I've never met anyone from there before!

I'm pretty used to receiving the standard barrage of statements/questions whenever I meet someone who's never met a Bahamian before. Oftentimes, they begin with the obligatory, "I've never met anyone from there before." And my standard response is, "Well, there aren't that many of us so that's no surprise." Of course, the conversation then progresses usually including (but certainly not limited to) questions on population, weather, economy, language, history.

On Saturday, however, I had the opportunity to be the one surprised because I met a Maldivian. Now, I had heard of the Maldives, mostly as an exclusive resort destination in the Indian Ocean... I even looked into it since I figured I'd be in the vicinity... but I never imagined I'd meet a Maldivian outside of the country. Turns out that population-wise, the Maldives has about 300,000 people (like the Bahamas) and is an archipelago comprised of hundreds of tiny islands (again, like the Bahamas). The vast majority of the population live in the capital, Male, but there are a few thousand who live on the outer islands (yet again, like the Bahamas). And as to be expected, their primary industry is tourism (you guessed it, like the Bahamas).

Where the two countries diverge, however, is religion. The Bahamas is very much so a conservative church-going nation (depending on who speak with, you may hear it described as a Christian nation but that's debatable) but, there are still small sections of society that practice other forms of religion. On the other hand, the Maldives only allows for the practice of Islam and the establishment of any other form of religion is expressly forbidden. That means, there are no churches, temples, etc. in the country and should you desire to become a Maldivian, you must be a Muslim first.

Initially, I was taken aback by this requirement. I had immediately assumed that a country with a requirement like this would implicitly require its citizens to follow an orthodox sect of Islam but the young Maldivian woman speaking to me was wearing a typical western warm-weather outfit of t-shirt, denim mini and flip flops, no hijab in sight. Unable to help myself, I (hopefully politely) asked her about it. Turns out it was not totally an example of the "when in Rome" idea but instead was fairly close to acceptable attire in the Maldives. (I say fairly because I'm not entirely convinced on the mini.)

This did get us talking about the religion in general and as it turns out there is a very real concern about the growing population of Islam extremists in the Maldives, particularly in the out islands. While there haven't been any major terror attacks, it is apparently becoming a growing problem that these followers of extremist Islam have been strongly pushing for, as she put it, "a return to the days of the prophet." This year, for the first time, the Maldives will be holding two party elections and from the sounds of it, one party supports the more traditional view of Islam whereas the other party has a more progressive view of the faith. Considering the supporters of the more traditional party have expressed strong distaste for tourism even though tourism is by far the country's biggest industry, I'm guessing it's probably better if the present progressive government stays in power.