Word: yoga
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...long list of things that everyone else loves but that Muslims are supposed to hate - democracy, dogs, women with uncovered hair - we can now add yoga. A council of muftis in Malaysia issued a fatwa over the weekend banning yoga for Muslims, claiming that the sweaty 'Oms' and other Hindu elements of a standard 60-minute yoga class could "destroy the faith of a Muslim...
...moment, this news had me selfishly worried. I've been contorting myself into reverse triangle across the Middle East for about a decade, and I fretted that all my favorite yoga centers and teachers might get hassled by morality police types. I also worried about my friends who do yoga - if there is one thing the stressed out populations of cities like Tehran, Baghdad, and Cairo really don't need, it's the loss of a safe, indoor means of relaxation. Fortunately, I suspect the muftis' edict comes far too late. Muslims, at least those of the Middle East, have...
...Iran, where cheerless clerics have inveighed against everything from poodles to the pants-tucked-into-boots look, yoga is popular enough to warrant its own magazines and the government has made no fuss (but thanks for bringing it to their attention, muftis of Malaysia!). Across the country, including religious cities like Mashhad, there are thousands of yoga classes held each week, and there is a class for every yogi: for children, the elderly, the overweight, the spiritual. There are contemplative, patchouli-scented yoga centers, austere Iyengar centers for the very serious, and flow classes in gyms for women in chic...
...Iranian love affair with yoga is a complex thing, born of many factors. There's the general disenchantment with strict, orthodox Islam and the accompanying pull to alternative forms of spirituality. There are strictures that women face in exercising outside covered, and the appeal of gentle, indoor sport. Add to all that yoga's global fashionableness and Iranians' high rates of anxiety and depression, and you have the first genuinely yoga savvy middle-class in the entire Middle East...
...destroy the faith of a Muslim.' ABDUL SHUKOR HUSIN, National Fatwa Council chairman, explaining why Malaysia's top Islamic body ruled on Nov. 22 against the practice of yoga by Muslims...