What comes to your mind when you think of Sports and Arabs....? What comes to your mind first, when you hear the word POLO...probably Ralph Lauren and the polo shirts and maybe Lacoste (if you are into fashion and the arts), and if you are into sports, the sport of Polo itself and possibly Tennis....
With all that said, very few people know that Polo (the sport) originated in Persia and that it was a very popular sport in Iran. In time polo became an Iranian national sport played normally by the nobility. Women as well as men played the game. I find this very interesting as the involvement of Muslim women in sports had previously been and still is an issue in certain parts of the Arab world. Most Arab women have a certain image and are hardly regarded in the area of sports, in fact they are often discriminated against and envisioned as covered up powerless creatures subjected to and restricted by culture and religion. It gave me great joy to see that Arab/Muslim women are now major participants in all sorts of sports.
xx.A
