Posted on 06/28/2006 9:47:33 AM PDT by kellynla
BAGHDAD -- In a country where people are killed because their names mark them as Shi'ites or Sunnis, having the wrong haircut can be lethal, too. So for barber Abu Saif, staying in business requires keeping up with the latest religious edicts.
"Being completely clean-shaven is not right," Mr. Saif explains as he draws his razor down a customer's cheek, then sweeps it back up toward his upper lip. He takes time over the cut -- a perfect upside-down question mark shave around the cheek that is most popular with Baghdad's religious Shi'ites.
"The 'Marine' cut, or shaven head, is forbidden. It is considered to be something of the foreigners," said Mr. Saif, 52, who has been cutting hair and shaving beards in his small Mansour barber shop since he was a boy of 12.
Above all, he said, Iraqi barbers have given up "threading" -- a practice common in the Middle East and Asia that involves removing facial hair with two threads tied together, rather than with a razor.
For some, the punishment for doing so was death. "I put a poster in the window of my shop, that I apologized for threading and I said we were not doing that anymore," Mr. Saif said. "This is terrorism. One day they attack bakers, the next day they attack barbers."
The shape of a beard or haircut often marks its wearer as Shi'ite or Sunni, ensuring support in some neighborhoods but putting him at risk in others.
Religious Sunnis, for example, do not remove any neck hair, and fundamental Wahhabis never shave or trim their beards, but will cut down their mustaches to almost nothing -- "zero to one" on the razor notch, Mr. Saif said.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtontimes.com ...
So I guess you don't see a lot of 'em carving "Allahu akbar" in the back of their high-top fade, huh?
}:-)4
Sounds like red or blue "gang" colors in SoCal..........
"The shape of a beard or haircut often marks its wearer as Shi'ite or Sunni, ensuring support in some neighborhoods but putting him at risk in others."
So a savvy barber comes up with something that could go either way, like that old half "T" half "F" looking thing that kids used to try to trick the teacher with on a 'true or false' test.
"Sounds like red or blue "gang" colors in SoCal"
and throughout America
They're all warped.
Man, talk about a bad hair day!!!!!!
For some, the punishment for doing so was death.
Well, the punishment for shaving with two threads probably should be death.
Talk about 'splittin' hairs'........................
Cut your beard wrong and we cut off your head. This from the ideology of peace.
I wonder what a mullet would look like under a turban.
BAGHDAD--Want to insult a man in Iraq? Threaten to shave off his mustache with your shoe. But be prepared: Nothing is a bigger symbol of manhood here than the mighty 'stash. "A mustache means strength and manliness. A full and long mustache gives a man a strong face, and you know he is a good person," says Farris Al-Timini, proprietor of the Al Fen Nanin barbershop, as his customers get their bushy black lip-toppers trimmed. "The people in our country like to look like their leaders. If a leader has a big mustache, then the men will grow big mustaches."
A flier circulating around Baghdad shows Iraq's 55 "most wanted" individuals. Most sport an abundance of autocratic facial hair. Apparently, the Great Father--well known for his own thick whiskers--worked hard to promote the cult of facial fur. "Saddam used to give bonuses to some of his soldiers if they grew longer mustaches because it made them look angrier," recalls Muttaz Al-Abbas, 31, who runs an ad agency. "When he spoke of the Israelis, he said that the people of Iraq must fight them so hard that their mustaches will tremble," adds Al-Abbas, who sports a neat goatee, popular with a younger generation of Iraqis trying to bring more panache to the facial-hair sweepstakes.
Real men. Actually, Iraq's love affair with the mustache long predates Saddam Hussein; there are endless tales and proverbs about its powers. Tribal chiefs, for instance, measure a man's worth by his mustache. To wit, the old adage: An eagle can land on a great man's mustache. To swear on one's mustache here is to swear on one's honor. Tell a friend that he's "in your mustache," and you're vowing to protect him, perhaps for life.
More practically, Iraqi women are loath to pick a mustacheless partner. Hairdresser Hanan Al-Azawi, 35, takes great pride in her husband's lustrous mustache; without it, she says, she would never have married him. "A man with no facial hair is not attractive," she shrugs. "It is very important for a man to have a mustache. It means he is a real man." -Ilana Ozernoy
- usnews.com 5/19/03
The only thing these camel-f*ckers understand is absolutely overwhelming force and annihilation- it's the only thing they believe in and can comprehend. Their minds are so stunted they couldn't grasp the concept of personal freedom if it was explained to them in pictographs on clay tablets.
If they want to exist in modern society, then they need to understand and contribute to it. When was the last time sheetheads contributed to the knowledge of the world? Probably 1200-1300 years ago when the rest of the world was at their level. Unfortunately, the rest of the world progressed while they stayed stunted in their rock throwing stone age with their stone age religion.
And these are the "people" who are gonna take over and rule the world!!?? Turn their desert to glowing glass and let the rest of the world progress without having to live in terror that some stone age retard is going to take offense at something and cut your head off.
[/rant]
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