Islamic fundamentalist elevator music.
Apr. 12th, 2009 08:13 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mattbellMy hotel elevator in Aswan plays somber Koranic chants when I get in. When I took a bus ride from Dahab to Luxor, the bus TV showed a full hour of slow pans of people on Hajj pilgrimage set to somber Koranic chants. When I watched TV in Wadi Musa, Jordan, a long series of music videos involving curvy women mixing belly dance moves with pop music was interrupted by a video showing prayers in a mosque, sword dances, jet fighters dropping bombs, and some political figure kissing babies, all set to....
...somber Koranic chants.
Originally Islam was a religion that emphasized a personal submission to God, and it rapidly rose in popularity among the masses because it wasn't mediated via a religious bureaucracy that protected the ruling class. That didn't last long. Apparently the division over Shi'ites and Sunnis is primarily over a 1300-year-old succession struggle that occurred shortly after Mohammed's death. That's more or less it... there are no substantive differences in belief. They've been killing each other over this for over a millennium.
...somber Koranic chants.
Originally Islam was a religion that emphasized a personal submission to God, and it rapidly rose in popularity among the masses because it wasn't mediated via a religious bureaucracy that protected the ruling class. That didn't last long. Apparently the division over Shi'ites and Sunnis is primarily over a 1300-year-old succession struggle that occurred shortly after Mohammed's death. That's more or less it... there are no substantive differences in belief. They've been killing each other over this for over a millennium.
