Saud’s Arabia?

Saudi Arabia: A country where a child molester lurks in every isle of the grocery store. A country where the mere glimpse of a female ankle causes Saudi men to masturbate for an entire week. A country where men and women buy gigantic perfume bottles to drink the spirit. A country where the shurta (police) can throw an immigrant in jail for walking the streets without a bataqaa (work permit) (yet, these same Saudis create a storm in a tea cup when required to report to the INS office for finger printing.) A country where sixty year old impotent men take 15 year olds as their brides. A country where the 15 year old brides have no choice but to let the gardener or chauffeur take their cherry, because the old man is ... well, too old.

I have spent a considerable part of my life in the Middle-East and I make a point to stay away from these ignorant, obnoxious and arrogant people in the US. Don`t be fooled by their friendly gestures and warm greetings in a foreign land. In their own countries, they treat you worse than dirt. Too bad, some Pakistanis get delusional and actually reckon themselves as their equals based on religion.

Dear Ayesha you are right -- Islam was born there -- BUT raised, polished, and shined somewhere else -- in Damascus, Baghdad, Cordoba....Cairo, Shiraz, Bokhara, Istanbul, Delhi --

Islam`s tribal birth place stayed tribal and murderous -- and as U say it stayed paralyzed forzen in time and space for the past 1400 years -- despite frugal austere Wahab

till finally ARAMCO came -- and made them prosperous ARAMKHOR ARAMTALAB Wahabis....

hence their salvation was OIL -- not ISLAM --

however

despite or in spite of both -- they are still living in the suburbs of AHAD-E JAHILIYA.....

and u r also right -- states named and owned by individuals shouldn`t be mindboggling --

indeed it`s a fairly common practice even in year 2003 --

there are two states named after two tribal kings --

Mushi Pakistan -- and -- Bushi United States....

I am amazed at the sophisticated contempt and utter ignorance of historical processes that Mr. Rizwan has exhibited. Is it not known that the Hijaz and Najd (present day Arabian peninsula) never went through any kind of ``Enlightenment`` or ``Reformational`` revolution a la Europienne style?

Now Mr. Rizwan will ask why Hijaz and Najd missed out on the Age of Enlightenment? I can only ask him to visualize nomadic tribal life in the scorching desert with scarcity of water and food, and a nomadic culture that abhors central authority. Even Europeans had to wait for the birth of the Kants and the Voltaires in 17th-18th centuries) to learn the meaning of civility.

Probably the only bright spot in the desert`s social development was the birth and early years of Islam -- a process that effectively transferred the ownership of the land from human to God`s ownership and put an end to war and oppression for 15-20 years. That was the miracle of Islam no matter which way you analyze it. But from about 650 A.D. onwards, the land that gave birth to the Islamic civilization has been in a state of paralysis, until Abdul Wahab emerged, and later Ibn Saud, who imposed their own version of a puritanical Islam.

In modern times, the discovery of oil has damned the peninsula effectively to be an occupation of the House of Saud and their friends (in Washington DC).

I hope this answers all the ``Why? Why?`` questions that is ``mind-boggling`` to people. Please try to teach yourself about how human social development ahs taken place. There are plenty of books and courses out there. Just get away from CNN and FOX in your face and read some real history and analysis of history please. Events will then be less ``mind-boggling``.

Saudi Arabia -- the audacity and the impudence of these medieval men to claim a whole country as Saudi property -- in 2003 -- is simply mind boggling --

and the hypocrisy of builiding masjids after masjids in Christian and Hindu`s courtyards -- but not allowing the Christians and Hindus to build their places of worship in their godforsaken `holy` places....

it`s time that the world`s infrared spotlight should be thrown on these unholy custodians of the Muslim holy places -- they think are their personal (baap ki Jaidaad) property....

wahabism- deobandi and terror.

The pathetic pakistanis are fond of pointing out that islam is a great religion blah blah and the version of wahabism is the proble.
In india it was sifi tradition, great, tyen how come when left to the majority muslim state created for religion, weel I mean pakistan, the islam reverted to the terror version, that you call whabism.
The fact is that if muslims are not put into a straight jacket to limit any form of religious paractice as in turkey, or dominated by a majority of another religion, as in india, the true nature of islam will come out.
It took only 50 years in the case of pakistan, to become a leading jihadic country exporting killers to all over the world.
So please, the pakistanis, do not try to classify islam, to whabism and the like. At least give one example of an islamic country where anything other than jihadism is practiced.
The predicliction of islam is all ways to returm to the practices of the desert. The only constitutional changes ever brought to pakistan is the blasphemy laws and hoodood. There has been absolutely nothing progressive inpaksutan in the last 50 years. sorry there are various types of skunks, not many are interested in zoological classifications. skeun is a skun is a skunk. ,may be one can call skuneses pakistaniscus.

This is exactly the kind of Diatribe right wing america lives on and its obvious that the author is far to busy reciting CNN & Freidman then reading an actual Book, but lets not get personal. The Saudis do have a problem and wahhibism`s biggest problem is hipocracy. But the malice ridden insight into the history of the formation of Saudia and the role that Saud played in it has been overdone. The author has to remember that the readers of this site are not Bush Loving Gun Carrying Middle Americans but actual people who live out in these places and know the root of the problems. I understand that due to the fragile nature of the American Psyche , Good and Evil becomes extremely important, however this kind of western ignorance has been quite damaging out here. The Middle east`s problem is that it has a commodity that America runs on and therefore progress in this region would mean that the control America has over these Washington Sponsored Kingdoms will be lost. And as America is out there in Iraq trying to guard the OIL whilst everything else goes up in smoke. The author has to ask one question, The Saudis are hypocrites and extremist I agree, But the only thing eastern about the author is his name, Hipocracy a la carte.

PS: The difference between Lyall (great grandfather of the current British High Commissioner) and King Faisal is that Lyall was actually a well known figure who contributed a lot to this region`s development even as an imperialist.... King Faisal only gave these people false `Pan-Islamic` hopes.

Lyallpur certainly was a better sounding name than `Faisalabad`. I live in `Faisal Town`. We have the `Faisal Moque` and the main road leading to Karachi Highway is `Shahrah-e-Faisal`.

Sameerjb from now on I will also refer to Faisalabad as Lyallpur intentionally.

While the article was well-worded, I found it to be marred by the author`s caustic remarks, many of which are not based on sound analysis. In fact, he is buying into many stereotypes of Saudi Arabia which color Western dialogue with the Muslim world.

First of all, lets take the buzzword of oil out of the picture. The House of Saud has held three Kingdoms, and oil only came into the picture after 1938. In fact, according to Mamoun Fandy (Georgetown), political dissent in the Kingdom has not varied with fluctuations in oil prices. Yes, oil has tremendously helped modernize the country, but it is one of many factors in the country`s internal politics.

Second, the author`s contention that Saudi power is based on ``the sword`` is incomplete if not incorrect. The Saudi family has maintained a network of familial relationships (which the Arabs call `asabiyya and `ailiyya), in effect perpetuating a web of interdependencies between Royal Family members (which number in the THOUSANDS) out to the common citizen. In fact, it is because of this very web of interdependencies that the Saudi family CAN NOT use the sword - they have limits, and they do well to recognize them. For example, they made key concessions to Islamist opposition groups following their release of the Memorandum of Advice and Letter of Demands in 1992.

I found several gaping holes in the articles, such as the author`s biased and completely untrue comments e.g. ``Saud`s Arabia ... has grown tremendously over the last quarter century, thanks to royal oversight and the hard work of everyone except bedouins``. The Bedouins are among the least understood of Saudi citizens - they have been constantly marginalized and depicted as derelicts from another century by both Saudi and non-Saudi sources. To say that they have played NO part in the country`s growth is a GROSS mis-statement. Another example of the author`s ignorance is calling Wahabbism `radical`. Yes, it is puritanical (in that they have clear salafiyya themes) but labelling Wahabbism radical immediately makes all Wahabbis seem like nutty sword-wavers, which they are certainly not. They, for example, strongly emphasize `ijtehad` and denounce taqlid in no uncertain terms. I won`t count the author`s untrue statements, but they certainly lower his credibility in my eyes.

It is true that the Saudi regime is totalitarian and does not permit basic freedoms of speech and association. Yes, it is a family business, and one that allows the `inner circles` to pursue a lavish lifestyle. They have co-opted the `ulema and clearly used Islam to perpetuate their rule and repress women. Yes, like the author said, we must even give the Devil his due: the House of Saud has provided the most stable regime the Peninsula has seen in centuries. It is true that there is clear need for wide-spread reform in the Kingdom, but to distort and then impose Western ideas (especially political and social liberalism) through the looking-glass of our Pakistani ;) morality is a dangerous mistake.

For the literary-minded reader, I suggest Mamoun Fandy`s book ``Saudi Arabia and the Politics of Dissent``. Get past the first few pages and it is a pleasure to read.

I have some observations about monarchy which are:
In my opinion all monarchies are similar. Monarchy almost always acts in the same way which is ‘promoting people supporting monarchy and suppressing the opposers’. That is what English and French monarchies have done to the their own people and slave nations including subcontinent and Africa. This is what Pharos were doing to Egyptians seven thousand years ago
If the role of monarchies had not been limited in the west (which was carried out progressively), they would have acted in the same manner today. If the monarchs of the west were good, nice and clean guys, who would have gone to America? Most of America’s early settlers were the run-away guys.
I am not advocating Saudi monarchs or the Saudi people in general but analysis of Saudi problem shows that the oil revolution engulfed Saudi minds very quickly. Saudi environment transition from third world to first world facilities did not come through a natural course of struggle but it was like Santa Clause’s presents which they got one fine morning. Huge salaries, big American cars under the feet, free gas, no-interest loans for house building and marriages etc. made them eccentric. They are realizing it now and they also realize that they had made a mistake similar to Benjamin Franklin that ‘They had paid too much for the whistle.’ (Franklin was robbed by a shopkeeper who sold him a whistle for a much higher price when he was young). Who has benefited from this? The West. Workers from the West, even now, get at least 1.5 to 3 times the salary of their Asian counterparts. That is the reason US and Britian (proclaimed force against terrorism) does not break relations with Saudia because Big Bux is coming out of this desert.
If the change has to come in Saudia, let it come naturally from inside. We are already seeing results of changes forced from outside like that of Afghanistan and Iraq.
As for Wahabi sect, I would not like to comment on anybody’s conduct of life without understanding their code of conduct.

yogiraj patel: Dont let appearances fool you. Mullahs often have very pleasant demeanors and will talk piously. Many of them are no doubt well-meaning as well. But nearly all of them accept the religious dogma they have been fed. They are thus the front line troops of religious extermism, with those in power often providing them with political and financial support in order to maintain control, as in case of the house of saud.

By the same token, in order to remove the scourge of religious extremism, one must remove the root causes - the sources of funding and political support to the mullahs. That is where this article becomes relevant.

Saudi royal family is a danger, because it combines the nihilism of wahhabism (sp?) with the financial liquidity of petro-dollars to finance its philosophy of an extermist Islam. The house of Saud was responsible for another act, which sought to use Pakistan as a funnel to spread its version of Islam into Centeral Asia, during the rule of Zia-ul-Haq and the reason why the Centeral Asian Republics are not too keen on Pakistan seeking investment opportunties in the CAR region.

Rizwan Khalid has only tapped his fingers on the surface, with this article, because the deeds of the House of Saud are too many to recount in an article; the true horror is yet to be unmasked.

Ciao

Yogiraj, we have need of you on http://www.bharat-rakshak.com.
Please do pay a visit to the Forum.

I remember reading Princess, Daughters of Arabia and Desert Royal, the accounts of life as a Saudi princess as told to Jean Sasson and being absolutely horrified at the human rights violations described. Some people who read it apparently thought it to be exaggerated and nonsensical. Whatever it may be, the Sauds are sick to have curtailed the freedom of their citizens, especially women, to such an extent

Brilliant Article! I loathe the Saudi royal family for what they have been doing to the impression of Islam, because of their stupid policies and thier utmost luxury, which is totally damaging, to their nation. Well, I don`t much care about the Saudi`s either. All I care about are the two places : Makkah and Medina!

`When a fire broke out at Intermediate Girls` School No. 31, Makkah in March this year the mutawaa`in (religious police) acted worse than the Taliban who beat up women without burqas. When the schoolgirls attempted to escape the inferno ....`

that`s just horrifying... it`d be understandable if the victims` modesty (if they really weren`t properly covered, for whatever reason) made them hesitate to come out... but imagine the police not allowing them, just for lack of a veil...or letting men rescue them, in the name of virtue... can`t imagine the pain the parents might have felt, to know their kids could have been saved, but weren`t... those policemen should`ve been lynched by the public.

on a related note...
I remember reading a news item a few years ago, titled `Modesty costs girl her life`...
it seems the girl got a scorpion entangled in her clothes and rather than remove them in a public place she let it bite her, and as a result died...

well, at least, it was her own choice.