Program on last night?

Hobbes

I only caught about 1 minute of it before I had to go, but I believe it covered Islam religon in modern times.

Bit I saw: Guy talking to his hairdresser.
"You are Muslim but according to the Koran no woman should touch a mans hair"
"Yes that is true, but this is my livelyhood. If we all did this only Christans or men would be hairdressers".

Wondering if there was any other intresting bits in it?

Frank Grimes

Didn't see it yet, looked interesting though. I'm sure it'll appear on UK Nova at some point today, I'll check it out then.
Edit: Here's a link to the programme on the BBC site in case anyone's wondering what's been talked about.

Talliesin

Hobbes wrote:

"You are Muslim but according to the Koran no woman should touch a mans hair"
"Yes that is true, but this is my livelyhood. If we all did this only Christans or men would be hairdressers".

I'm reminded of how at one point only Jews were money lenders in Christian societies (because of differences in Mosaic and Pauline laws) which let the Christians have money lenders in their society when it suited them, and label the Jews as greedy when it didn't.

Anyway, this train of thought as led me to ponder. The historical association between the Jewish community and finance that started for the above reason remains, as does the association with medicine (going back to a time when Mosaic law meant Jewish doctors cleaned their hands before Pasteur worked out a scientific reason why doctors should do so) - are their any professions that have been particularly well represented amongst muslims, and if so why?

When I think of Islamic culture I think of literature, mathematics, architecture and astronomy, but I'm thinking mainly of the little I know about the Islamic world during the European middle ages (which pretty much came to an end when the Muslims taught us the European literature and science we'd been ignoring and they'd been studying, comparing to their own cultural and scientific legacy and improving on).

Have the cultural and religious differences resulted in their being professions well-represented by muslims now? The value Islamic culture placed on education seems to remain - with muslims apparantly well represented in professions that require third-level education - but that's just an impression I have, with only anecdotal evidence to suggest it.

Conversely, considering the point Hobbes had on the Qura'an and hairdressing, are their any parts of the modern Western business world that are problematic for Muslim?

Wibbs

A good programme alright. In Ireland at least there does seem to be a lot of Muslims in the medical profession. I don't know if that's repeated elsewhere. I could see problems in that profession with dealing with medical examinations of the opposite sex, but I suppose that would depend on how devout a Muslim you are. There are obviously ways around that, as the medical system seems to do fine in a lot of the more traditional Muslim countries(most better than our own sorry mess). Given that Islamic medicine in the middle ages was so far ahead of the west, as Talliesin pointed out maybe that's one of the reasons. IIRC there was a taboo among Christians at the time about opening the body that prevented them from learning more. A problem the Muslim doctors didn't have. They also had much better access to ancient medical literature and that helped them greatly.

Something like being a chef might be an issue, if the food isn't halaal, but I'm not sure on the opinion on that(It would be the same for devout Jews as well, I suppose). Women in the workplace might also pose problems, but again I'd say it's an issue with easy enough solutions.