It’s been a bad week for cucumber-lovers in the Arab world.
And I mean lovers.
Besides the terrible killings inflicted by the fanatics on those who refuse to pledge allegiance to them, Al-Qa’eda has lost credibility for enforcing a series of rules imposing their way of thought on the most mundane aspects of everyday life.
They include a ban on women buying suggestively-shaped vegetables, according to one tribal leader in the western province of Anbar.
Sheikh Hameed al-Hayyes, a Sunni elder, told Reuters: “They even killed female goats because their private parts were not covered and their tails were pointed upward, which they said was haram.
“They regarded the cucumber as male and tomato as female. Women were not allowed to buy cucumbers, only men.”
And the war on cucumbers has continued in the palestinian-controlled territories.
Palestinian security forces confiscated the property the Society for the Care of the Mother and Child, after breaking into the office.
Suhad Shahin, the head of the society, said in a telephone call with Ma’an that “members of the Palestinian public intelligence forces presented [themselves]at the complex at 12:30 at night.”
Shahin said that everything in the office was confiscated, including furniture, computers, refrigerators with food stuff inside them.
The society uses the refrigerators and cooking equipment as a means of employment for women, they sell the food to earn money for women in need.
According to Shahin, even the pickles and turnovers that women from the society had made were confiscated by security forces.
