Arab culture - a glimpse while travelling

Sorry, this post has no photos!

We have been traveling in arabic / islamic countries for nearly 4 months now and some things stick out. 

• hospitality towards total strangers has never been so nice, warm, welcoming, heart warming and unquestioning! so many times have we been invited to tea that we stopped counting! so many times have we been invited to stay overnight, had we accepted we would not have made it further than Cairo by now! People are incredibly open and curious! and pride of what they have and are!

• Islam / Koran / religion is not only a believe, it's also a whole set of rules, customs, behaviors,… There is an intertwinement of religion and culture. It's fascinating and worrisome at the same time. Questions are accepted as far as Koran / Islam is not questioned, thus the fundamentals of why things are the way they are, is not questioned and Allah has an answer to everything and is the cause of everything. For us Westeners, coming from Switzerland where fundamental value discussions are up anytime, this can be at best strange sometimes. Here are some examples:

• Having many children is something men usually want (we have not been fortunate enough to talk to many women to find out their opinion…). We met the odd one who said he wanted 2 or 3 children and not more, but usually the aim is to have 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 or even more. (Btw: it's not the men taking care and raising the children!). When questioned if they had enough money to raise their planned 9 children the answer would be: "Allah will make me find enough money!" or "If there is not enough money, my children will go to work for me!"
  So the mindset is not "I am the one who is responsible towards my children and have to plan according to my economic possibilities" but more "If I have many children, then Allah will give me more work/money so that I can provide food and education to them." Responsibility is outsourced! Quite handy! Is it reality????

• Having more than one wife is a wish to many men. On an individual basis this might be understandable (although it's the first proof of gender inequality! No women will ever be allowed to have more than one man!) but if taking it to the level of a nation it quickly becomes obvious that for every man who has a second wife, there is going to be a man who will not find a wife; is that fair? Expecially: is that selfish behavior as a man fair towards other men?? (imagine 80 million people in a country, 40 million men, 40 million women. 20 million men have 2 wifes, leaving 0 women to be married to the remaining 20 million men!!!). Most of the time the discussion stopped here: the abstraction was too hard to take. Discussing this with a retired teacher the answer was: "in Sudan the population is not 50% men 50% women. There are more women than men." Hmm, I didn't look it up. Presenting him the 50%-50% figure later his answer was: "I don't want to see this. You have to ask yourself who does publish this and what are their interests in doing so!"
  Another man told me that he thought that for a woman there were actually only advantages if her husband had several wifes! Of course Chantal was not within hearing distance when he told me that! And his voice had lowered to a louder whisper, just for that sentence!

• In the Sinai we were invited to stay overnight in a small oasis. Having talked with the two men of which one had a daughter who was around, I asked permission to take a picture of all of them. Permission was granted for the 2 men, but not for the daughter, even if she wore the head scarf! "If you take a picture of her, then any man can look at her. I don't want this!"

• There is a thing called Harraam, which I would freely translate with "loosing your honor / reputation" and it's one of the worst things that can happen, since it does not affect the individual but the whole family. Our understanding is very superficial and crude, so we do apologize for the inexactitudes. Nevertheless it's something that no family wants and will try to recover if it looses it by any means, which includes killing your daughter or son for example! Asking one of our friends to give us an example he explained: "If a daughter (or son) was to kiss a boy (or a girl) without being married, this would be haram and the father or brothers will kill her (or him) to restitute the family honor/reputation!"
  We know all this from the TV and news at home, but hearing it one to one being told to us without hesitation, is very different!

• In Jordan I lived for 2 months with a Norwegian woman, sharing apartment. It didn't work out at all! A Jordanian was totally astonished hearing that we had arguments: "How come you don't get along. You are from the same culture! You must get along!" To him, it seemed, being from the same culture meant we could live together without problems.

So, as a first conclusion: if you don't mind seeing, observing, experiencing and living contradictions and values that are different to yours, then Jordan, Egypt and Sudan will be fascinating places to visit and you will experience one of the greatest hospitalities. And if you mind: it's another culture and it's fascinating to try to understand how people are functioning! What makes them do certain things and not others, why they are where they are, why things are moving the way they are,…