Category Archives: Saudi Arabia

The Girl of Qatif

Gender and Sexuality, Islamic Law, Qur'an, Saudi Arabia, Traditions (hadith literature)


Saudi judge ignores Quranic rights in harsh decision over the ‘Girl of Qatif’
By Khalid Chraibi
Arablife.org, Tuesday, 22 January 2008

In a memorable scene in Ingmar Bergman’s movie Wild Strawberries, Isak, the central character, dreams that he is standing in court, waiting to be sentenced. But he has no clue as to the charges against him. When the judge declares him guilty, he asks, bewildered: “Guilty of what?” The judge replies flatly: “You are guilty of guilt”. “Is that serious?” asks Isak. “Unfortunately,” replies the judge.

The verdict in the case of the ‘Girl of Qatif’, as the incident has become known worldwide, is as bewildering to most people as the judge’s verdict was to Isak. How can a young bride of 18 who has been subjected to the harrowing experience of being blackmailed by a former ‘telephone boyfriend’, then gang-raped 14 times in a row by seven unknown assailants, be further brought to trial for the offence of khalwa and condemned to 90 lashes? How does one justify raising the punishment to 200 lashes and 6 months in jail when she appealed the first sentence?

The case had all the necessary ingredients to become an instant cause célèbre, when word of it reached the global news agencies. It received very large coverage in the media, with the verdict being criticized by commentators, politicians and citizens in all walks of life, within the region and in far away countries.

Amnesty International protested against the flogging verdict (which was also applicable to the men involved in the case), observing that “the use of corporal punishment constitutes cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment.” It added that “the criminalisation of khalwa is inconsistent with international human rights standards, in particular, an individual’s right to privacy.” The sentence against the ‘Girl of Qatif’ and the boy who sat with her in the car “should therefore be declared null and void”. Continue reading The Girl of Qatif →

The Da Vinci Code and the Girls of Riyadh

Egypt, Islam and Christianity, Literature, Saudi Arabia

By Hussein Shobokshi for the Yemen Observer, June 27, 2006

Dan Brown’s novel The Da Vinci Code has been translated into 40 languages, including Arabic. The book has been adapted into a film showing all over the world, reaping millions of dollars. The story, as the majority of people know, questions the life of Jesus and claims that he married Maria Magdalene and fathered her child.

The suggestion has caused much controversy and has been strongly condemned by various Christian sects, which eventually led to the film being banned in Egypt and Lebanon (the book is sold in Egypt, but is censored in Lebanon). What was noticeable however was that the request for censorship in the Egyptian Parliament was made by Muslim MPs, who wanted to express their solidarity with the Copts and to defend Jesus. Continue reading The Da Vinci Code and the Girls of Riyadh →

The Kaaba’s New Kiswah

Architecture, Art, Islamic Rituals, Saudi Arabia, YouTube Watch


[Note: For a Youtube documentary on the Saudi Kiswah Factory, click here.]

By Manal Homeidan, Asharq Alawsat, December 17, 2007

Jeddah, Asharq Al-Awsat – Following their departure from Mecca, millions of pilgrims have started to make their way to Mount Arafat. Coinciding with this unchanged ritual is the tradition of changing of the Kaaba’s ‘kiswah’, the cloth that adorns the Kaaba made of black silk and embroidered with gold calligraphy.

This event is customarily attended by the gate-keepers of the Kaaba and technicians from the Kiswah Factory, which has been manufacturing the fabric that adorns the Kaaba for the past six decades. These technicians employ a special mobile escalator so as to remove the old cloth and cover it with the new kiswah, one day before the first day of Eid ul-Adha. Continue reading The Kaaba’s New Kiswah →

MPAC and the Bad News Bear Story

Gender and Sexuality, Islamophobia, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Terrorism Issue

I am a Canadian Muslim who has been living and teaching in Los Angeles for the past decade. My recent book, Oil and Water: Two Faiths, One God is an introduction to Islam for a North American audience. As a Muslim, I am deeply concerned about violence committed by Muslims, especially when it is done in the name of Islam. Muslims around the world have condemned the recent cases in Sudan and Saudi Arabia. For example, the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC) wrote this in response to the jailing of the teacher in Sudan: “‘Jailing Ms. Gibbons is the real insult to Islam in this case,’ said MPAC Communications Director Edina Lekovic. ‘Invoking Islamic law to jail and deport her for this insignificant class project is absurd and appalling.'” Their full response can be found on their web page and is reproduced here:

MPAC Appalled by Sudanese Jailing of Teacher for Naming Teddy Bear
November 30, 2007

The Muslim Public Affairs Council today expressed its disgust with the Sudanese court decision to jail and beat a British teacher who allowed her students to name a class teddy bear “Muhammad.”

SEE: “Calls in Sudan for Execution of British Teacher” (New York Times, 11/30/07)

The hundreds of protesters, some waving ceremonial swords, outside the presidential palace denouncing the teacher and calling for her execution are falling into a pathetic trap by making a story out of nothing. The leaflets condemned Gibbons as an “infidel” and accused her of “the pollution of children’s mentality” by her actions.

“Jailing Ms. Gibbons is the real insult to Islam in this case,” said MPAC Communications Director Edina Lekovic. “Invoking Islamic law to jail and deport her for this insignificant class project is absurd and appalling.” Continue reading MPAC and the Bad News Bear Story →

Where are the Moderates?

Bangladesh, Ethics, Gender and Sexuality, Islamophobia, Journalism and Media, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Wahhabi


[Illustration: Ayaan Hirsi in the Theo Van Goghin film, left;alleged preparation of woman for stoning, right.]

In a New York Times op-ed published yesterday by Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a controversial Dutch Somali, a relevant and timely question is asked: Where are Muslim moderates when misogynist renderings of Islam sweep the media? She has a point in noting the relative absence of condemnation of three recent tabloid news items. There is the Shi’a woman in Qatif, raped by several Shi’a men, and herself branded (to the barbaric tune of 200 lashes) guilty by a Sunni Wahhabi court for “mingling” with a man not her husband. Then the hug-my-teddy-bear-but-don’t-mention the-prophet’s-name fiasco over a naive British teacher in Sudan, and finally the case of Taslima Nasreen, a Bangladeshi writer vilified for her feminist writings that approach the controversial barzakh of Rushdie’s Satanic Verses. So where are the moderates? For Ms. Ali they are phantom progressives, too blinded by their loyalty to the faith and fearful of telling truth to Muslim power. Here is her assessment:

It is often said that Islam has been “hijacked” by a small extremist group of radical fundamentalists. The vast majority of Muslims are said to be moderates. Continue reading Where are the Moderates? →

Keeping Mecca Flu Free

Islamic Rituals, Saudi Arabia

Bird Flu Measures in Place

by Faleh Al-Thibyani, The Saudi Gazette, Sunday, 25 November 2007

RIYADH – Measures will be in place to prevent an outbreak of avian flu in Makkah and Madina during the upcoming Haj season, a Ministry of Health spokesperson said.
Pilgrims coming from the Central Region, where the disease broke out last week, will undergo stringent medical checks, the spokesperson said.

Health Minister Dr. Hamad Al-Manie is due to attend a meeting of the Haj Preparation Committee in this regard Sunday.

Minister of Agriculture Dr. Fahd Balghunaim, meanwhile, said the public would be promptly informed about ongoing efforts to prevent the disease from spreading further.

So far, 3.5 million chickens and other birds have been culled since the disease was detected at a farm in Al-Kharj, and the ministry would not hesitate to eliminate all chickens in the Kingdom in order to protect its citizens and residents, Dr. Balghunaim said. Continue reading Keeping Mecca Flu Free →

Déjà Voodoo

Iraq, Iraq War, Libya, Saudi Arabia, Terrorism Issue

Consider the opening line of the lead story in yesterday’s New York Times:

BAGHDAD — Saudi Arabia and Libya, both considered allies by the United States in its fight against terrorism, were the source of about 60 percent of the foreign fighters who came to Iraq in the past year to serve as suicide bombers or to facilitate other attacks, according to senior American military officials.

In the long durée, as Napoleon might say if he were alive today, politics makes strange embedded fellows of nation states. There are three nations at play here in the field of lording over by the world’s reigning super power. Iraq and Libya had European imposed (and later revolution-deposed) monarchs at mid-stream in the 20th century. At the same time Saudi Arabia’s royal line evolved an iconclastic religiously mandated kingship that has withstood toppling and seems likely to do so far into the security based future. All three states are where they are today largely because of the world’s thirst for crude oil. The same three states, should Iraq survive de facto federation, face a future defined by a mega-politicized war on terrorism, a war with no state-like enemies being fought by a coalition of nation states willing to arm themselves to the teeth with conventional weapons and make airline passengers take their shoes off each and every time they fly. Two centuries from now a future Napoleon, whatever his or her nationality, may look back on the current political climate and have a hindsight sense of déjà vu, or will it be more of the voodoo politics mass mediated today? Continue reading Déjà Voodoo →

Sacrilege and Pilgrimage

Islamic Rituals, Saudi Arabia, Travel

One of the most odious acts for a non-Muslim to do is enter Mecca. The swash-buckling Captain Richard Burton (1821-1890) disguised himself as an Afghan (pre-Taliban, of course) Muslim and in 1853 joined pilgrims to Mecca. While not the first Westerner to sneak into the holy city, his account is the most notorious. Here is how Burton describes his participation:

“”Alhamdu Lillah!” Thanks be to God! we were now at length to gaze upon the Kiblah, to which every Mussulman has turned in prayer since before the days of Muhammed, and which, for long ages before the birth of Christianity was reverenced by the Patriarchs of the East. Soon after dawn arose from our midst the shout of ‘Labbaik! Labbaik!’ and passing between the rocks, we found ourselves in the main street of Mecca, and approached the ‘Gateway of Salvation,’ one of the thirty-nine portals of the ‘Temple of Salvation.’ Continue reading Sacrilege and Pilgrimage →