Sex Education in Yemen

Anthropology/Sociology, Gender and Sexuality, Teaching Resources, Yemen


Photography by Boushra al-Moutawakel

from Yemen Times, June 24, 2013

It’s a sensitive subject in this conservative and religiously observant country. Who is talking about safe sex? In a recent online survey carried out by the organization Time to Talk, lasting 11 days—from May 11 to May 22, 2013—the organization asked 300 Yemenis that question, among others. Here are the results of their survey:

More men than women completed the survey, approximately 93 percent men and 7 percent women, all of them holding Yemeni nationality and spread over different age groups, with the largest prevalence among the 19-25 age group (28 percent), and less participation on the part of people in the age of 15-18 (6.12 percent).

The Yemeni respondents cannot be considered to be a representative sample of the Yemeni population because while there are currently as many males resident in Yemen as there are females, the number of men who voluntarily took part in our survey outnumbered the women, with an account for approximately 93 percent of all respondents.

However, almost all age groups present in the Yemeni population are well represented in our group: 19-25 (28.57 percent), 26-30 (19.39 percent), 30-35 (23.24), 36-40 (13.27 percent). The Yemeni age groups least well-presented were young people aged between 15-18 (6.12 percent) and the over 40’s (9.18 percent). Of those who responded to the survey, 54.17 percent are single and 45.83 percent are married. Continue reading Sex Education in Yemen →

Not so Fast

Algeria, Ethics, Islamic Rituals

As the month of Ramadan draws to a close, the ethical dissonance that now overshadows just about everything else in the Middle East is evident in the daily news. Muslims are dying daily from suicide bombs strapped to the waists of fellow Muslims, military bullets in Egypt and Syria, as well as sectarian violence just about everywhere. The focus during this month of Ramadan is on fasting, a temporary denial of the basic necessities (food water and sex) for a period of time under the sun. But it would be much better if the fasting extended to a moratorium on all violence.

Islam did not invent the idea of fasting, which was once a major ritual in both Judaism and Christianity. One might argue that contemporary Catholic Lent is a watered-down version, playing fast and loose with the more rigorous traditions of the past. In Islam fasting is one of the so-called five pillars, a ritual that most Muslims believe is essential for the believer. The Quran is quite clear on this:

Ramadhan is the (month) in which was sent down the Qur’an, as a guide to mankind, also clear (Signs) for guidance and judgment (Between right and wrong). So every one of you who is present (at his home) during that month should spend it in fasting, but if any one is ill, or on a journey, the prescribed period (Should be made up) by days later. Allah intends every facility for you; He does not want to put to difficulties. (He wants you) to complete the prescribed period, and to glorify Him in that He has guided you; and perchance ye shall be grateful. Surat al-Baqara (2:185)

The fact that there are exceptions (while traveling, women who are pregnant or breastfeeding or menstruating, taking necessary medicine, etc.) indicates that there has always been flexibility built into the ritual. In these cases the rule is that the fast be made up at another time in the year. Some individuals (a child before puberty, or someone who is insane or even a person who has a terminal illness) are not obliged to fast at all, nor to make up any fasting days.

But how much flexibility? What if a Muslim chooses not to fast for a reason other than those laid out in centuries of Islamic fiqh? Continue reading Not so Fast →

Muslim Journeys

Film and Video, Folklore and Proverbs, Islam in America, Islam: Introduction, Islamic History, Miniatures, Scholars, Teaching Resources

The National Endowment for the Humanities has a fantastic website on Islam with a variety of resources, especially valuable for teaching about Islam, but also just for browsing. The outreach part of the project is “The Muslim Journeys Bookshelf,” a collection of 25 books and 3 films, noted as “a collection of resources carefully curated to present to the American public new and diverse perspectives on the people, places, histories, beliefs, practices, and cultures of Muslims in the United States and around the world.” American libraries can apply for receipt of this collection. Available on the site are images, samples from texts, audio recordings and short film clips, web links and a bibliography.This website is worth spending a few hours on and coming back to; it is precisely what a virtual museum should be.

Here is a sample text excerpt to whet your appetite. This is from al-Jahiz, who died in 869 CE, on “The Disadvantages of Parchment”
Continue reading Muslim Journeys →

On the Jews of Yemen

Judaism, Yemen


Imam Yahya’s “Niẓām al-YuhÅ«d,” ms.ar.120 from the National Library of Israel

There is a new study out on the statute on Yemeni Jews by Imam Yahya in 1323/1905 by the historian Kerstin Hünefeld. This is published in Chroniques du manuscrits au Yémen, in the July 2013 issue, which is available in download as a pdf. Hünefeld provides both an edition and an annotated translation.

Picturing the ka‘ba

Architecture, Lithographs, Saudi Arabia


Although few Western non-Muslim travelers penetrated the forbidden zone of the ka‘ba in Mecca, illustrations proliferated by the mid-18th century. The image above was taken from the 1857 edition of Sale’s translation of the Qur’an (London: W. Tegg & Co) and reproduced in Henry J. Van-Lennep’s Bible Lands: Their Modern Customs and Manners Illustrative of Scripture (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1875). The two most famous travelers to make surreptitious trips to Mecca were Johann Ludwig Burckhardt in 1814 and Richard Burton in 1853.