Belly dancers and Islam

Although some would say they are both just different kinds of women oppression, The Stripperific nature of belly dance strikes me as rather contradictory to the general conservatism of Islamic culture. On one they put the female body on display, and on the other they cover it in shame. How can things so radically different co-exist?

edited 23rd Aug '11 2:24:47 AM by ssamredrum

Now I may be completely wrong but I thought Belly dancing was more Arabic than Islamic.

But most Arabs are Muslim (I think...) and this is definitely a common practice not exclusive to Arabic Christians.

There is the option Islam might not be as bad as people say it is...

edited 23rd Aug '11 2:31:56 AM by ssamredrum

But most Muslims aren't Arabs, and a lot of people have done things on the side that aren't part of their religion and since I personally haven't read the Quran(sp?) I don't know what they say on the subject.

I always thought it was a Greek thing.

It's just all either pre-islamic stuff that's still around, or stuff from less conservative times that's still around. I remember hearing on BBC (quite some time ago) about some (influential) Egyptians arguing that "One Thousand and One Nights" are un-islamic and should be censored. I can bet you have tons of people in the Arab world arguing that belly dancing is un-islamic and should be banned.

edited 23rd Aug '11 2:44:51 AM by fanty

Do they really coxist? How encouraged is belly dancing in the more hard edged Islamic society?

they co-exist

Belly Dancers are gypsies, poor or slave girls

Veil and Confinement in home is for rich man wife

both are essentially element of patriarchy

Hard-edge Islamic society didn't exist before 19th century.

current hard-edge islamic movement (salafist) oppose belly dancing.

edited 23rd Aug '11 2:48:25 AM by PhilippeO

Belly-dancing has roots in tribal dances that predate Islam...

In any case, conflict DOES arise when Fundamentalist interpretations of Islam clash with belly-dancing. It's easy even for an outsider to observe by comparing Lebanese belly-dancing and Egyptian belly-dancing — in the latter the midriff is covered to accommodate the stricter dress code.

Another mistake many people are making is to assume belly-dancing is somehow commonplace in the Islamic world. It's not. You're unlikely to find all that many belly-dancers outside Egypt, Lebanon, and Turkey — the US and South America probably have more than the remainder of the Muslim world combined.

edited 23rd Aug '11 2:51:18 AM by ForlornDreamer

When I was in Egypt a couple of years back we had a belly dancer perform at one of our shows, and the Egyptian guide of our tour basically said it's pretty much entirely for the tourists. Actual Egyptians have very little to do with belly dancing at all.

Belly-dancing and Islam have nothing to do with each other. Some interpretations of Islam say that belly-dancing is sinful, others do not (it's the former interpretations that tend to go around with guns and bombs and tell people that they're sinning, though).

@mahel 042: Quran(sp?)

There is no equivalent in the English language to this word, so there are many ways to spell it. Quran, Koran, Qu'Ran (I prefer this one), etc.

Oh, and OP: mahel was right when he said it was more Arabic than Islamic, it's a cultural thing (Arabic is a culture, Islamic is a religion. They're related, but different. There are Arabs who aren't Islamic, and Muslims who aren't Arabs).

EarthSheep, away!

edited 23rd Aug '11 7:21:25 AM by TheEarthSheep

I checked the thing about "Thread Necromancing" and I believe this reply is directly related to this thread .

Well I'll tell you flat out that associating this sort of thing with Islam - or EVEN Arabians - is far from fact . Stereotypes can be outrageous really . Quoting a research about the misconceptions of the term "Harem" :

"Yet true harem women were hidden from view behind veils and the walls of private family spaces in Algeria, Turkey, and Morocco, which were closed to Europeans. A respectable Muslim woman would never have allowed a photo taken of her within the family space of the household, much less in a state of undress. However, the physical invisibility of harem women served to further titillate the Western imagination, and perpetuate the West’s creation of images that played upon the mystery surrounding the notion of the harem"

And :

"Misunderstandings aside, what was the harem in reality? Let’s begin with defining terms. The word “harem” comes from the Arabic syllables ha#ra#am, entering English in 1634 via the Turkish, meaning “forbidden” or “off limits”: literally, something forbidden or kept safe, from the root harama, “to be forbidden, to exclude.” It is the opposite of halaal, meaning “allowed” or “unrestricted"

Also :

"Outside the palace, how many elites practiced polygyny? Statisically, few. One study estimates for Ottoman Istanbul only 2.3% of males having resources to support more than one wife; in Muslim societies in North Africa and South Asia, under 5%"

Source : http://www.google.com.sa/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CCAQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Forias.berkeley.edu%2Fsummer2011%2FWoodhouseComparativeHarems.pdf&ei=2FRFVN9HzbFp1f2CyAw&usg=AFQjCNFk1y_D6GqoB2WKdOtWAX6Yq-VE9Q&sig2=PydXUGnRq-mYNvwuMSmpZw

Just for the record, the Bedlah Babe outfits that are stereotypically associated with bellydancers is actually a Western-invented fiction. Bellydancing as a dance form, however, does seem to have a considerable history in Arabic cultures.

I refer you all to the Other Wiki for more information: [1]

edited 30th Nov '14 10:09:02 AM by MarqFJA