Thursday, February 26, 2009

Touch me


I'm sad that the friendly man representing a Muslim association at the university wouldn't shake my hand.
I listened to his speech. He seemed nice. I had some doubts about his message, but we left on friendly terms.
When I left and bid him a good day and tried to shake his hand. He put it across his heart and mumbled that he couldn't shake my hand.
I had to get back to class, and walked away.
I don't dislike him, but feel confused. Should I make myself angry over this, or am I being a self-centred ass?

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi Liz,

Its a weirdo religious thing. Some Muslim's maintain rules of "cleanliness". These involve rules about washing and touching unwashed stuff. I think as a lady you are often especially unclean.

So, you should only be insulted insofar as religion is often retarded, but not in the personal 'that man has demeaned me intentionally' sort of way.

Check out:
http://www.islamicinstitute.ca/Show%20Questions.php?pageTitle=Purification&cID=6

Liz said...

I appreciate that. A very very childish part of me still wants to bodyslam him. Also, some of those rules made me uuuuncomfortable :)

Anonymous said...

They should. Just because they are sacred for some doesn't make them off-limits for criticism. I would consider much of it rather crazy. See: http://www.islamicinstitute.ca/answers.php?id=719

That whole page: http://www.islamicinstitute.ca/categories.php is amazing. Some really interesting stuff in there.


Also, my previous comment was so poorly written that it blows my mind.