"Bandit - Mr. White" - Culture, Religion, and Headgear

Following up on a previous post's comment, here's a photo of a Muslim cleric:


(from China Daily, used without permission)
'That's funny, you don't look Muslim.'

He's Abu Bakar Bashir, from a 2004 news article. Bashir is Indonesian, and dresses in a way that's appropriate to his culture and position.

He was also being tried on charges related to terrorism - but the point here is that his headgear is very much not the sort of thing men generally wear in downtown Riyadh.

And yet, he's a Muslim.

The point I'm trying to make is that, just as wearing an American business suit and tie doesn't make someone a Christian, I've yet to see evidence that wearing a turban or other Middle Eastern headgear makes someone a Muslim.

It's true that the king of Saudi Arabia like to be called "Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques," and that a lot of people in the Middle East are Muslims. But a lot of people in Indonesia, for example, are Muslims, too. And they don't necessarily dress the way people do in Riyadh.