MORE ON MUSLIM FRUMMIES. In a previous post here, I quoted from Daniel Pipes on the cab drivers in Minnesota and their refusal to drive people with alcohol. Pipes wrote that this was not mainstream Islam.

Now, in connection to the story about the K-marts where Muslim cashiers will not check out pork, Powerline posts the following from a reader:

I just got back from a year in Bahrain where I was working at NAVCENT. Bahrain is a shia majority country ruled by a sunni family - so there's lots of room for conflict, but as Arab countries go, it's quite good. We were allowed to live in town - which is quite remarkable in today's Force Protection concious (sic) military.

There is no shortage of pork in Bahrain - most of it Danish. It is segregated off to the side of the store, sort of the food equivalent to the X rated DVD rental section, but the cashiers - Bahraini women with their heads covered - no veil - had no problem scanning the food.

The staff in my apartment building were Indian and Pakistani Muslims. The best tip you could give them was a bottle of booze or a six pack from the liquor store on base. There are liquor stores and most western restaurants have a liquor license (Chili's doesn't for some reason), but they're unaffordable when you're making less than $10 a day.

In fact, the best thing about the Bahrain airport is the duty-free shop located between getting off the plane and going through customs. It means you don't have to carry your booze on planes (a bonus in these liquid-free days) and it's actually cheaper than US or Euro duty-free.

Muslims are certainly entitled to follow their religious beliefs, but not to the extent that they will knowingly inconvenience customers--especially when they are assuming chumrahs that are beyond the norm.

More on the sudden jump from forbidding eating pork to merely touching it at Powerline.

Technorati Tag: K-Mart and Islam.