GHS208-05 Fall 2019 China and the Islamic Middle East

While watching the documentary “Not Without My Veil: Amongst the women of Oman” there was the segment that was an excerpt from the Qur’an about marriage, in which Muahammed stated to have multiple wives. Then, later in the documentary, it said that Muhammed refuted what he said about having multiple wives and said that men should only have one wife because he would not be able to treat all of the wives the same. Although it makes sense on maybe why Muhammed changed what he thought about marriage and how many wives one should have, I was wondering if this has caused some people who follow Islam to follow what Muhammed first said, and have multiple wives; or if they follow what he stated later about only having one wife. So, I did some research to see if polygamy is practiced in Islam because I seem to remember learning once that it was. I then found this website that explained the practice of polygamy in Islam more in-depth. https://islamfaith.com/polygamy-in-islam-why-can-a-muslim-man-marry-multiple-wives/ This website explained that some Muslims have multiple wives, but the Qur’an has rules for how polygamy is done in Islam. The Qur’an says that men can have up to four wives but must be able to provide food, water, shelter, and a good life to each wife. If a man can not provide those things to all of his wives, he can not have that many. In the documentary, it made it seem like Muhammed said that nobody could practice polygamy, but that is not the case and I found that quite interesting.

The reading in Aslan’s book and the discussion in class about Sufism was particularly intriguing to me. The video we watched made me a little sick though, and I have a lot of respect for all the people who participate in that kind of worship and dedication. The idea of trying to lose yourself to have a more personal experience with God is interesting. But I really liked the aspect that each person has their own special and unique path finding God and not everybody’s path may look the same. I think that is cool because I feel like sometimes monotheistic religions can be very “black and white” depending on how strict one follows the religion, but Sufism is for that personal experience. There are not humanly distractions like worrying about judgement, etc. because you are in the process of removing yourself from the experience anyways. I was surprised to read that the Sufis are suffering political prosecution because some consider Sufism a polytheistic religion. I guess I don’t understand why some believe that because they are trying to connect with God, not gods.

I took the South Shore Line into Chicago over break, and took Reza Aslan’s book to read on the ride. With the title “No god but God” and the Kaaba in Mecca emblazoned on the cover, it’s pretty clear that it’s about Islam with one quick glance. As soon as I got on the train and took it out of my bag, I felt slightly nervous and self-conscious. What if someone approached me to talk about Islam? The thought that I could have a pleasant and/or informative discussion with a stranger about religion was kind of exciting, as I feel prepared to have an intelligent, polite, and respectful conversation about Islam—but what if I ran into someone who wasn’t so nice? What if someone wanted to spout hate and Islamophobia to my face because of the book in my lap? I am not a confrontational person, and on a train where you can’t really escape a conversation, I found this possibility scary.

But I immediately felt silly as I realized—what if I was a woman who wore a hijab? What if I was a man who wore a turban? (A Sikh tradition, but a group that still faces hate against Islam due to a common lack of religious literacy.) The way that these people dress is much more on display than the title of the book I’m carrying. It’s so terrible that it must take bravery every day to just exist as they feel comfortable, in a public world that may not receive them kindly. It made me much more empathetic to how these people must feel getting on a train, or walking into a grocery store, or going to the movies. I was immediately embarrassed that it took my personal experience of a much less visible situation to open my eyes more to this. While I felt I was considerate of the plight of people whose religion and beliefs are on visual display, something that I have always the privilege of not nonverbally announcing myself, I think that I can feel even more deeply for them now, even just a little.

I always knew that there were many cultural differences between America and other places when it came to marriage. We even saw it in the China unit when we learned about arranged marriages and how the women oftentimes have no say in who they end up marrying. These types of differences were also seen many times in The Cairo House. Oftentimes, when there was talk about a young girl and who she might marry, there was talk about setting her up with one of her cousins. When Gina wanted to marry someone other than who she was “supposed to,” she was told to leave. She ended up doing just that, which shows that compared to in China, the women had at least some say, since they were given the option to either “follow the rules” or leave.

One thing I found interesting was when Gigi wanted a divorce from Yussef, she wasn’t allowed to actually divorce him, he had to go through all the work. That made it hard, and she even resorted to running away and leaving the country just so she wouldn’t have to be around the man she didn’t want to be married to anymore. Eventually, they did officially get divorced, but it would have gone so much smoother if Gigi had been allowed to initiate it herself.

Here in America, anyone can get divorced from their spouse whenever they want. I obviously have never been through a divorce and I was too young to understand the logistics of how it worked when my parents went through a divorce when I was 8, but I do know it is much easier, since the wife can file for divorce if she wants to, and doesn’t have to wait until her husband decides that he wants to divorce too. I also found the difference interesting, because I can recall my dad moving out of our house while my siblings and I stayed with our mom, but there was no running away or fleeing the country. My dad just moved across town and we would go stay with him every so often. I always think these cultural differences are interesting, but there are some aspects that I would have never thought of if we didn’t have to read The Cairo House.

While watching the documentary “Not Without My Veil; Amongst the Women of Oman” I realized that I have a lot of my own preconceptions about women in the Middle East that practice Islam. Although my preconceptions have changed greatly throughout a project that I did last year about women in the Middle East and in this course, I still have a lot of things that I thought happened to women in the Middle East that is not true. I have always almost had a level of pity for women in the middle east the practice Islam. I used to think that women basically had no rights and that they were very unhappy in marriages that they were forced into. But, this is just not the case and this perception is a very western perception of a place and religion that I just did not know very much about before. Women in Oman that are part of the Islam religion are very empowered and have high up jobs, they have some say in who they marry, and they take great pride in the religion that they follow that the customs that come along with the religion. I found it very interesting when the woman was talking at the beginning about how she felt out of place not wearing the Veil and when she put it on it brought her large amounts of comfort. I always viewed the veil as something that women had to do and did not want to, but for that woman, it was something that brought her comfort and made her feel as she was fitting in. Another misconception that I had was that women do not have “good” jobs in the Middle East and that they were mostly just stay at home mothers. But, when the woman was talking about how she led a team of many males, I was shocked. I had no idea that women have such high roles in jobs in Oman and that my misconception was very off. My past views were not necessarily negative of the Islam religion and women, it was more that I had pity for the women that did not have the same rights as I. But, after viewing this documentary I learned that although our lives are different, many women in the Middle East that practice Islam are happy with their lives and they have many of the same rights that I do.

During my time at IPS Newcomer on Wednesday, I decided to go early since I had got out of my class early. I went from 11:30-2pm this time. Even though, its only by 30 minutes of extra time I got to meet students I hadn’t met before. It was still an english course but the students were younger as well as, many of them needed a translator in the class since they were not familiar with english at all. Since my Spanish is not the very best I really couldn’t help a lot but I observed how the two teachers worked together to make sure the students understood the directions. Once that class ended I went back to Mr. Gaunce and stayed in there during my normal timeframe. After the bell rang, Mr. G talked about the #redfored since the students didn’t have to attend school on that Tuesday. Mr. G said how many people showed and how wonderful it was to see that much support for Indiana teachers. Then he turned to the material from last week which was over Julia Alvarez but this time students were instructed to write an essay over the article on their own. He gave the students 20 minutes to write the paper and then turn it in. Once they were finished they were able to talk about Thanksgiving since it was approaching. The students of course got excited because its a day where they don’t have to go to school. I also was excited because who isn’t when you get a break.

Once english class was finished the next period was Math Advisory. I was thinking they would still be doing volume since that has been the focus the past couple weeks but they just changed it to Area… Which you would think its easy but for them the formula for area is very similar to volume. Therefore, on my part explaining area to them was just as difficult when it came to volume. Anyways, I was able to teach at least one student how to calculate area even if it was just that one student.

As the semester is nearing the end, I have really enjoyed my time at IPS Newcomer. Even though this course was for a credit I wouldn’t mind coming back just to help the students and stay involved with the community around Butler. At first I thought this wouldn’t connect at all to China or Islam, but I was thinking to literally. Many cultures connect not just based on whether its religion or traditions, in the IPS Newcomer many students struggled with education, culture shock, as well as, with the language barrier. Anyone who is placed into an environment that is unlike their own will go through struggles and challenges to adjust to their new life, wherever they settle. Although, it didn’t directly tie to those who originate from Islam or China, similarities in struggles can tie the cultures together.

On Sunday, November 17, I was able to attend the Diversity Drum, Song, and Dance Interactive Village performance. This program was sponsored by Butler University Center or Citizenship and Community. I really enjoyed attending this event because I enjoyed hearing the different drums and rhythms that were being played and learning about some of the African culture that was presented to us throughout the program. The program included students, the adults, who had taught the students, and the audience. The whole program was interactive and we, the audience, were encouraged to participate throughout the program. Before the program had begun, Sister Stella, founder of the Cultural Diversity Drum Circle (CDDC), passed out some of their extra drums to the audience and if you did not have a drum we were encouraged to drum along on the desks as we were in Jordan Hall 141. 

When I was walking through Jordan, I could hear drumming from down the hall before I had even gotten to the room. I enjoyed being able to listen to some of the drumming before the actual performance had begun. I think my favorite part of the program was the Basket Balancing Dance. Before the dance had begun, Sister Stella had given some background about the dance. She had told us that, now, there is a basket balancing competition. This competition takes place in Uganda on July 2nd and is to help girls to learn to support themselves. Basket balancing has become a sort of sport and I admire those women who can do it while performing other tasks. This part of the performance consisted of students and Sister Stella dancing to the beat of the drums while balancing the baskets on their heads. It looked like all the students were having fun while doing it, and each of them had a chance to perform by themselves. 

Another part of the performance I really enjoyed was the different poems read by Adam. Adam is a professor working at Indiana University and he shared one original poem and then read some poems from writes who are incarcerated. During his time upfront, I was impressed with his delivery of the poems. I am not claiming to know much about poetry, but with my limited knowledge, I enjoyed listening to him and all that he was saying. 

Unfortunately, I was not able to stay until the very end of the program and missed the last speech and the Harvest Dance, I enjoyed the concert and would definitely recommend anyone to go if they have the opportunity. If you are interested in participating in the drum circle, they practice in South Campus on Sundays from 3-5 and at 5:30 at North Liberty Christian Church on Wednesday. 

As a part of the website we hope to construct for this course, my group and I wanted to dedicate a section to Chinese food in Indianapolis. We not only wanted to try it ourselves and experience a little bit more of an authentic culture compared to Panda Express (which is great and I would never sleep on it), but we also wanted to give you real reviews you can trust more so than the moms who write and yelp and the Karens who just want to speak to a manager. Last night we kicked off of our feasting with Lucky Lou Seafood and Dimsum over off 38^th and Lafayette Road, maybe 10 minutes from campus.

We ended up getting some chicken fried rice, sesame chicken, beef lo mein, veggies, and pot stickers to share. We thought it was a little expensive looking at the prices, but when they brought us our food we knew we would have meals for days. I really loved the sesame chicken, the sauce was awesome and the complete right consistency and viscosity, I do not even want to know how much sugar is in it. I personally found the chicken fried rice very bland, but I tend to prefer fried rice from a Japanese steakhouse where they cook it hibachi style, so I do not think much will compare. The pot stickers were pork and veggie and they definitely held their own. Overall, the restaurant was really quite authentic for being in a rundown strip mall in the Westside of Indy. They had some of the more ornate décor and had Chinese pop music videos playing on the television. If you are struggling to imagine this, think any pop song you have ever heard, MTV playing 2000s style music videos, and then a traditional Chinese restaurant. It was quite an experience, but overall the food was good, and I would have like to have tried more of a sampler platter or had a bigger group where we all got different things. Would recommend if you are into more authentic Chinese takeout.

This past Friday at Newcomer was a typical Friday in the science classroom. One of the things that was the most shocking to me was the struggle that students had figuring out how to create a line graph. I always grew up with the perception that math and science were taught universally across the globe. You don’t really need to understand the language to understand the concepts as much as you would in other subjects. The students really struggled with grasping the idea of finding a point on the graph with two data points. This struggle made me reflect on the differences in education systems across the world. I decided to do some research into Islamic countries to relate educational systems to our readings and studies this semester.

Saudi Arabia, a predominantly Muslim country was established in 1932. At the time, education was only available to a few children coming from wealthy families. The education system today consists of over 50 public and private schools that are open to all citizens (both male and female). The Qur’an teaches the importance of education and education has a strong root in the Middle East stemming from the Golden Age. The study of Islam is at the core of the educational system which also includes a focus on modern fields of arts and sciences. The school system must balance the countries religious, social, and economic needs. General education consists of kindergarten 6 years of primary school and 3 years of intermediate/high school. The literacy rate in Saudi Arabia is 94.84%.

On the other hand, Afghanistan is a country that has been ravaged by war and conflicts that have negatively impacted the education system. There have been many reconstruction efforts in Afghanistan since the fall of the Taliban in 2001 that have led to some progress. Prior to 2002 less than one million students were enrolled in school and they were mostly boys. Gender inequality is one of the biggest problems in the education system due to traditional beliefs, lack of female teachers, and lack of proper sanitation facilities in all-girl schools. Currently there are approximately nine million children enrolled in school and at least 39% of them are female, however, these numbers include absent students who have not returned to school in the past 3 years. Education in Afghanistan is still very hard to attain (especially in rural areas) due to geographical and cultural boundaries. Afghanistan has one of the lowest literacy rates in the area – 38%.

My time at IPS has taught me that an education is one of the most important gifts that we receive and it is not to be taken for granted. I hope to one day become involved with an organization that helps provide education to children in countries like Afghanistan because an education can truly change a life. The children in the IPS Newcomer program are learning many necessary skills in addition to language that will help them in their future. Increasing access and quality of education can truly change a country.

When we discussed Sufism in class I thought it was an interesting subject. Upon doing further research I realized that I didn’t fully understand the whole idea of Sufism when we went over it in class. I understand the dance and how it had significance within the religion of Islam, but I didn’t get the spiritual and mystical side of the tradition. I thought this was interesting and continued to do more research I realized that a practice trying to find divine love and knowledge is found in other religions outside of Islam. Similar practices can be found in Christianity, Judaism, and Hinduism. I was definitely not expecting to discover all this new information after discussing it in class.