Can you believe that in this time and the technological and technological development we have reached, some peoples in the world still live far from all manifestations of modern civilization despite their immense wealth! We're talking about the Amish religious sect that you've surely heard of!
1-Who are the Amish people?
The Amish are a religious Christian sect affiliated with the Mennonite Church, and they are also known as the Mennonites after the church they follow, which arose in the late seventeenth century in the Middle Ages. The Amish are followers of Jakob Ammann 1644-1730, a Mennonite leader whose controversial teachings caused a split among his followers in Switzerland, Alsace and southern Germany.
Amish communities arose in Switzerland, Alsace, Germany, Russia, and the Netherlands, but immigration to North America in the 19th and 20th centuries and integration with Mennonite groups gradually eliminated the Amish in Europe.
The Amish began emigrating to North America in the early 18th century. They settled first in eastern Pennsylvania, where there is still a large settlement. The schism and upheaval occurred after 1850 due to tensions between the "New Order" of the Amish, which accepted social change and technological innovation, and the traditional "Old Order" or "Amish" which largely disapproved. Over the next fifty years, about two-thirds of the Amish formed their own separate chapels or joined either the Mennonite Church or the Mennonite General Church.
In the early 2000s, there were about 250,000 Amish living in more than 200 ancient settlements in the United States and Canada. The largest are found in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Iowa, Illinois, and Kansas, and others are found in Wisconsin, Maine, Missouri, and Minnesota. Their settlements are divided into ecclesiastical provinces, independent congregations of about 75 baptized members. If the area becomes much larger, it is divided again, because the members meet in each other's homes. Each region has a bishop, two to four preachers, and a fatwa council of elderly people called “old orders,” whose mission is to study any emergency and issue instructions and fatwas. But there are no public conferences, mission groups, or collaborative agencies.
2-Amish lifestyle
Humility, family, community, and detachment from the world are the mainstays of the Amish. Daily life and customs are governed by an unwritten code of conduct called "Ordnung", and distancing is the way their society deals with disobedient members.
The Amish do not believe in renewal, live in isolation and reject any attempts to integrate into other societies. You could say that time has stopped for the Amish communities as if they were still living in the Middle Ages!
As for the language adopted in their community, they speak a language close to German known as “Pennsylvania Dutch”, another language close to German in their churches and prayers called “High German”, and a third language, which is English in schools.
As for their lives, they use horse-drawn carriages to move around, and do not believe in electricity, cars, money, phones or any other technological means that indicate development! Their children study in private schools established for them after they were excluded from compulsory education.
As for their clothing, the women wear long, loose-fitting clothes that resemble dresses from ancient times, and they cover their heads and are not allowed to cut their hair. Married women are distinguished by wearing a white headscarf, and if it is black, they are not married.
Men likewise wear conservative clothes and black wide-brimmed hats, never shave themselves, and married men are forbidden to let off a mustache. The Amish are a people who do not believe in aspects of leisure life, such as music or instrument playing, and even photography. Even the dolls their girls play with don't have facial features! They also do not believe in health insurance because they consider everything to be destiny, even the disease itself.
Rare photos reveal the other "invisible" side of things! I Rare photos reveal a different side to history