{"id":3485,"date":"2013-10-11T20:30:20","date_gmt":"2013-10-11T20:30:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/tippling\/?p=3485"},"modified":"2013-10-11T20:30:20","modified_gmt":"2013-10-11T20:30:20","slug":"moustache-elicits-taliban-death-threats","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/tippling\/2013\/10\/11\/moustache-elicits-taliban-death-threats\/","title":{"rendered":"Moustache elicits Taliban death threats"},"content":{"rendered":"

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OK, so this is the world’s greatest moustache. But this guy put his life on the line for it in the face of religious extremism. Shit, he even put his family second to the mighty facial hair. Here is Salon.com<\/a>‘s take on it (H\/T Reasonable Doubts):<\/p>\n

\"Mustache<\/a>
Wow.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

“I can leave my family, I can leave Pakistan, but I can never cut my mustache again,” said Afridi [EPA]<\/p>\n

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This may be the mustache that launched a thousand death threats, yet a Pakistani man, Malik Amir Mohammad Khan Afridi, is still refusing to shave the 30-inch soup strainer that recently got him into trouble with some local militants.<\/p>\n

According to\u00a0Al Jazeera<\/a>, militia group and Taliban ally Lashkar-e-Islam deemed Afridi\u2019s whiskers to be \u201cun-Islamic\u201d and demanded $500 in \u201cprotection money,\u201d which he refused to pay. The group then kidnapped the 48-year-old businessman and held him hostage in a cave for a month until he finally shaved.<\/p>\n

Last year, Afridi, unafraid, grew it back \u2014 spending up to 30 minutes a day waxing, combing and fortifying his facial furniture \u2014 and the death threats began again. To keep his wife and ten children safe, he left his hometown and family behind, and once again took to the road. He now sees them only rarely.<\/p>\n

The cocktail of oils, soaps and ointments he uses to keep his follicles fabulous cost around $150 a month \u2014 but Afridi receives help from the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa\u00a0administration, which pays him a \u201cmoustache bursary\u201d of $50 a month as a symbolic gesture of the state\u2019s appreciation for the bravery and virility supposedly associated with the manly growth.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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Islamic teachings on facial hair are far from clear-cut, and the range of clean-shaven and beard-sporting Muslims indicates that texts on such matters are subject to cultural interpretation, just as wearing the hijab is also not universally accepted.<\/p>\n

While his family is still waiting for him to return from exile, Afridi says his decision is about more than just keeping the luscious handlebars that would have made even\u00a0Dal\u00ed<\/a>\u00a0jealous.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t like smoking. I\u2019m not fond of snuff, or drinking. This is the only choice in my life,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019d even sacrifice food, but not the mustache. It\u2019s my life. It\u2019s not part of my life. It is my life.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

OK, so this is the world’s greatest moustache. But this guy put his life on the line for it in the face of religious extremism. Shit, he even put his family second to the mighty facial hair. Here is Salon.com’s take on it (H\/T Reasonable Doubts):<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[251,362],"tags":[951,1753,1002,1000,1001,999],"class_list":["post-3485","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-islam","category-religion-and-society","tag-extremism","tag-islam","tag-jihad","tag-kidnapping","tag-moustache","tag-taliban"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/tippling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3485","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/tippling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/tippling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/tippling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/tippling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3485"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/tippling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3485\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/tippling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3485"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/tippling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3485"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/tippling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3485"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}