Word: yoga
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...Arab Middle East, yoga is pretty much still the domain of yuppies. During a stint studying ashtanga in Cairo, my classmates were either expatriates or Egyptians who had returned from the West. In Beirut, the city's largest yoga center occupied a gorgeous old building in the Christian quarter, and drew a sophisticated mix of Christians and Muslims alike. The Lebanese, however, tend to prefer gym yoga. Attending a yoga class at one of the city's many posh fitness centers means that ministers can chat on their yoga mats, and pop stars can show off their headstands, a convenient...
...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...
...once, in all my years in Tehran, did I hear anyone suggest yoga might be incompatible with Islam. Indeed, the city's packed yoga classes overflowed with believers, instructors who started class by venerating the Prophet Muhammad on his birthday, Ramadan classes where everyone was fasting and went all noodlely by the end. Most seemed sensible enough to realize you could lower or raise the spirituality volume of yoga as you pleased, and that doing downward facing dog didn't make you a bad Muslim. One of my girlfriends even attended a Sufi yoga class where the teacher played...