Posted on 03/10/2010 2:43:09 AM PST by reaganaut1
I was tempted to turn my abaya into a black masquerade cloak and sneak into Mecca, just hop over the Tropic of Cancer to the Red Sea and crash the ultimate heaven’s gate.
Sir Richard Burton, the 19th-century British adventurer, translator of “The Arabian Nights” and the “Kama Sutra” and self-described “amateur barbarian,” was an illicit pilgrim to the sacred black granite cube. He wore Arab garb and infiltrated the holiest place in Islam, the Kaaba, the “center of the Earth,” as he called it, in the Saudi city where the Prophet Muhammad was born.
But in the end, it seemed disrespectful, not to mention dangerous.
So on my odyssey to Saudi Arabia, I tried to learn about the religion that smashed into the American consciousness on 9/11 in a less sneaky way. And that’s when the paradox sunk in: It was nearly impossible for me to experience Islam in the cradle of Islam.
You don’t have to be a Catholic to go to the Vatican. You don’t have to be Jewish to go to the Western Wall (although if you’re a woman, you’re squeezed into a slice of it at the side). You don’t have to be Buddhist to hear the Dalai Lama speak — and have your picture snapped with him afterward.
A friend who often travels to Saudi Arabia for business said he thought that Medina, the site of Muhammad’s tomb, was beginning to “loosen up” for non-Muslims. (As the second holiest city in Islam, maybe they needed to try harder.) But the Saudis nixed a trip there.
I assumed I at least could go to a mosque at prayer time, as long as I wore an abaya and hijab, took off my shoes, and stayed in the back in a cramped, segregated women’s section.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
The fact that she is surprised means that those with no faith have a lot to learn from those with faith. However, just because the Muslims have attempted to co-op central figures from Judaism and Christianity does not make it true.
Seriously religious Jews are generally aware of the basic beliefs of Islam as well. Islam does not usually return the compliment.
Do it MODO! Go For it! ....and put your flogging on Pay Per View. It would keep you in Botox for all eternity!
Burton was a Muslim convert—in fact a novice Sufi in the Shia sect.
He simply didn’t go around broadcasting the fact to the Western World—not good form,you know.
He was known among the many who hated him as that “white n*****.”
Maureen is not only shocked by the bigotry and hatred of the Arab culture, but will eventually conclude that its all the fault of Christianity.
She is so typical of the New York City “Chardonnay Circuit.” My relatives are in this circuit. They refuse to discuss anything of substance and if they get angry and are forced to, they simply blame Bush and conservatives.
Richard Burton was a brilliant soldier/adventurer and his sneaking into Mecca was only one of this many activities. He was a least actually puzzled by the mysteries of Islam. Maureen Dowd lives in NYC, probably had friends die on 9/11, yet continues to act like a Chardonnay Circuit Cruiser amd ignore the fact that Islam is an evil, hateful slave and murder cult.
If they could only overcome their inate mental (not to mention moral) laziness and actually investigate the facts of Islam (to say nothing of Christianity) they might actually start fighting to defend civilization.
The sheer stupidity of this article just amazes me. She just now finds out that she as a fine, tolerant, upstanding left wing citizen is not welcome in Mecca? That islam practices exclusivity? Many of us conservatives have known this for years and years but then again, we are being labeled as dumb. Good grief.
She didn’t even bother to chat with some imams here in the USA before going? Talk about innocents abroad.
This column is stunningly narcissistic and shallow, even for Maureen Dowd. I am dumbfounded.
The obligatory “can’t we all get along” at the end is the kicker, though. The cherry on top of the crap sundae.
Amazing!
"You can destroy our buildings and murder thousands of our citizens, and that's OK. I never went downtown much, anyway... But if you don't let me sit in the front row at your religious ceremonies, you'll get my dander up!"
Hey Maureen, you stupid twit, this is also the reason that the First Woman didn’t go to Saudi Arabia last year. She went straight home from Paris. Unlike her husband she is no muzzie therefore not welcome in Mecca and Medina. Didn’t do your homework now, did you.
It's not like the Muslims as a group killed any friends she lost; that conclusion would have been politically incorrect and biased. The ones in the North Tower died of bad luck, nothing more. The same for her friends in the South Tower, in the Pentagon (if she had any friends there), on the four airplanes, and for my friends in the Marine barracks in Beirut, and in so many other places. You can't generalize from a few thousand Muslims who commit terrorist acts and the billion who cheer their mass murders to all followers of Islam, can you?
“So isn’t there a way for Saudi Arabia to shed light on Islam and reclaim it from the radicals?”
What a stupid woman. The saudis are funding the wahhabists, aka the radicals, you frigging moron.
This woman is a complete and utter moron.
I can’t believe we let such stupid people out of the country. She is lucky she did not get killed for pulling any of these tricks in Saudi Arabia.
A sexless life amongst cats and gays will do that to you.
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