In a sparse, wood-floored studio, Saudi women squat, lunge and do
headstands. Even a year ago, teaching these yoga postures could have
rendered them outlaws in the conservative Islamic kingdom.
Widely perceived as a Hindu spiritual practice, yoga was not officially
permitted for decades in Saudi Arabia, the cradle of Islam where all
non-Muslim worship is banned.
But with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman vowing an "open, moderate
Islam", the kingdom last November recognised yoga as a sport amid a new
liberalisation drive that has sidelined religious hardliners.
Spearheading efforts to normalise yoga in the kingdom is Nouf Marwaai, a
Saudi woman who has battled insults and threats from extremists to
challenge the notion that yoga is incompatible with Islam.
"I have been harassed, (and) sent a lot of hate messages," said the
38-year-old head of the Arab Yoga Foundation, which has trained hundreds
of yoga instructors in the kingdom.
"Five years ago, this (teaching yoga) would have been impossible," added
Marwaai, as she began training a cluster of women students at a private
studio in the Red Sea city of Jeddah.
Hanging up their body-shrouding abayas and headscarves, the women
stretched in unison in an arching warrior pose known as
"virabhadrasana".
Arms outstretched, their bodies folded into a 180-degree backward bending posture known as "chakrasana", or wheel pose
In a country where women have long been denied the right to exercise
publicly, the students -- some of whom regularly attend yoga retreats in
India -- said the exercise had transformed their lives.
Ayat Samman, a 32-year-old health educator, said yoga helped alleviate
her lifelong struggle with fibromyalgia, a chronic pain disorder that
often left her bedridden.
Yoga also works as therapy, the women said, helping them vent bottled up
emotions and tackle a woefully common ailment -- depression.
"It just opened me up like a water balloon," said Yasmin Machri, 32.
"After my first class... I started breaking down and crying."
- Religious outreach -
In just a few months since yoga's recognition, a new industry of yoga
studios and instructors has sprouted in various Saudi cities. That
includes Mecca and Medina, Islam's holiest cities, Marwaai said
Prince Mohammed, the de facto ruler, has sought to project a moderate
image of the kingdom, long associated with a fundamentalist strain of
Wahhabi Islam, with a new push for inter-religious exchange.
Saudi Arabia in recent months has hosted officials linked to the Vatican
and the prince also met a group of Roman Catholic and Jewish leaders in
New York earlier this year, in a rare inter-faith gesture.
"The prince's outreach to other religions is apparent in the interfaith
gatherings and the new enthusiasm for Saudi Arabia's pre-Islamic
heritage," said Kristin Diwan, of the Arab Gulf States Institute in
Washington.
For decades, Saudi rulers derived much of their legitimacy from their
alliance with a clerical establishment that pushed a puritanical vision
of Islam.
But the prince appears to have upturned the system, seeking instead to
tap support from the kingdom's swelling youth base through a surge of
nationalism and a much-hyped modernisation drive.
Saudi columnists have openly called for abolishing the once-feared
religious police as the kingdom introduces entertainment, including
mixed-gender concerts, and re-opens cinemas after a decades-long ban.
Prominent hardline Salafist clerics with millions of followers on social
media have been jailed, with some on death row, as the crown prince
clamps down on dissent.
"The religious networks which once led campaigns against more liberal
ideas appear cowed, but new practices like yoga are always subject to
ad-hoc attacks," Diwan said.
- 'Nothing to do with religion' -
Yoga is still regarded as a deviant practice in conservative circles,
sometimes associated with witchcraft, and Marwaai's students say they
often confront accusations of betraying their religion.
"I receive messages through social media asking: 'Are you a Hindu? Did
you turn into a Hindu?'" said Budur al-Hamoud, a recruitment specialist.
"Yoga has nothing to do with religion. It's a sport... It does not interfere with my faith."
Yoga is seen at odds with several other faiths, but the recognition of
the practice in Saudi Arabia –- the epicentre of the Islamic world –-
appears to have given a new impetus to Muslim yoga practitioners around
the world.
Marwaai is taking on conservatives not just in the kingdom but also
India, the birthplace of yoga where clerics last year slapped a fatwa,
or religious edict, against a female Muslim yoga teacher just days
before the kingdom recognised the sport.
In a shrill Indian television debate, Marwaai -- a lupus survivor and
recently awarded the Padma Shri, one of India's highest civilian honours
–- calmly sought to reason with Muslim clerics who hurled insults at
her
The clerics were particularly opposed to "Surya Namaskar", a yoga
sequence designed to greet Surya, the Hindu sun god, and the chanting of
Hindu mantras.
"It is not the worshipping of the sun and the moon," Marwaai responded as tempers frayed, denying they engaged in chanting.
Unconvinced, a cleric said the set of physical movements in the Muslim prayer ritual offered enough exercise.
The slow meditation does not increase the metabolic rate, Marwaai retorted. "Prophet Mohammed used to race with his wife."
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