Excellent catch by AS on this article!
When you can see why/how putting up these external measures of 'faithfulness' lend themselves to the worst kind of political religiousity, then the full picture of the problem of fundamentalist religion identifying the literal with the transcdent, something that reformists and moderates are less prone to do.
Clearly, there are (must be?) societal norms for dress and behavior, so how does one draw the line? That's an important question for policy makers to answer, maybe not for this issue, but in general, since the issue might be taken as representative of the challenge to pluralistic civil society. [n.b. for mavens who like to get "academic" about such things, how is this religiosity different or the same from that of, say, the Salem Witch Trials? the "debate" of hijab?]
Clearly, this beard trimming intimidation is over the line, since there are those who are threatened with random violence (or 'loss of protection from random violence').
update: 2.20.07 It was reported on CCN by their correspondent in Baghdad that the allegedly al-qa'ida thug who went around to the barber shops was arrested by Pakistani police, but subsequently released by the ISI, the Pakistani internal security services. This is being taken as evidence of ISI "collaboration".
sullylink
