March 18, 2005
A Haircut in Iraq Can Be the Death of the Barber
By ROBERT F. WORTH
BAGHDAD, Iraq, March 17 - It was almost closing time in Sadiq Abdul
Hussein's barbershop when a man in a black mask walked in, pulled out a
pistol, and began spinning it on his finger, cowboy style.
The gunman was not after government officials or American collaborators. He
had come because of the way Mr. Hussein cut hair.
Within seconds, the masked man opened fire, fatally wounding Mr. Hussein,
23, who lived long enough to describe the attack. The gunman also killed
his partner and a customer.
In southern Baghdad, the hazards of life have come to this: gangs of
militant Islamists are warning barbers that it is haram - forbidden - to
shave men's beards or do Western-style haircuts. As many as 12 barbers have
been killed, Iraqi officials say, including five in one day in late
January.
With little hope of police protection, most now refuse to offer the
offending cuts, and have placed prominent signs in their front windows
saying so.
On a recent afternoon, a barber who gave his name only as Ahmad stood over
a customer, scissors in hand, glancing nervously out the front window of
his shop. One of the two leather barber's chairs sat empty, and on the
walls were mirrors and photographs of handsome young men with glistening
newly cut hair, as in any Western salon.
"One morning about three months ago I came to the shop and found a
handwritten note with a bullet," he said.
The note warned him that it was forbidden to shave men's beards, or to do
facial massages or the French-style haircuts known as the "carré" and the
"spiky." The note also warned him not to offer hiffafa, the Iraqi practice
in which barbers use a length of thread to pull out the small hairs on the
face and give a closer shave. If he ignored the warning, he would be
killed, the note said.
The killings and threats are not the first efforts in Iraq to enforce a
Taliban-style religious rule. In Falluja, armed mujahedeen ran an Islamic
police state for several months before the American invasion last year,
punishing beardless men and any women who dared to go out with their heads
uncovered. In southern Iraq, Shiite militants have attacked liquor stores
and sometimes killed those who ignored their threats....."
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