A Lesson in Islam

After a few days of getting settled into our task of watching the girls, Janey and I decided to take a morning road trip the neighboring Emirate of Abu Dhabi to visit the Sheik Zayed Grand Mosque, newly finished and considered one of the biggest in the world (go figure). It also is only one of three mosques in all the Emirates that allows infidels like my mother and myself to enter.

Here is what she had to wear to enter:

(the convert leaving, maybe never to be seen again)

Constructed with materials and artistic influence from around the world, the mosque's size and white grandiose exterior was enough to awe even the most secular minded. The inside of the mosque contained a 47 ton Persian carpet that allowed room for 20,000 worshippers, with room for 20,000 more outside. During a 3 hour period between prayer sessions, Janey and I, along with about 75 other visitors were allowed to view the mosque in its entirety with the accompaniment of a female muslim tour guide, who, interesting enough, appeared to be a British expat. It was one of the more informative tours I have been on and lended me a great deal of information on Islam that I did not know. Leading groups of visitors comprising mostly of educated Westerners, the guide had the difficult task of espousing Islam's supposedly progressive stance on gender equality without running into the minefield of contradictions; providing weak explanations for why women are required to worship in a seperate area of the mosque, why men are allowed several wives and not vice-versa, and why women must remain covered. But, like a female tour guide at a Catholic Cathedral trying to justify why she can't be a priest, minor issues like being a second-class member of an institution didn't seem to faze the devotion.
Need more proof of the inherently unequal standards?--check out the phallic symbol pictured below:)

Back in Dubai, things are going well. My main function in the daytime revolves mostly around driving the girls to and from school. A lot of car time. Lets just say that I now know the new Miley Cyrus album like the back of my hand. Although, when it's just Ava (the infant) and I in the car, I have been trying to introduce her to the wonders of Steve Winwood and all his 80's glory.

The one road block experienced so far that is sure to be a mainstay of my middle eastern tour is the access to liquid spirits. Although alcohol is forbidden in Muslim societies, Dubai has partially relaxed the doctrine, to allow their foriegn residents to imbibe (money has a funny way of doing such things). Even with this "relaxed" law, all alcohol serving establishments have to be part of a hotel or resort, keeping the average price of a brewskie around $9 (ouch!) or the alternative being that you need a liqour license to buy alcohol at the local sin dens or liqour stores in Dubai. Not in possession of a liqour license, I pulled a stunt reminiscent of the early high school years and did some old fashioned shoulder-tapping outside of the liqour store. Buying wine never felt so clandestine.

Distilling some bathtub gin,

Brian