To the long list of things that everyone else loves but that Muslims are supposed to hate democracy, dogs, women with uncovered hair we can now add yoga. A council of muftis in Malaysia issued a fatwa over the weekend banning yoga for Muslims, claiming that the sweaty ‘Oms’ and other Hindu elements of a standard 60-minute yoga class could “destroy the faith of a Muslim.” For a moment, this news had me selfishly worried. I’ve been contorting myself into reverse triangle across the Middle East for about a decade, and I fretted that all my favorite yoga centers and teachers might get hassled by morality police types
Tag Archives: spirituality
The Biology of Belief
Most folks probably couldn’t locate their parietal lobe with a map and a compass. For the record, it’s at the top of your head aft of the frontal lobe, fore of the occipital lobe, north of the temporal lobe. What makes the parietal lobe special is not where it lives but what it does particularly concerning matters of faith