas that are now Benin and Nigeria before they encountered other outside religions. There are no specific numbers documenting the number of followers, but many believe that Yoruba is the largest African-born religion in the world. It has also heavily influenced several Afro-American religions such as Lucumi in Cuba.

The main belief of the Yoruba peoples is that all humans have a manifest destiny, referred to as ayanmo, to become one with the divine creator, known as Olodumare. Our destinies are determined through our thoughts and actions in the physical world. The Yoruba see life and death as cycles in the physical and spiritual realms while the spirit moves towards union with Olodumare.

Some of the most popular tourist destinations in the world are religious sites. But you don’t have to be a pilgrim or a spiritual seeker in order to appreciate a sacred place. I’ve recently come across several articles that approach religious tourism from a variety of angles. Take a look.

For starters, the world’s most visited religious destinations. Sure, you can guess that some of the entries would be the Vatican in Rome or the city of Jerusalem in Israel. But there also destinations on the list that are more obscure, at least to Westerners. For instance, among the nine sites are:

Tomb of Imam Reza in Mashad, Iran- The name of Iran’s holiest city translates as “place of martyrdom” — after the eighth Shiite Imam, Reza, a direct descendant of Mohammed. The Imam’s tomb is the most important Shia site in Iran, and estimates of pilgrim numbers range from 12 to 18 million.

Mount Tai in Tai’an, China- Regarded as the first of China’s five sacred mountains of Taoism, Mount Tai is located just north of Tai’an City, in China’s coastal Shandong Province. The mountain served as a sacred retreat for emperors during the ancient Zhou Dynasty, and was added to UNESCO’s World Heritage list in 1987. Taishan Temple lies at the foot of the mountain, and some 7,000 stone steps lead to the Azure Clouds Temple at the top. About 7 million visitors come to the mountain each year.

Then, an interesting story on the world’s most unique monasteries and cathedrals, complete with some stunning pictures. There are 11 destinations listed, including:

Church of St. George in Ethiopia- Located in Lalibela, Ethiopia, this rock-hewn church is fascinating in that, upon approach, it appears to be an enormous cross carved down into an enormous rock. At the base, however, one can see its true purpose. It is a church. Created in the early 13th century, it is considered by some to be the Eighth Wonder of the World.

Paro Taktsang in Bhutan- Finished in 1692, this monastery was built around the Taktsang Senge Samdup cave, the most well known of the thirteen “tiger lair caves in which Guru Padmasambhava is believed to have meditated in the 8th century. Legend says the Guru flew to each cave on the back of a tiger, hence the name. The monastery hangs on a cliff roughly 700 meters above the valley floor.

Finally, one person’s view of the ten most beautiful cathedrals of Europe. Yes, Notre Dame of Paris and St. Basil’s of Moscow are on the list. But the eight other selections also include:

Hagia Sophia of Istanbul, Turkey- Former patriarchal basilica, a mosque and now a museum, Hagia Sophia is one of the greatest structures ever built. Created between 532 and 537 as a church on the orders of Justinian, emperor of the Byzantine Empire and home to many holy relics, Hagia Sophia was the Patriarchal church of Constantinople and the religious ground zero of the eastern Orthodox World for almost 1000 years…The greatest example of Byzantine architecture, Hagia Sophia was the largest cathedral in the world for 1000 years, until the completion of the Cathedral of Seville.

Sagrada Familia of Barcelona, Spain- Designed by now famous architect Antonio Gaudi, Sagrada Familia is a Roman Catholic cathedral still under construction in Barcelona. Work on the cathedral started in 1882 and Gaudi himself worked on it for 40 years, 15 of which he dedicated exclusively to it, until his death in 1926. When asked about the deadline of his project, now scheduled to 2026, Gaudi said “My client is not in a hurry.”

The most visited, most unique and most beautiful. A lot of ways to look at travel. What cathedrals or other sacred sites would be on your list?

People in various cultures perceive the world differently. This is one of the main causes of communication miscues between individuals from diverse regions of the world. If you want to see an excellent example of how the meaning of simple words can vary from one person to the next, check out this article in the Christian Science Monitor in which Chris Seiple dissects 10 words or phrases that may be meant one way by a Western speaker but understood differently by a Muslim. An excerpt:

- “Secular.” The Muslim ear tends to hear “godless” with the pronunciation of this word. And a godless society is simply inconceivable to the vast majority of Muslims worldwide. Pluralism – which encourages those with (and those without) a God-based worldview to have a welcomed and equal place in the public square – is a much better word.

- “Jihadi.” The jihad is an internal struggle first, a process of improving one’s spiritual self-discipline and getting closer to God. The lesser jihad is external, validating “just war” when necessary. By calling the groups we are fighting “jihadis,” we confirm their own – and the worldwide Muslim public’s – perception that they are religious. They are not. They are terrorists, hirabists, who consistently violate the most fundamental teachings of the Holy Koran and mainstream Islamic scholars and imams.

- “Religious Freedom.” Sadly, this term too often conveys the perception that American foreign policy is only worried about the freedom of Protestant evangelicals to proselytize and convert, disrupting the local culture and indigenous Christians. Although not true, I have found it better to define religious freedom as the promotion of respect and reconciliation with the other at the intersection of culture and the rule of law – sensitive to the former and consistent with the latter.

Could the West gain a foothold in the battle against Islamic terrorism by working to strengthen Islam? Yes, under certain conditions, suggests this intriguing essay in the Boston Globe. According to the author, Philip Jenkins, the West has a natural ally in the Sufi Muslim movement, which is a more mystical branch of Islam that has traditionally battled the fundamentalists in their faith.

Many observers see a stark confrontation between the West and Islam, a global conflict that entered a traumatic new phase with the Iranian revolution. But that perspective ignores basic conflicts within the Muslim world itself, a global clash of values over the nature of religious practice, no less than overtly political issues. For the Islamists — for hard-line fundamentalists like the Saudi Wahhabis and the Taliban — the Sufis are deadly enemies, who draw on practices alien to the Quran. Where Islamists rise to power, Sufis are persecuted or driven underground; but where Sufis remain in the ascendant, it is the radical Islamist groups who must fight to survive.

Around the world, the Sufis are struggling against violent fundamentalists who are at once their deadly foes, and ours. To look at Islam without seeing the Sufis is to be ignorant of a crucial clash of civilizations in today’s world: not the conflict between Islam and the West, but an epochal struggle within Islam itself.

Who are the Sufis?

If the word “Sufi” conjures up any images for Americans, they normally involve mystical poetry or dance. Thirteenth century poet Rumi was a legendary Sufi, as are Turkey’s whirling dervishes. But these are just the most visible expressions of a movement that runs deeply through the last thousand years of Islam…

They are, potentially, the greatest hope for pluralism and democracy within Muslim nations. The Sufi religious outlook has little of the uncompromising intolerance that characterizes the fundamentalists. They have no fear of music, poetry, and other artistic forms — these are central to their sense of the faith’s beauty — and the brotherhoods cherish intellectual exploration. Progressive Sufi thinkers are quite open to modern knowledge and science.

From their beginnings, too, Sufi traditions have been religiously inclusive. Wherever the orders flourish, popular Islamic religion focuses on the tombs of saints and sheikhs, who believers venerate with song and ritual dance. In fact, they behave much like traditional-minded Catholics do when they visit their own shrines in Mexico or southern Italy. People organize processions, they seek healing miracles, and women are welcome among the crowds. While proudly Islamic, Sufi believers have always been in dialogue with other great religions.

This open-mindedness contrasts with the much harsher views of the fundamentalists, who we know by various names. Salafism claims to teach a return to the pure religion taught by the prophet Muhammad in the seventh century, and in that early Islamic community Salafis think they can find all they need to know about life and law. The most powerful and best-known version of this back-to-basics ideology is the Wahhabi movement that emerged in the 18th century, and which in modern times has built a worldwide presence on the strength of Saudi oil money. At its most extreme, this exclusive tradition rejects knowledge that is not clearly rooted in the Quran and Islamic legal thought, and regards other religions and cultures as dangerous rivals lacking any redeeming virtues. Al Qaeda and its affiliates represent an extreme and savage manifestation of this fundamentalist current…

Nobody is pretending that building bridges with Sufis will resolve the many problems that divide the West from the Islamic world. In countries like Afghanistan or Somalia, warfare and violence might be so deeply engraved into the culture that they can never be expunged. Yet in so many lands, reviving Sufi traditions provide an effective bastion against terrorism, much stronger than anything the West could supply by military means alone. The West’s best hope for global peace is not a decline or secularization of Islam, but rather a renewal and strengthening of that faith, and above all of its spiritual and mystical dimensions.

Most people know that Judaism, Christianity and Islam, the world’s three great monotheistic religions, all sprang from the Middle East. But how many are aware that another significant - and even older - monotheistic faith also arose in that region of the world? Zoroastrianism was born in the Persian empire, in what is now Iran, and was at one time the predominant faith across a wide swath of the ancient world. Today, somewhere between 100,000 and 200,000 people still practice Zoroastrianism, mostly in India and Iran. Time magazine recently published a story on the Zoroastrians.

Far removed from Tehran’s bustling tin-roofed teashops and Isfahan’s verdant pomegranate gardens, the deserts known as Dasht-e Kavir and Dasht-e Lut meet at the city of Yazd, once the heart of the Persian Empire…

In Yazd, the holy flame has burned for 1,500 years without ever being extinguished. While Zoroastrianism was once the dominant religion in a swathe of territory spanning from Rome and Greece to India and Russia, the number of adherents has dwindled exponentially over the centuries. Although Yazd is the birthplace of the religion, only 200 of its 433,836 people still practice Zoroastrianism because migration, forced conversions, and centuries of oppression have diminished the population.

Worldwide, there are 190,000 Zoroastrians at most, and perhaps as few as 124,000 by some estimates. Although Zoroastrians are few in number, their faith has influenced Judaism, Christianity and Islam with its teachings of a single deity, a dualistic universe of good versus evil, and a final day of reckoning. The religion professes that humankind is designed to evolve toward perfection, but is complicated by evil forces such as greed, lust and hatred, explains Mehraban Firouzgary, the head priest of the Zoroastrian temple in Tehran. According to Zoroastrians, these evil forces must be challenged proactively by developing a “good mind” that embraces a life of good thoughts, good words and good deeds…

According to Parva Namiranian, a Zoroastrian medical student at Tehran University, the community in Iran preserves its identity by learning the Persian poetry of the Shah Nameh and holding religious classes and celebrations. She says Zoroastrians are accepted in Iran because they “represent a proud history” and all Iranians, regardless of religion, enjoy celebrating the Zoroastrian New Year, Nowruz, because it’s an excuse to buy clothes and eat sweets. Mehraban Firouzgary, the head priest in the Zoroastrian temple in Tehran, agrees that most Iranians regard the Zoroastrian minority favorably, but he worries about the community’s survival. “Zoroastrians have lived in Iran for over 3,000 years,” he says, “but there are so few left today.”

The lost ark of the covenant, which once housed the Ten Commandments that were given to Moses on Mount Sinai. It’s an enduring legend, one that has never been solved but which has enchanted legions of scholars and laypeople. Steven Spielberg even made a pretty good movie out of it.

But is the ark really lost? Ethiopian Christians have long claimed that the ark has been in their possession for 3,000 years. Paul Raffaele investigated the story for Smithsonian magazine.

“They shall make an ark of acacia wood,” God commanded Moses in the Book of Exodus, after delivering the Israelites from slavery in Egypt. And so the Israelites built an ark, or chest, gilding it inside and out. And into this chest Moses placed stone tablets inscribed with the Ten Commandments, as given to him on Mount Sinai…

According to the First Book of Kings, King Solomon built the First Temple in Jerusalem to house the ark. It was venerated there during Solomon’s reign (c. 970-930 B.C.) and beyond. Then it vanished. Much of Jewish tradition holds that it disappeared before or while the Babylonians sacked the temple in Jerusalem in 586 B.C.

But through the centuries, Ethiopian Christians have claimed that the ark rests in a chapel in the small town of Aksum, in their country’s northern highlands. It arrived nearly 3,000 years ago, they say, and has been guarded by a succession of virgin monks who, once anointed, are forbidden to set foot outside the chapel grounds until they die…

The story is told in the Kebra Negast (Glory of the Kings), Ethiopia’s chronicle of its royal line: the Queen of Sheba, one of its first rulers, traveled to Jerusalem to partake of King Solomon’s wisdom; on her way home, she bore Solomon’s son, Menelik. Later Menelik went to visit his father, and on his return journey was accompanied by the firstborn sons of some Israelite nobles—who, unbeknown to Menelik, stole the ark and carried it with them to Ethiopia. When Menelik learned of the theft, he reasoned that since the ark’s frightful powers hadn’t destroyed his retinue, it must be God’s will that it remain with him.

Many historians—including Richard Pankhurst, a British-born scholar who has lived in Ethiopia for almost 50 years—date the Kebra Negast manuscript to the 14th century A.D. It was written, they say, to validate the claim by Menelik’s descendants that their right to rule was God-given, based on an unbroken succession from Solomon and the Queen of Sheba. But the Ethiopian faithful say the chronicles were copied from a fourth-century Coptic manuscript that was, in turn, based on a far earlier account.

Check out the whole story to read about Raffaele’s experiences in Ethiopia.

I hope everyone had an enjoyable holiday season! Now it’s back to work…

Have you ever wanted to go to Indonesia? Would you go there with your two-year-old son? With your nine-year-old son? Lisa Reed did both - traveling there with her two-year-old son in 2001 and returning this year with the same child, now nine. She recounts the two trips in a story for the NY Times.

My husband, John, and I had spent three months in Indonesia in 2001 with our son, who was then 2, and I was curious about how deep an imprint the culture had left on him. His enthusiasm for Indonesia back then — his wide-eyed delight at the lizards, called cicaks, that lived in the house in Jakarta; at holding the reins of a pony cart in Lombok; and at the sunset performance of a fire dance on an oceanside cliff in a monkey forest in Bali — made me think that the soul of the country had seeped into him. He was thrilled by the drama and magic of the country’s arts and folk tales.

And if he had loved Indonesia, it had loved him right back — Indonesians being famously kind and affectionate to children. He was fussed over, played with and indulged everywhere we went.

At 9, he is no longer such an enthusiast; the prospect of our sunrise trip to Borobudur tomorrow is not exciting to him in the least. But I want him to see it again, now that he’ll remember it…

The alarm goes off at 3:45 a.m. and we are on the road by 4, my son asleep again in the dark, quiet comfort of the car, his head in my lap. Lonely trucks pass us on empty streets. The road is lined with warungs, wooden food stalls, which are still closed but cheerfully lighted with strings of bulbs…

My son sleepwalks across the lawn as I point out features of the temple, trying to gin up interest. We climb to the top with the others and jockey for the prime location facing Merapi and the reddening sky. Monks in saffron robes meditate facing inward to the stupa, perhaps trying to resist the distractions of a beautiful sunrise or an erupting volcano.

One of the most impressive but least known sites in the world is the Indonesian monument of Borobudur. The Wall Street Journal recently reported on this stunning edifice, which is considered the largest Buddhist monument in existence.

Making lists of the world’s most impressive monuments is an irrational and ultimately pointless enterprise: Who has seen all the wonders of the world? And what would the criteria be? Yet scribblers have been at it since the second century B.C., when a Greek poet named Antipater of Sidon came up with his canonical seven, now all gone or reduced to rubble except the pyramids of Giza.

If Antipater had lived a millennium later, he would surely have put Borobudur, the astonishing stone mountain of exquisitely wrought sculpture in Central Java, on his list. No construction of the preindustrial era makes a more wondrous impression…

Borobudur rises to a height of 400 feet, nearly as tall as Cheops’ pyramid, in a series of concentric terraces. Its walls are lined with exquisitely carved bas-reliefs illustrating episodes from the life of the Buddha and his teachings, amounting to more than a mile of continuous sculpture — and that doesn’t include 504 life-size statues of the Buddha…

Like its Egyptian predecessors, Borobudur poses many enigmas to archaeologists. One visionary, slightly mad aspect of its design is that the ground plan, visible only from an aerial perspective, is a perfect mandala, a symbolic schema of Buddhist cosmology that serves as an aid to meditation. Or perhaps the monument represents a lotus blossom, a nearly universal image in Buddhist art. In 1931, a Dutch artist named W.O.J. Nieuwenkamp proposed the whimsical theory that the plain surrounding Borobudur was once a lake, and the monument was conceived as a lotus flower floating on it. His hypothesis became less fanciful in 2000, when archaeologists found stratigraphical evidence of a paleolake in the area.

There is a fascinating article in the NY Times about the culture of Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates. This city has become a contemporary melting pot of the Islamic world, where expatriates form a new identity and try to merge the choices of modernity with the traditions of their Islamic religion.

In his old life in Cairo, Rami Galal knew his place and his fate: to become a maintenance man in a hotel, just like his father. But here, in glittering, manic Dubai, he is confronting the unsettling freedom to make his own choices.

Here Mr. Galal, 24, drinks beer almost every night and considers a young Russian prostitute his girlfriend. But he also makes it to work every morning, not something he could say when he lived back in Egypt. Everything is up to him, everything: what meals he eats, whether he goes to the mosque or a bar, who his friends are.

“I was more religious in Egypt,” Mr. Galal said, taking a drag from yet another of his ever-burning Marlboros. “It is moving too fast here. In Egypt there is more time, they have more control over you. It’s hard here. I hope to stop drinking beer; I know it’s wrong. In Egypt, people keep you in check. Here, no one keeps you in check.”

In Egypt, and across much of the Arab world, there is an Islamic revival being driven by young people, where faith and ritual are increasingly the cornerstone of identity. But that is not true amid the ethnic mix that is Dubai, where 80 percent of the people are expatriates, with 200 nationalities.

This economically vital, socially freewheeling yet unmistakably Muslim state has had a transforming effect on young men. Religion has become more of a personal choice and Islam less of a common bond than national identity.

Dubai is, in some ways, a vision of what the rest of the Arab world could become — if it offered comparable economic opportunity, insistence on following the law and tolerance for cultural diversity. In this environment, religion is not something young men turn to because it fills a void or because they are bowing to a collective demand. That, in turn, creates an atmosphere that is open not only to those inclined to a less observant way of life, but also to those who are more religious. In Egypt, Jordan, Syria and Algeria, a man with a long beard is often treated as an Islamist — and sometimes denied work. Not here in Dubai.

“Here, I can practice my religion in a natural and free way because it is a Muslim country and I can also achieve my ambition at work,” said Ahmed Kassab, 30, an electrical engineer from Zagazig Egypt, who wears a long dark beard and has a prayer mark on his forehead. “People here judge the person based on productivity more than what he looks like. It’s different in Egypt, of course.” …

In this way, Dubai offers another prescription for promoting moderation. It offers a chance to lead a modern life in an Arab Islamic country. Mr. Abu Zanad raised his beer high, almost in a toast, and said he liked being able to walk through a mall and still hear the call to prayer.

“We like that it’s free and it still has Arab heritage,” he said “It’s not religion, it’s the culture, the Middle Eastern culture.”

Have you ever imagined what it’d be like to spend time at a yoga retreat in India? Well, now you can live vicariously through Kyle Jarrard, who wrote an account for the International Herald Tribune of the experience he and his wife had in Puducherry, India.

The first sound in the morning is crows, right at 5. Then we hear waves off the Bay of Bengal slapping the shore. In the garden, a man meditates while walking quickly over the lawn of the ashram guest house in the dark. Along the shore, other men pace the beach in the silver jetty light. Fishing boat lanterns like stars ride the black sea south to north.

My wife and I have come to this old French comptoir (formerly Pondichéry) in southeast India mostly for the yoga. The classes used to be held in one of the many parcels of the Sri Aurobindo Ashram scattered across the colonial city. But for this retreat, there’s a new venue and to get there you have to be on Ajit Sarkar’s bus by 5:45…

For the first few blocks the streets have French names: Rue Dumas, Rue Suffren, Rue Romain Rolland. Then we leave town and head south over fetid canals and clogged streams, through trash-heaped neighborhoods thumping with all-night Hindu festival music while men in dhotis stand around sipping tea out of plastic goblets. Cows with brightly painted red and green horns meditate in the middle of the road as we plunge into the lush Tamil Nadu countryside…

We take our yoga classes on the roof of the new school, under a tall thatched structure with open sides. Most of the people in the assembly know their Hatha-style yoga; others stumble a lot - but soon everyone gets into the flow, despite the great sensual distractions: banana groves to the north wavering in the gold sunlight; rice paddies to the east where a few dozen women bend weeding at daybreak; thick coconut trees to the west that invite the eye to enter and roam; and to the south, the village, overlain with teak, drumstick and casuarina trees, where cooking-fire smoke rises and every dog yaps at everything.

Yesterday, I had a post about gender relations in Saudi Arabia and the remarkable lengths that the society goes to in order to maintain separation between males and females of different families. I linked to a story in the International Herald Tribune in which young men were interviewed about their interactions with women. Today, we cover the second part of the Tribune’s series, in which a reporter writes about male-female relations from the perspective of Saudi women.

First, an overview of the situation that females deal with in Saudi Arabia:

The separation between the sexes in Saudi Arabia is so extreme that it is difficult to overstate. Saudi women may not drive, and they must wear floor-length black abayas and head coverings in public at all times. They are driven around in cars with tinted windows, attend girls-only schools and university departments and eat in “family” sections of cafés and restaurants, which are partitioned off from sections used by single male diners.

Women-only gyms, women-only boutiques and travel agencies, even a women-only shopping mall, have been established in Riyadh in recent years to serve women who did not previously have access to such places unless they were chaperoned by a male relative.

Playful as they are, girls like Othman and her friends are well aware of the limits that their society places on their behavior. And, for the most part, they say that they do not seriously question those limits. Most of the girls say that their faith - in the strict interpretation of Islam espoused by the Wahhabi religious establishment here - runs very deep.

They argue a bit among themselves about the details - whether it is acceptable to have men on your Facebook friends list, say, or whether a male first cousin should ever be able to see you without your face covered - and they peppered an American reporter with questions about what the young Saudi men she had met were thinking about and talking about.

But they seem to regard the idea of having a conversation with a man before their showfas and subsequent engagements with real horror. When they do talk about girls who chat with men online or who somehow find their own fiancés, these stories have something of the quality of urban legends about them: fuzzy in their particulars, told about friends of friends, or “someone in my sister’s class.”

Well-brought-up, unmarried young women are so isolated from boys and men that when they talk about them, it sometimes sounds as if they are discussing a different species.

A view of pre-wedding interactions (or lack thereof) between engaged couples:

…it is becoming more and more socially acceptable for young engaged women to speak to their fiancés on the phone, though more conservative families still forbid all contact between engaged couples.

But it is considered embarrassing to admit to much strong feeling for a fiancé before the wedding, and before their engagements, any kind of contact with a man is out of the question.

And even a glimpse into some of the clandestine back-and-forth that takes place between young Saudi men and women:

A woman cannot switch her phone’s Bluetooth feature on in a public place for fear of receiving a barrage of love poems and photos of flowers and small children that many Saudi men keep stored on their phones for the purposes of flirtation. And last year, Al Arabiya television reported that some young Saudis had started buying “electronic belts,” which use Bluetooth technology to beam the wearer’s cellphone number and e-mail address at passing members of the opposite sex.

Tukhaifi and Shaden know of girls in their college who have passionate friendships, possibly even love affairs, with other girls, but they say that this … is just a “game” borne of frustration, something that will inevitably end when the girls in question become engaged. And they and their friends say that they … don’t know any girl who has actually spoken to a boy who contacted her via Bluetooth…

“One test is that if you’re ashamed to tell your family something, then you know for sure it’s wrong,” she continued. “For a while I had Facebook friends who were boys - I didn’t e-mail with them or anything, but they asked me to ‘friend’ them and so I did. But then I thought about my family and I took them off the list.”

Like yesterday, the actual Tribune story is much longer and filled with a wealth of other anecdotes and details.

After reading through both articles, two things struck me. One, of course, is that young men and women in Saudi Arabia have the same longing for romance and playfulness as do young people everywhere in the world. But the other revelation was the almost complete sense of acceptance (at least among those interviewed for the articles) regarding the importance of the culture’s moral values and the need for the social restrictions that keep males and females apart from each other. Just more proof that, as I’ve said before, we are all silently and permanently molded by the assumptions of the culture in which we are raised.

It’s easy in the West for us to express shock or dismay at the state of gender relations in some Arab countries (the veiling of women, the separation of the sexes, etc.), and particularly in a very conservative culture such as Saudi Arabia’s. However, it’s also easy for us to forget that many people in those cultures not only accept their state of affairs but also believe it to be in their best interests.

I’m not advocating any particular position here, and I do feel considerable sympathy for individuals who are constricted by the conservative dictates of their culture. But it’s nevertheless an interesting exercise to try to view a culture from the perspective of someone who was born and raised in it. That’s what the International Herald Tribune did recently, in a fascinating two-part series that looked at gender relations in Saudi Arabia from the perspective of men and women in that society. Today, I’m providing a few excerpts from the article in which young men discussed their relations and romances.

An overview of the state of gender relations: 

In the West, youth is typically a time to challenge authority. But what stood out in dozens of interviews with young men and women here was how completely they have accepted the religious and cultural demands of the Muslim world’s most conservative society.

They may chafe against the rules, even try to evade them at times, but they can be merciless in their condemnation of those who flout them too brazenly. And they are committed to perpetuating the rules with their own children.

That suggests that Saudi Arabia’s strict interpretation of Islam, largely uncontested at home by the next generation and spread abroad by Saudi money in a time of religious revival, will increasingly shape how Muslims around the world will live their faith.

Young men like Nader and Enad are taught that they are the guardians of the family’s reputation, expected to shield their female relatives from shame and avoid dishonoring their families by their own behavior. It is a classic example of how the Saudis have melded their faith with their desert tribal traditions.

“One of the most important Arab traditions is honor,” Enad said. “If my sister goes in the street and someone assaults her, she won’t be able to protect herself. The nature of men is that men are more rational. Women are not rational. With one or two or three words, a man can get what he wants from a woman. If I call someone and a girl answers, I have to apologize. It’s a huge deal. It is a violation of the house.”

A glimpse into how men and women end up agreeing to marry despite not knowing each other:

Enad’s father agreed to let Nader marry one of his four daughters. Nader picked Sarah, though she is not the oldest, in part, he said, because he actually saw her face when she was a child and recalled that she was pretty.

They quickly signed a wedding contract, making them legally married, but by tradition they do not consider themselves so until the wedding party, set for this spring. During the intervening months, they are not allowed to see each other or spend any time together.

Nader said he expected to see his new wife for the first time after their wedding ceremony - which would also be segregated by sex - when they are photographed as husband and wife.

And a look at the small romantic rebellions that take place even in Suadi Arabia:

…Saudi traditions do not allow for romance between young, unmarried couples. There are many stories of young men and women secretly dating, falling in love but being unable to tell their parents because they could never explain how they knew each other in the first place. One young couple said that after two years of secret dating they hired a matchmaker to arrange a phony introduction so their parents would think that was how they had met.

These are small excerpts from a much larger story that is well worth reading if the topic interests you. Tomorrow, the female perspective.