Breaking News - Allegedly 10 people killed at office of satirical magazine in Paris

Elegran the customs of covering the body and head and face are cultural, not doctrinal. Muslims are instructed to dress modestly, men and women. How 'modestly' is interpreted depends on local traditions and social pressure. Women from the Punjab wear very similar traditional dress whatever their religious background and so do women from Bangla-desh. I could point to many other examples. This practice of totally covering women spread out from Saudi Arabia and there is a distinct difference between the generations, which Yasmin Alibai-Brown wrote about yesterday (link above).

Thank you Elegran

Another time, could you ask questions like that on the thread I started Elegran?

I think soontobe may be in close contact with people with special needs. You are right, soontobe when you say that it is lovely to see those people with a central purpose to their lives, and reaching out to make contact with others.

It was just that it is common knowledge in the UK (and elsewhere) that Muslim women are expected to wear a hijab (a scarf tied so as to cover all their hair) when they are anywhere that men other than their close family will see them. They wear long sleeves too.

Usually they wear them from their teens (when it is assumed that men will notice them) but sometimes really tiny girls appear, all wrapped up like a parcel in the hijab - it must make it difficult for them to run and play as a child should.

The hijab is very like the headwear that nuns wear - or used to wear, a lot of them now go bare-headed.

Really devout Muslim women wear a burka, a shapeless black garment which covers them from head to toe, the face too, with just a mesh panel across their eyes so that they can see where they are going.

The result of all this covering up is that the sun cannot reach their skin. sunshine is essential for the body to make vitamin D for strong bones, so these women can become so short of it that their bones are weak, and they get rickets.

I haven't followed all of this thread but how/where does the reference to people with special needs fit in? Who are you referring to soon? Have I missed something?

I didnt realise that gransnet is exclusively highbrow?

And their faith is as deep and as meaningful as other christians. It is lovely to see.

I live in the UK
I dont live in an enclosed order!
I dont know that much about other religions, probably about the same as the average person.
Personally I would say that I know more about christianity than the average person, quite a lot more. People with special needs are and can become christians.

soontobe Forgive me if I am being nosy, but where do you live ? (approximately - don't be exact) And have you spent your entire life so far in an enclosed order? Because you don't seem to know very much about other religions except your own, and you only have the basic teachings about that.

Mishap I too am an ordinary law-abiding citizen who wouldn't dream of shooting anyone.

I'm also upset and annoyed at things that go on in this free country, such as the proliferation of state-funded faith schools, and am very offended when I see 4-year old schoolgirls in hijabs.

But how much right do I have to be permanently offended, insulted, hurt, etc?

I have to accept that other people, legally, do things differently.

Ref. soon's post: "It is darn darn difficult at times to Love Thy Neighbour as yourself. They will get repaid by God accordingly, if they do not repent." It would seem that we mortals have to put in the effort to love and forgive, but god is allowed to wreak the sort of vengeance that we might sometimes feel is appropriate but are exhorted not to do!

As I have said before, the danger with religion is that it deals in fundamentals and thus has the tendency to drift towards fundamentalism. The best way forward for many is to just seek to be kind.

How best to deal with these fundamentalists? I do not have an answer, but poking them with a stick does not seem a great idea. On Midlands Today yesterday they were talking to ordinary muslim members of the community and they were saying the terrorism is wrong and expressing their sympathy with the victims of the shootings, but that they were very unhappy about what they saw as insults to their prophet. These are ordinary law-abiding people who would not dream of shooting anyone. But even they are feeling aggrieved. Less stable and younger elements in their communities may not have the same restraint and wisdom.

In the main we all know what would upset and annoy others and we try not to do these things. Seems reasonable to me.

And there are quite a lot of easy clues available about how to be offensive to Jews, Muslims, Christians, Buddhists, Hindus....I could go on but I don't think it's necessary, is it?

absent please give an example.

"who don't share any identifiable characteristic except not believing there's a god."

Yes! That is so it! How can people be so vehement about - nothing?

Absent perhaps you need to read my post again.

I'm not sure who you mean by "we" Lilygran. There are certainly aggressive Christian evangelists in the big wide world who are hugely publicly offensive to those who don't agree with them, including atheists and agnostics.

It's tricky for those of us who don't believe in any gods to know exactly who among a "whole lot of people" we might "upset" by our comments either.

Being upset is not a big deal – and certainly shouldn't involve bullets.

But we're not deliberately trying to be offensive to you, are we, bags? And it's not reasonable to expect us to try to second guess everything that might upset a whole lot of people (like you) who don't share any identifiable characteristic except not believing there's a god.

Oh, and before anyone jumps in with complaints about lack of respect, just note, please, that not respecting religion is not the same as not respecting people who have faith in a religon. Once again, it's important to distinguish between respect for people and respect for ideas or things.

Good article in Guardian this morning about how much of religion is offensive to people like me but it doesn't drive us to violence and murder. Suzanne Moore nails it with talk of the reciprocity of responsibility.

jingl Re your comment about trading deals – IS is probably the richest terrorist group in the world, but not very rich in terms of being a state or caliphate, which is what they aspire to. Most of their money comes from oil – who buys it?

Thank you Jane

Anya, yes He does.

What an excellent piece of journalism.

A bit scary. Lots of fear about, especially for women, but men too.

I didnt realise that their faith didnt mean that they had to wear headscarves. Again, poor women.

I do believe Yasmin is very brave to have written that.

I do most sincerely hope there are no repercussions for her. I tip my hat to her. Pity more don"t feel the same.

Thank you POGS and janeainsworth

The same worries postulated by this muslim writer were aired on a TV programme this week. Violent extremism is bad enough but the growth of non-violent conservative Islam is just as worrying as it is creating a 'them and us' culture within the muslim communities of the UK. This was also highlighted in the 'Trojan Horse' incident in Birmingham schools and no doubt in other schools that exist within a muslim monoculture.