Circumcision - Muslimism

Eek! That's my first reaction anyway.


and.. ok so I invented a new word - muslimism. I figure being a pretend English teacher has to have it's perks.


So today is a special day in Boran's life. Today he was circumcised. It's a major event in the life of a Turkish child. I'm not sure what it signifies especially but it's a requirement to become a Muslim. So I guess therein I've answered my own question.


Funnily enough it came up in another discussion just recently and considering the topic that's got to be pretty unusual and quite a coincidence. I think so anyway.


The other topic developed over time on Saturday as the walking crew returned from a manic forest trek (we got lost and well and truly had to make a new track to get out).


As with our trip the previous weekend Sabriye, Ülkü and I stood on the bus in a group. We were joking around and poking fun at Ülkü by saying her good friend Mete was her boyfriend. 


This lead onto a really funny discussion. I asked Ülkü if she would marry a non-Muslim. She said she wouldn't and when I asked why she said she wasn't sure. After a while she came out and said she actually would.


So I suggested she and I marry later this week which brought some laughter. We went onto talk about other things and quite some time later she was talking about her mother. She mentioned that her mum was the "boss" in the house.


This prompted me to ask her if she was the boss also and she said she was. At this point I said the marriage was off as I couldn't deal with this. More laughter..


The whole topic then came to me talking about the fact that it seemed from recent discussions that if I was to marry a Turk I'd need to become a Muslim as most women felt they should marry someone of the same faith. I'd done some very basic reading on what this entailed and found that - and I have to embarrassingly admit to my surprise in my ignorance - it was fundamentally the same as other religions.


So then I posed to various people the question "Who would my life change if I were to become a Muslim". This brought a mix of answers the whittled down to very little when I mentioned that as with any religion being a member doesn't imply full participation.


In Turkey which is 98% Muslim they practice in varying degrees ranging from merely a title to the full whack with 5 prayer sessions a day etc.


Then this morning I posed the same question to Emrah and along with the obvious and perhaps because we had already talked about Boran he told me I'd have to be circumcised. 


Interestingly this immediately put me off the idea of being Muslim whereas nothing else beforehand had.


So let's end on a positive note anyways - here is the garb they dress in here to celebrate..

Two days later: Poor Boran. I feel for him. He's walking around the house in a singlet pulling it away from his body so it's not in contact with you-know-what.