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| Muslim women in NC head to secluded pool |
| 2009-01-10 |
| Salman Sheikh was organizing a swim class for his two sons last summer when fellow Muslim parents approached him about starting a class for girls. Sheikh told them he would ask the Curran Aquatic Center in Cary, N.C., whether it could accommodate a group of Muslims who preferred a women-only pool. Yes, of course, the leaders of the aquatic center said, and showed him a 15-yard pool that could be rented for $170 an hour. Problem was, the small pool overlooked a larger, Olympic-size pool, and Sheikh wondered whether the center could provide blinds to cover the windows and shield the women from onlookers. Sure, the center’s leaders said, but it would cost $3,000 for custom-made blinds. Sheikh was ready to drop the idea. But the Muslim community in Raleigh, N.C., and Cary wouldn’t let him. Within a month, Sheikh, a native of Pakistan who works as a project manager for the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services, raised the money and signed up 35 women for the first class. Last month, a group of women of all ages dipped their toes into the water for the first time. This type of accommodation to the religious requirements of their faith is something Muslims are seeing more. All-Muslim Boy Scout and Girl Scout troops have cropped up across the country. Muslims are entering politics, studying Islam at major American universities, even finding halal, or ritually slaughtered foods, at local stores. “I see this as a sign of Muslims learning to operate within American civic institutions,” said Omid Safi, a professor of Islamic studies at UNC-Chapel Hill. Many devout Muslim women adhere to their faith’s requirements to guard their modesty, which for them means covering their hair and bodies in the presence of men who aren’t their relatives. By doing so, they believe they are deflecting the desires and gazes of the opposite sex and living the kind of life the Prophet Muhammad might have approved. In mostly Muslim countries, it is common to have separate pools for men and women. But in the United States that’s virtually unheard of, and as a result many Muslim women grow up not knowing how to swim. Saleha Bhatti of Raleigh, who accompanied her 16-year-old daughter, Sanaa, to the swim class, said that was the case in her family. Had she stayed in Pakistan, she might have taken lessons at a women’s pool, but in the United States, it wasn’t an option. “We never had the chance to learn,” Bhatti said. Jenny Jaber, a convert to Islam who lives in Raleigh, said learning to swim should not be a luxury. Indeed, she said, learning to swim is encouraged in the oral sayings of the Prophet Muhammad, known as the hadith. “I’ve wanted to waterproof this community for a long time,” said Jaber, who worked as a water safety instructor until she converted. “We’re around water all the time, and it unnerves me to see these women standing on piers.” Many of the women came dressed in full-length Burkinis, swimming costumes that looks much like a scuba-diving suit but are made of water-protected polyester rather than rubber. |
| Posted by:ryuge |
| #10 Works well here, too. Amish, Hutterites, Navajo, Caliphornians, etc. |
| Posted by: Nimble Spemble 2009-01-10 21:32 |
| #9 Nice, a parallel society. Why not. It works so well for France! Oh... wait... |
| Posted by: CrazyFool 2009-01-10 20:26 |
| #8 If the Boy Scout troop was sponsored by a mosque, then most or all of the scouts would be Muslim. When I was a scout, my troop was sponsored by my Catholic parish; as far as I knew, all the scouts were Catholic. It's not clear if they excluded infidel scouts from the troop. |
| Posted by: Rambler in Virginia 2009-01-10 20:22 |
| #7 Hey, they want to pay for their own special requirements, go for it. I just don't want them imposing their BS on me and/or expecting me to pay for the privilege. |
| Posted by: Cornsilk Blondie 2009-01-10 19:54 |
| #6 All-Muslim Boy Scout and Girl Scout troops ? WTF? Why would Boy Scouts need to be segregated? Do they go on rocket launching outings or something? |
| Posted by: bigjim-ky 2009-01-10 16:38 |
| #5 As long as they pay their own way, I don't care. |
| Posted by: mojo 2009-01-10 14:31 |
| #4 You should be thankful for not having to see Muslim women in bikini, tu3031. |
| Posted by: g(r)omgoru 2009-01-10 12:56 |
| #3 This type of accommodation to the religious requirements of their faith is something Muslims are seeing more. Yeah. Try not doing it and see what happens. |
| Posted by: tu3031 2009-01-10 11:09 |
| #2 Nice, a parallel society. |
| Posted by: hammerhead 2009-01-10 11:00 |
| #1 How about whites only or blacks only swim days? Or is that somehow different, infidel? |
| Posted by: ed 2009-01-10 09:46 |