https://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/women ... story.html

An interesting TV documentary, if you can find it still.

I know that the 'modesty" customs in the Arabian peninsula are pre islamic in nature, but you'll have to admit that islam has kept them up to a high degree... as to their origins, I can't tell, I don't think we have much in the way of Akkadian or other antique middle east depiction of women... at least, I don't remember seeing any such in the Oriental Antiquities section of the Louvre, whereas the Egyptian, Greek and Roman sections provide quite a bit of nude or scantily clothed female flesh

Keep It Real wrote:Well, that's told me! Can't compete with an argument of that depth and sophistication. Given your immense knowledge of this topic it will doubtless not surprise you to learn that I have zero interest in the fact you have little interest in how good this thread is. I'll milk a stray cat later in your honour, oh mighty Blackadder.

The main driving force behind Islam is the omnipresence of Allah. There is no aspect of life for a Muslim that is not conducted by how Allah wishes it to be or any event that is not regarded with fatalism. Female infidelity is a particular obsession of Arabs from the Saudi peninsula, I agree, but this actually pre-dates Islam and is a cultural phenomenon as much as it is religious. It may be what seems most obvious to an outside observer but in the daily life of Muslims, it is simply a given, not the overriding concern.

I have no qualifications in the subject other than that I was a Muslim for the first 45 years of my life and studied it fairly intensely for a good part of that time.

Svartalf wrote:I know that the 'modesty" customs in the Arabian peninsula are pre islamic in nature, but you'll have to admit that islam has kept them up to a high degree... as to their origins, I can't tell, I don't think we have much in the way of Akkadian or other antique middle east depiction of women... at least, I don't remember seeing any such in the Oriental Antiquities section of the Louvre, whereas the Egyptian, Greek and Roman sections provide quite a bit of nude or scantily clothed female flesh

We do! Follow the link to the BBC show, or try to find and watch The Accent of Women to the very end, it's quite a story. One Muslim lady was inconsolable when the Sumerian (not Akkad, my bad) stone tablet was translated for her and she saw that girls were shackled with hijab, not empowered by it.

Ooopsy.