Exclusive: Saudi Wahhabis are Unique Muslims

ICC Note

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is infamous for gross violations of human rights of non-Muslims and expatriate workers who come from poor countries.

Dr. Sami Alrabaa

02/09/2009 Saudi Arabia (Family Security Matters)-Unless you are an Arab, or someone who speaks Arabic very well and have lived in Saudi Arabia for a while, you might not be aware of the following facts and practices from Saudi Arabia and Wahhabi communities across the globe.

Even the majority of expatriates who live in Saudi Arabia , some of them for years, do not speak Arabic, have hardly any contact with the local population, and consequently know very little about what is really going on in Saudi Arabia .

Foreign reporters who want to report from Saudi Arabia are carefully selected. Friendly reporters are preferred. After they arrive in Saudi Arabia , they are accompanied by Saudi officials from the Ministry of Information. These reporters are shown what the Saudis want them to see.

First of all, Saudi Arabia , the cradle of Islam, does not have a codified criminal law and modern courts do not exist. Usually it is a cleric or the police who pass verdicts against criminals. Besides, the King and his clan are the law. They rule whimsically, supported by Wahhabism, a stone-age Islamic version of Islam.

The daily Al Madeena reported on January 8, 2009, “The head of Najran’s city council (unelected) issued the following verdicts: A man who beat his wife until she died receives one and a half year prison sentence and 200 flogs. Two young men who stole a sheep receive a sentence of three years and 2,000 flogs.”

A Saudi practicing Muslim does not shake hands with a woman. Touching her hand stirs his sexual lust and that is haram (sinful).

Also, a Saudi practicing Muslim never uses his left hand to eat, drink, or give somebody something with it. It is unhygienic. He uses it to wash his buttocks after defecating.

Women in Saudi Arabia must veil themselves from head to toe in public. Also, a woman must be accompanied by a close relative in public, otherwise she is branded as a prostitute and very often is snapped by the Mutawas (Morality police) and detained. Saudi women are forced to wear a niqab (face veil).

Further, a Saudi woman is not allowed to perform any public transaction: economic, financial, or administrative, without the approval of a male relative – husband, father, or brother.

The Saudi Sheikh Saleh Al-Lehadan, head of the Supreme Judiciary Council, told Al Watan Daily, (December 2, 2008) “Women who are raped by men are themselves to blame. They provoke men by the way they dress or walk.”

Saudi Arabia is the only country in the world where men can marry several women or divorce them in their absence. All a man needs to marry a woman is the two witnesses of his choice. To divorce a woman, he simply needs to go to the highest religious authority in his district. For more details, check out the book Karin in Saudi Arabia .

Almost every Saudi household has at least one maid from the Philippines , Sri Lanka , and India . The majority of them are cheap labor and are often abused sexually by their male employers. They are forced to work for 24 hours, seven days a week for meager $60-$70 a month. Many of them never see any money for years. After that, or after getting pregnant, they are deported to their home countries.

Prince Salman, the Governor of Riyadh, told Al Madeena Daily (November 20, 2008), “It is a minority that abuse housemaids.” This, however, contradicts the latest report of the International Labor Organization (ILO) in Geneva , Switzerland , (2008), which says that over 80% of Saudi families abuse maids and treat them like slaves.

Saudi Arabia is the only country in the world that teaches hatred, violence, and bigotry against non-Muslims at its schools. School textbooks are filed with texts that are politically and socially incorrect. Even mathematics books teach these things. Here is a Saudi school quiz: 19 Muslims kill 2,979 infidels (with reference to 9/11). How many did each of them kill? Check out “Saudi Textbooks Incite to Hatred and Violence.”

The same books are printed and funded by Saudis for schools in Pakistan , Indonesia , and madrassas in Deoband (in India ) and elsewhere.

Saudi Arabia is the only country in the world that does not allow followers of other faiths to have their own temples. Even wearing the Christian cross in a necklace is forbidden. Its owner may be charged with proselytizing and could face flogging or deportation. On the other hand, Saudi Arabia has funded the erection of mosques all over the world, and spends billion of dollars on Islamic centers across the world.

For example, King Fahd Academy , which was funded and opened in Bonn , Germany in 1995 and cost $20 million, was recently closed because it was teaching violence and hatred by staff from Saudi Arabia . However, the “House of Islam” near Frankfurt , which is also funded by the Saudis, is still teaching a Saudi curriculum.

Saudi Arabia is the only country in the world that obliges non-Muslim women who marry a Muslim man to first convert to Islam. Muslim women are not allowed at all to marry a non-Muslim, unless he also converts to Islam.

Saudi Fatwas (religious edicts):

Ali Al Khudhair, a Saudi Imam in Riyadh approved of telling lies if that helps advancing Islam in a Friday preach (April 4, 2008).

The imam of Mecca , Abdul Rahman Al-Sudais said on June 6, 2008, “Perfume is forbidden in Islam. Neither men nor women should use it. Perfume attracts the devil that makes you commit sins.”

Abullah Al Najdi, another Saudi imam, told Al Riyadh Daily (July 14, 2008), “Football is haram, (sinful) in Islam. It is an infidels’ fad. Fighting for a ball and later celebrating a victory is senseless.”

According to the religious establishment in Saudi Arabia , the voice of a woman is also a sexual organ. She is not allowed to talk directly to non-relative males. Therefore, when a woman calls the Saudi radio to take part in a talk show, she is not dialogued by a man, but by a woman.

Sheikh Saleh Al-Lehadan also promulgated that “learning a language other than Arabic, the language of the holy Koran, is un-Islamic. It is an insult to our religion. It is obvious that those children who learn English, for example, grow up liking non-Muslims, and this is a grave mistake. You know that we should minimize our contacts with non-Muslims to the lowest limit possible. That is what our Prophet, peace be upon him, and the holy Koran teach us.”