Noor still in the news

From Counterpunch:

Muhannad is the perfect husband they all seek. A young Saudi woman told the Washington Post: "The couple express the romantic love we're missing in our culture. Even though it's exaggerated, it's good for men to see this kind of love, even if it's just on television." And women have begun to insist that their husbands follow Muhannad's example. Some men do recognise the challenge. A Yemeni taxi driver, Hamdan, 24 and married, says: "In our society men are superior to women but in the series concessions are made which allow a normal life." Nur defines how marriage should be approached.

Nurmania, and the infatuation of women for its handsome hero, creates tension in households which the Arab press reports eagerly. It gives a chance to write headlines like "Nur causes tension and divorce throughout the Arab world" and "Muhannad, the man women dream about - a cross-border troublemaker".

In Saudi Arabia, Syria, Bahrain and Yemen, divorce cases are linked to the series. In Jordan, Nur was put on the agenda of parliament's education committee in an attempt to define a strategy against "non-Islamic culture". There is an urban legend that a Saudi woman paying her respects to a family in mourning asked where the TV was so that she would not miss that day's episode.