Question about religion and food in the middle east

[boarderfatty]

I was having a discussion about countries in the middle east that follow religious law, mainly Sharia and islamic law. Countries such as Afghanistan, Libya, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Syria, etc.

Since I am not of middle eastern descent, do not know many "brown" people who are recent immigrants or 1st or second generations that follow their culture closely.

I have studied religion a little in University and am somewhat familiar with the Islamic faith and the Qur'an (aka. I am fairly knowledgeable for a redneck cracker from Edmonton), but am not really familiar with the politics of countries that follow these religious laws.

I was wondering what their views and policies are towards practicing other religions inside their borders. Mainly I am interested in christianity. Is there a significant christian population in any of these countries? Are they free to practice their own religion? are they allowed to have to have christian churches? etc. I figure there are probably christian churches on NATO military bases, but am unsure about the rest of the countries. My next question comes to pork. Can you even get pork in countries that follow Religious law?

I have worked for 4 weeks in Saudi, but at that point never really sought out a christian church since I do not practice any form of formal religion and lived in not quite a 'Camp' but a foreign worker community for the particular oil company. From what I remember, the Saudi's weren't really friendly towards foreigners (esp. white) and weren't really open to casual conversation about life. I know I didn't have pork there but I didn't really try to find it.

If anyone who is from there, has lived there for an extended period of time, for work, was in the armed forces, originally from there etc I would appreciate it.

Thanks

Jordanturbo

[turbotrip]

i believe saudi arabia is the only country that doesnt allow formal churches; the christians there use make-shift churches like in peoples houses. all the other countries allow them, and all have native christian populations. but i know you can get pork in Saudi, so if you can get it there im assuming you can get it in all the other countries too.

btw what "camp" did you stay in?

[CUG]

If you're caught smuggling pork in the Sultanate of Oman, they'll stamp your passport "Pork Smuggler", fine you, and send you packing. Like Turbotrip said, in many of them Christians are forbidden from setting up any type of formal place of worship. People who want pork in and around the area usually get it from Bahrain, from what I was told while I was over there. I don't understand the fixation with illegal pork, or why anyone would try to smuggle it.

In a Muslim country, the very idea is to maintain religious dominance, so... you're not going to see a variety of other religious facilities.

[smc]

I have visited churches in Syria, Jordan and Egypt.

[DJ_NAV]

Egypt has a quite a few christians..... i know in dubai they have built the first sikh temple(gurdwara) now.

[Godfuader]

Contrary to popular belief, churches are not secret underground clubs in all Muslim countries. In Karachi, Pakistan, there are over a dozen churches. Here are the pictures of a few around Pakistan.
http://pakistaniat.com/2007/01/02/churches-pakistan-church/

[turbotrip]

Originally posted by CUG

In a Muslim country, the very idea is to maintain religious dominance, so... you're not going to see a variety of other religious facilities.

actually you will see a variety of religious facilities in every muslim country except for saudi arabia

[boarderfatty]

Originally posted by turbotrip
i believe saudi arabia is the only country that doesnt allow formal churches; the christians there use make-shift churches like in peoples houses. all the other countries allow them, and all have native christian populations. but i know you can get pork in Saudi, so if you can get it there im assuming you can get it in all the other countries too.

btw what "camp" did you stay in?

It was the Al Jubayl or something petrochemical plant. I was working under contract for Exxonmobile which I guess didn't own the facility but dealt with some of the operation. Anyways Exxon had living facility for its temporary workers. Basically I worked, ate, and slept, very little else. I hated working there, and worked my ass off to finish my job quick and get the hell out of there. Working in inspection and quality control, I found the facility to be very substandard compared to what I am used to in North America (this facility was built in the late 70's in my guess from the stampings on some vessels) and they were not willing to take any of my advice and treated me poorly. I didn't make it a point to talk to anyone there except a couple guys from texas who were there with exxon as well and had similar sentiments.

[CUG]

Originally posted by turbotrip


actually you will see a variety of religious facilities in every muslim country except for saudi arabia Quit over-exaggerating the regional tolerance. If johnny catholic started erecting churches everywhere, you would lose your shit. I doubt you've even been over there.

[cancer man]

Originally posted by CUG
Quit over-exaggerating the regional tolerance. If johnny catholic started erecting churches everywhere, you would lose your shit. I doubt you've even been over there.

I did a fair bit of traveling in those parts and the only thing i learnt
was don't eat eat food with your left hand when not using cutlery.

Other than that no big issues.As for religion i never got involved
and we drank in only certain areas.

Oh if you really want to be in.. when you see a nice female body give her a nice wolf call.

Happy trails to you.

[JMaj7]

I lived in Pakistan for a long time and never had access to pork but I never went looking for it. I am assuming that it is available because Pakistan has a significant non-Muslim population. I also found that in the bigger cities, in richer areas, people tend to be more secular and it seemed that the further you moved away from these areas, the more fundamental the Muslims get. So when you're by the rich tourist (yea I know) areas, they have supermarkets that probably carry pork and bars that serve alcohol but in other areas they have street markets. No pork in those.

[soccernut]

I figure I would be best to answer this question.

I am an Iraqi-Canadian (Born in Baghdad, lived in Iraq till I was 14, been here since 1997). I was born into a Christian Catholic Family.

Basically this is how it works in Iraq:

- There "used to be" a large number of Christians in Iraq and we were allowed to build churches and practice our religion. Used to be over a million Iraqi Christians but they all have moved to North America and Australia since they have been facing more and more prosecution from extremists in Iraq.

- You are only allowed to be Christian if you are born into the religion. You are prosecuted and punished with death if you are to "defect" from Islam.

- You can find pork but it was very hard to find since the majority of people did no want it. (No demand = no supply)

Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, Palestine all have a much larger ratio of Christians and they have equality with Islam (More so in Lebanon and less in Jordan). In fact I believe that Lebanon is considered a Christian country. All those countries have many many churches and monasteries and openly practice Christianity.


Saudi is the worst when it comes to that. I have seen somewhere that they have gone as far as having separate highway exits for "non-believers" to prevent them from stepping foot on the holy land. you can forget about finding a church or pork on their land.

I am not too familiar with the gulf countries since I have not visited any of them.

[charizard]

you can get pork there

[turbotrip]

Originally posted by CUG
Quit over-exaggerating the regional tolerance. If johnny catholic started erecting churches everywhere, you would lose your shit. I doubt you've even been over there.

haha the fact is I speak from experience, having spent a long time in the middle east, while you might have watched a segment on fox news or had a few day stopover one time

[dandia89]

Originally posted by CUG
Quit over-exaggerating the regional tolerance. If johnny catholic started erecting churches everywhere, you would lose your shit. I doubt you've even been over there.
you seem to have such a hateon for islam, i can't really expect any other type of post from you.

you speak as if you have lived there and know exactly what's going on