Running (For Your Life) With Scissors -- Islamic Militants Warn Barbers

[DeSwiss]

So now, in addition to the other "normal" Shariah-Rules-To-Live-By that jusitfy harassment, threats and one must assume if these don't work: will get one killed, you may now add haircare as a deadly sin.

Deadly sin as in, "you touch that beard and you're DEAD!" So far, there is no word from the Imams and Mullahs about the fate of those suffering from Male-Pattern-Baldness. Nor was there any word about what to do with the women with little mustaches.

Gillette closed down 7 3/8 today.

Suspected Islamic Militants Warn Barbers

By HABIBULLAH KHAN, Associated Press Writer
Mon Feb 12, 4:44 PM ET

KHAR, Pakistan - Suspected Islamic radicals have issued a Taliban-style warning to barbers in a Pakistani border town not to shave off or cut their customers' beards, saying it offends Islam, residents said Monday.

Pamphlets with the warnings were found at several shops in Inayat Kalay in Pakistan's Bajur tribal region near the Afghan border, said Bacha Khan, a barber in the market town.

"Barbers! Correct yourselves," said the handwritten, Pashto-language notes, one of which was obtained by The Associated Press.

"Any barber shop where acts against Shariah (Islamic law) — shaving or cutting of beards — are seen, are given a final warning to stop this anti-Shariah work and if they do not stop, they should take responsibility for whatever harm they come to," it said.

The pamphlets were unsigned. However, Khan said he believed the warnings were from mujahedeen, or holy warriors — a term often used to describe Islamic militants. He said two dozen barbers had responded by posting notices in their shops asking customers not to insist on getting a shave.

"We do not want to come to harm," Khan said. "If this work is against Shariah, we will stop it."

The warning echoed a decree issued under Afghanistan's ousted Taliban regime ordering all men to grow beards, and it could reinforce concern that Pakistan's border areas are undergoing a "Talibanization" because of the presence of militants and radical preachers.

Security officials say Taliban and other militants suspected of attacks on Afghan and foreign troops on the other side of the border are active in Bajur.

Many Taliban fled to Pakistan when U.S.-led forces drove them out of Afghanistan in 2001-02. Before their ouster, Taliban vice squads roamed the streets and beat those suspected of trimming their beard. The Taliban's harsh interpretation of Islam saw them also ban women and girls from work and school and outlaw activities such as kite-flying and chess.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070212/ap_on_re_mi_ea/pakistan_beard_warning

Apparently God only loves hairy worshippers..........

[UndertheOcean]

1. What mindless childishness...

Next they'll say shaving your A$$ is an affront towards God. I can't begin to comprehend such idiocy.

[DeSwiss]

3. UndertheOcean, ummmm....

"Next they'll say shaving your A$$ is an affront towards God."

Yes. Because as everyone knows, God prefers Smooth Booties. At least I think I read that somewhere once. Or maybe it was a song....

*** - I know, I know. Sorry, but I just had to say it! :)

[Taverner]

11. Yes - mindless nonsense.

[aquart]

2. Remember Samson? His strength was in his hair.

Hair has traditionally had great power. It's why Orthodox Jewish women have shaved their heads on marriage. It's why nuns cut their hair off. They are surrendering their power.

The belief is at least five thousand years old and probably older. But the Taliban, being Muslim and not the original pagans, inherit only the tradition without the mythology to explain it.

So they attribute it to Mohammed and Allah and keep doing what they were doing before they ever met the flaming sword of Islam.

[DeSwiss]

4. aquart....

....actually Delilah only shaved off 7 locks of his hair, not bald, but I suppose like in most fairy tales, such things don't really matter.

But for my money, Samson was pretty stupid. I mean Delilah nagged him day and night about where he got his strength, and he tricked her three times with lies about what would make him weak. And everytime he told her another lie, someone would try to kill him. So why didn't he put 2 and 2 together?

Instead, in the end on the fourth time she asked him again, and he tells her the what the real source of his power was (the 7 locks of hair) and gets his ass beat up and kidnapped as a result.

Of course in the end, while he does get to kill some more people (which was apparently god's purpose for him in life), he also ended up dead too. So what's the message here? Take more vitamin E for stronger locks?

Only his hairdresser knows for sure..... :)

[aquart]

5. Yeah, the fairytale format tells you it was way old before it hit the Bible.

Samson was a sun hero. So, yeah, god's purpose for him was to die. The locks of hair, in the sun hero's case were the lion's mane, the rays of the sun.

[DeSwiss]

6. aquart, yes... very interesting....

You had me going back through some old files and checking wiki on that sun god reference:

Šimšôn; whose names means "of the sun" – and thus he bore the name of god. Jewish legend records that http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samson">Samson's shoulders were sixty http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ell">ells broad (1 ell = 45" so that means his shoulders were 225 feet across). He was lame in both feet (Talmud Sotah 10a), but when the spirit of God came upon him he could step with one stride from Zorah (his birthpalce in Judah) to Eshtaol, (near Beit Meir in Israel), while the hairs of his head arose and clashed against one another so that they could be heard for a like distance (Midrash Lev. Rabbah viii. 2). Samson was said to be so strong that he could uplift two mountains and rub them together like two clods of earth (ibid.; Sotah 9b), yet his superhuman strength, like Goliath's, brought woe upon its possessor (Midrash http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eccl._Rabbah">Eccl. Rabbah i., end).

In licentiousness he is compared with Amnon and Zimri, both of whom were punished for their sins (Lev. R. xxiii. 9). Samson's eyes were put out because he had "followed them" too often (Sotah l.c.). It is said that in the twenty years during which Samson judged Israel he never required the least service from an Israelite (Midrash Numbers Rabbah ix. 25), and he piously refrained from taking the name of God in vain. Therefore, as soon as he told Delilah that he was a Nazarite of God she immediately knew that he had spoken the truth (Sotah l.c.). When he pulled down the temple of Dagon and killed himself and the Philistines the structure fell backward, so that he was not crushed, his family being thus enabled to find his body and to bury it in the tomb of his father (Midrash Gen. Rabbah l.c. § 19). In the Talmudic period many seem to have denied that Samson was an historic figure; he was apparently regarded as a purely mythological personage. This was viewed as heretical by the rabbis of the Talmud, and they refuted this view.

And given the dispersion of the Israelites during this era of the Bronze Age, there is little wonder for me about religious influences of the culture they found themselves in being absorbed into their own meme. The character Samson also has traits that could be inputed in the Greek deity http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helios">Helios and later http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo">Apollo (who was also known to kick some ass in his early days). Or the Mesopotamian deity http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shamash">Shamash (whose name means "sun") and whom the attribute most commonly associated with Shamash being justice. Samson (found in the Book of Judges) was one of the judges sent by god to either punish or save the Israelites -- depending upon his mood that day, or whether the Israelites had pissed him off for some reason. Usually one caused the other.

Good catch. More for me to look into....

[aquart]

8. Good grief! He's the Jewish Paul Bunyan!

Well, I can certainly see why Delilah wanted to dilute some of that strength. It's like when my sister and I were watching one of the Superman movies and she wanted to know how someone who doesn't feel friction can...well, he could be really dangerous, you know? Drill straight thru?

But I digress. Judges is a fun book. It's got the Enquirer version of Sodom and Gomorrah, too.

I'm not sure the Israelites even had to disperse to get all that cross-culturalization. That was one busy crossroads of the world back then. The Celts (or whatever name they were going by at the time) even had a city in the neighborhood. I swear to God that the origin of Guinevere is Hent Nefer (beautiful queen). Not to mention that the words for Jewish holidays have indoeuropean roots. But then, I'm the only person I know who thinks Yahweh is straight off the indoeuropean root yewo: law. It's amazing how people got around without planes, trains, or Motel 6.

[DeSwiss]

12. A Jewish Paul Bunyan.....LOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!

:rofl:

You know, leave it to a woman to find the most imporatant and practical aspect of this tale of testostrone gone wild. And in reading the Talmud story's description of him, he (like Goliath) appear to be holdovers from the story in Genesis of the Nephilim. This was when the "fallen angels" (the sons of man) had offspring with the daughters of man and produced great and wicked giants. And was the principal reason for pissing off god (once again) which in turn made him decide to just wash these humans right outta his hair with a flood. Then he pick Noah, a decidely un-testonrony kinda guy, who once having found land, the first thing he did was to plant a vineyard and then proceed to get drunk. Good god. Very good.

[Meshuga]

7. I don't know about nuns but

Ultra-orthodox Hasidic women shaving their heads when getting married has nothing to do with Samson as you suggested. This custom has to do with the specifics of Ashkenazi Jewish practice. Although some Sefardic women follow this tradition.

In the time of the crusades, Jewish women in Europe wore head scarves, like Jewish women in Muslim countries did and do nowadays. But as the quality of life deteriorated there Christians began to attack the Jewish women (non-Jewish women did not wear head coverings). So Jewish women were allowed to wear wigs (sheitls) made from other people's hair - the idea being to preserve modesty by covering the hair, but to blend into the non-Jewish society and prevent attacks.

As the sheitl became more customary, women began to shave their heads to make the sheitl fit better. This solidified into custom in some regions especially among some Hasidic Jews. Now the explanation to keep the custom is that there is a halakhic benefit as regards completely immersing in the mikvah with the head shaved and for the sake of modesty.

[aquart]

9. Yeah, that's the story they tell.

But since every person of sense knows that rape has zero to do with attractiveness or whether a woman is "modest" or not, there's good reason to suspect this story is a load of patriarchal bullcrap. Which it is.

If you really examine the Jewish religion, it's mostly a rewrite. In many ways, a magnificent rewrite. But the reason women have to cut off their hair is surrender of their power. We may have forgotten or submerged the reason, but that's what it is.

I realize that the Talmud and I differ widely. And will continue to do so.

[Meshuga]

10. Still

A woman shaving her head and wearing a wig is a practice by a minority sect and mostly by a sect that has been around since the 17th century and it is not part of halachah (Jewish law).

So if this practice was done from the begining I would agree with your little guess but this is a very recent practice by a minority sect of Judaism. So you are pulling this conclusion of "women having to cut off their hair as surrender of their power" totally out of your ass.

In Talmudic times this practice of the shaytl didn't even exist. Instead, women wore a head cover for modesty much like what Muslim women wear nowadays.

And yes, Judaism is mostly a rewrite and continues to be rewritten. But this "Samson as root of shaytl" is your invention.

The Talmud is a work too complex for anyone to be completely for or against it. First, one has to dedicate a lifetime to study talmud in order to agree with anything in it. Besides, the Talmud is a work of questioning and debate, not answers. Questioning is what created the Talmud and questioning keeps the rewriting of the religion still active.

[aquart]

13. My "little guess"???!!!

I NEVER said Samson was the "root of shaytl." Goodness, it was already ancient by then. I said that ancient custom invested power in hair which is why Delilah needed to cut Samson's in order to weaken him. I said that this is also seen in the Jewish custom of the new-married wife and the new nun cutting her hair as a surrender of her power.

Cults and sects frequently practice older customs while the main body of a religion moves relatively forward with the times.

I was NOT guessing. I was not inventing. I was using non-Talmudic sources. Like Google. Frazier. Graves. Eisler.

And if you can't agree with anything in the Talmud without a lifetime of study, maybe you should try studying something else.

[Meshuga]

15. Interesting. Can we see some sources to support your connection?

"I NEVER said Samson was the "root of shaytl." Goodness, it was already ancient by then. I said that ancient custom invested power in hair which is why Delilah needed to cut Samson's in order to weaken him."

You are right, you didn't. My apologies! :blush:

"I said that this is also seen in the Jewish custom of the new-married wife and the new nun cutting her hair as a surrender of her power."

However, I still don't see a link between new-married hasidic wife (which is pretty recent practice) to the ancient thought of "hair power" from ancient religions.

"I was NOT guessing. I was not inventing. I was using non-Talmudic sources. Like Google. Frazier. Graves. Eisler."

Interesting, can you point to a specific source that shows this hair shaving practice as a Jewish practice in ancient times, and if you can, with that context of the woman surrending power as the reason?

"And if you can't agree with anything in the Talmud without a lifetime of study, maybe you should try studying something else."

You are right, I mispoke when I said, "one has to dedicate a lifetime to study talmud in order to agree with anything in it" when the truth is that you can agree or disagree with the specific points of view. I thought you were implying you disagree with the Talmud as a whole. You cannot have such opinion without a lifetime of study since it is a book of opposing opinions, debates, questioning, etc.

It's just that telling me, "I realize that the Talmud and I differ widely. And will continue to do so" makes no sense. Why would the talmud matter here? What is the relevance of you agreeing and disagreeing with the talmud and bringing it up?

[DeSwiss]

14. aquart, I tend to agree with your assessment about the hair deal....

....and in point of fact, there are a number of practices that became instilled into religion(s) as a means to diminish the importance of the female aspects of god. Religions that precede that of Judaism such as the worship of Mithra and Gaia and the various deities among the Titans all initially accepted the supremacy of the female as she was and is: "the giver of life."

http://www.authorama.com/god-idea-of-the-ancients-1.html">Eliza Burt Gamble (The God Idea of the Ancients, 1899), was an archeologist in the 19th century (who is little-known for the most part), spent most of her life investgating early religions. And in particular the preeminence of goddesses among those worshipped and how the "maleness" of religion subsumed all the female aspects. You might find this link to http://www.myths.com/pub/myths/myth.html">"Myths and Legends" interesting as well.

[Meshuga]

16. I understand that

And I believe there might be religions that used hair as a way to diminish the importance of the female aspects of god. But where is the logical connection in a timeline that links hasidic married women who shave their heads to these ancient religions? There might be other aspects of Judaism that link with other ancient religions (i.e., a lot of stories from the Hebrew Bible were borrowed from Sumarian mythology) but I cannot see a the link between this ancient practice of ancient religions to a practice that is pretty recent in a few sects of ultra-orthodox Judaism.