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| Olde Tyme Religion | |
| Don't let them eat cake, Saudi cleric says | |
| 2008-09-05 | |
| When Hala al-Masaad invited her girlfriends over to celebrate her 18th birthday with cake and juice, the high school student was stepping into an unusual public debate. Is celebrating birthdays un-Islamic? Saudi Arabia's most senior Muslim cleric recently denounced birthday parties as an unwanted foreign influence, but another prominent cleric declared they were OK. You can have your cake and not eat it. That has left al-Masaad with mixed feelings about her low-key celebration last month. She loves birthday parties because they make her feel she has "moved from one stage of life to another." "But I sometimes feel I'm doing something haram," she said sheepishly, using the Arabic word for banned. Perhaps if you tried beheading the candles?
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| Posted by:ed |
| #3 Can't we interest them in snake handling? If you truly believe you can handle saw scaled vipers and their bite won't turn you into a puddle of jello in two weeks. As one venomous reptile expert pointed out in this country Darwin kicked in when you moved this practice into the range of the eastern diamondback rattlesnake, but YOU Saudis could prove him wrong! |
| Posted by: bruce 2008-09-05 21:23 |
| #2 funny Inline ed, 5¢ those fat Clerics Xucks are tearing off all they can get from women....or boys for that matter. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ a mini-true story with no redeeming value: Last Tuesday a Saudi with his interpreter and handlers showed up at my transplant clinic [UCSF, world class mind you]. His handlers were making arrangements and filling out forms at the desk and at an office down the hall. He waz wearing white PJs and the usual red checkered table cloth on his head. His handlers were wearing Western style suits. Well wouldn't you know it the Saudi He obeyed me as I took him by the shoulders and guided him to the empty chair right next to mine. After he sat down I introduce myself. Well he smiled and said in broken English that he was a Saudi [no sheet]. I barely had said hello when his handlers showed up looking very green indeed, and hustled him off around the corner... >:) I immagine that in his country he doesn't have to wait in turn for treatment along with ordinary citizens. |
| Posted by: Red Dawg 2008-09-05 14:36 |
| #1 She was 18? Why wasn't she home tending her five through one year old children? |
| Posted by: Rambler in California 2008-09-05 12:56 |