A SAD DAY FOR CHRISTIANITY

The Archbishop of Canterbury Dr Rowan Williams has described the decision not to allow a female hospital worker to wear a tiny cross at her neck as “bureaucratic silliness” but even more - it shows just how loony life in Britain has become.

Muslims may wear the niqab, Sikhs may wear the kirpan (a short bladed traditional dagger) but a Christian has been ordered by an employment tribunal not to wear the symbol of her faith.

I hold nothing whatsoever against religious minorities in the United Kingdom - indeed the contrary - but as a Christian citizen, I`m appalled. This decision is nothing less than madness, yet no one dares speak up for fear of being classified as either a religious bigot or a racist. Or both.

Management at the hospital concerned have suggested a compromise where the woman, 54 year old Mrs Shirley Chaplin would be allowed to pin her tiny cross to her uniform, or to wear it on a lanyard. What utter rubbish is that!

The Christian Legal Centre plans an appeal.

Praise the Lord!

Image: www.worldreligions.co.uk

ASHURA: THE BLOODY FRENZY OF GRIEF

Ya! Ya! Husayn! Ya! Ya! Husayn!`

The procession approaches where Mehdi and I stand outside a bank which has its shutters down. Normally Bunder Road bustles with buses, cars and camel carts going to and from the harbour, but today the street is sealed off and is thronged with thousands of people, wearing black, the sign of mourning.

The occasion is Ashura, the tenth of Muharram (the first month in the Islamic calendar) when devout Shi`a Muslims remember the martyrdom of Husayn, the grandson of the Prophet, at Kerbala, in AD 680. A tall, young doctor working at Karachi Eye Hospital, Mehdi has agreed to accompany me, but although a Shi`a Muslim, he does not participate in the frenzied manifestations.

As the shouting intensifies, a white stallion splashed with red dye and prancing like one of the famous Lipizzaner horses at the Spanish School in Vienna, appears at the head of the marchers. It symbolises Zuljana, Husayn`s trusted steed, which returned alone from the battleground on the banks of the Euphrates, after his master was slain: ( it is said those who found the horse swore it had tears rolling down its face).

`Ya! Ya! Husayn`!

Now I can see the first marchers slashing their backs with small finger knives attached to chains. Swish! Swish! The blades whistle through the air, but there are no cries of pain: this is the point, Husayn had suffered for Islam, so what`s a few slashes between true believers?

As the procession draws level, I watch in horror as the marchers whirl about lacerating their naked torsos. An intense youth rakes his back spattering my Armani shirt with spots of blood: his own baggy trousers are saturated.

Mehdi looks uncomfortable at the self inflicted wounds. For days the local press has urged people not to get too emotive, but the Red Crescent tents set up along Bunder Road are tending scores of walking wounded.

I manage to photograph dressers, stitching a nine inch gap in someone`s back, before soldiers hustle me away...

Excerpt from: Travels With My Hat: by Christine Osborne for publication in 2010

Images: www.worldreligions.co.uk

Photography: N.Roberts and C.Osborne

Muharram 2009 will begin on 18th December.

RELIGIOUS PHOTOGRAPHY

SENSITIVITY IS A KEY ELEMENT

Capturing people in the private act of worship is the most sensitive and difficult aspect of any genre of photography. The opposite of “celebrity photography,” where the subject generally wants to be seen, a person in communication with their “higher power` prefers to be left in peace.

Patience is an asset. One is often advised of location only to arrive and find nothing happening. Or that the ceremony was held last Sunday. Or that it is rescheduled for next Sunday. Or that despite the priest-imam-rabbi`s- blessing, someone objects to being photographed.

With permission to photograph Sunday Mass in Havana Cathedral, I was waiting discreetly behind a column when another photographer walked in and began blitzing the congregation with a powerful flash.

“Will the photographer behind the pillar please stop taking pictures!” said the priest, in the middle of dispensing the Holy Sacraments. He had assumed it was me, and I slunk out without a single picture.

There were many moments like this during the years it took to build up a stock of world faiths, but helped by contributing photographers, the World Religions Photo Library celebrates its tenth anniversary in 2009.

The collection features the mainstream religions - Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, Judaism and Sikhism, as well as other faiths and cults searchable on-line. Subjects include traditional religious life in various contexts and locations worldwide, notably people practising their faith, rites of passage, sacred foods, festivals and pilgrimage, worship and dress. The site is linked to a second website focussing on faith travel and sacred sites, many of which feature on the World Heritage List.

c. Christine Osborne

Image: A temple in Mandalay Burma

www.worldreligions.co.uk

www.religious-tourism.com

THE MAN FROM SUDAN

I came home on the bus this morning with a man from the Sudan.

I had seen him many times, herding long-horned cattle, or playing an oud with long fingers that now clutched a cheap plastic briefcase. And clearly he did not know where to go.

`Can I help?` I said, touching his elbow gently.

I noticed a trace of orange henna at his temples, as he turned towards me. Many Muslims dye their beard with henna when they have performed the hajj. His beard has been shaved off, but the trace of henna and the zebiba (prayer mark) on his forehead, tells me he is a good Muslim. A good Muslim with one wonky eye.

`Clapham Common,` he said in an almost panicky voice, bending down, all six feet six of him, to look anxiously out of the window as we crossed Vauxhall bridge.

`Yallah,` I said getting off at the inter-change. But he was far too concerned about Clapham Common to realise that a strange `English` woman had uttered a word of Arabic in the heart of Vauxhall.

`Bus 88 Clapham Common, over there!` I tell him.

`Thanks you much!` he said, evidently knowing the way.

I watched him hurrying along the road in his new brown leather shoes until he disappeared on a traffic crossing and was out of sight.

It could have been me, a thousand times over, struggling to find my way around Sana`a, Salalah or Khartoum.

c.Christine Osborne

Image: Prayer by the Blue Nile, Sudan

Source: Liam White: www.worldreligions.co.uk