A prayer for Salman, the new king of Saudi Arabia

TIME has a nice (if brief) article about the new monarch in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

Saudi Arabia has one of the worst human rights records in the world, especially when it comes to freedom of religion. And just to think that British gold in the hands of the Christian man, Lawrence of Arabia, was so instrumental in building its independence!

But let us hope and pray for a new day for Arabia.

Lord, in your mercy we ask of you:

Peace and justice in Saudi Arabia
Freedom for all people there to worship and live according to their conscience
Wisdom for the Salman, the new king
To confound the plans of the wicked, and deliver the righteous
Strength and power for your holy Church

And we thank you:

For a great increase in the number of people leaving Muhammad for Jesus in KSA
That even in this closed kingdom you have ambassadors from your greater and eternal Kingdom
For the faithful witness of martyrs who loved Christ more than life itself

Amen.

Please do share this far and wide, and use this prayer in your small group, home church, or cathedral, or personal devotions. The power of prayer is not to be underestimated.

A Damning indictment of House of Saud (بيت سعود)

The state of our country is best exemplified by the Musk Lake, where 1,200 tankers of human waste from Jeddah sewage have been dumped daily for the past 25 years. Naming this chasm of foulness "musk" gives great insight in how Saudi rulers distort the simplest of realities. Musk Lake, not the only lake of human waste in the country, has been the source of diseases such as dengue fever, which has killed dozens and afflicted thousands for years.

From HERE. The main portion of the article is about the recent flooding in Jeddah, which doesn't even have a sewage system.

Girl sentenced to jail in Saudi for being raped

Girl gets a year in jail, 100 lashes for adultery
By Adnan Shabrawi

JEDDAH – A 23-year-old unmarried woman was awarded one-year prison term and 100 lashes for committing adultery and trying to abort the resultant fetus. The District Court in Jeddah pronounced the verdict on Saturday after the girl confessed that she had a forced sexual intercourse with a man who had offered her a ride. The man, the girl confessed, took her to a rest house, east of Jeddah, where he and four of friends assaulted her all night long. The girl claimed that she became pregnant soon after and went to King Fahd Hospital for Armed Forces in an attempt to carry out an abortion. She was eight weeks’ pregnant then, the hospital confirmed. According to the ruling, the woman will be sent to a jail outside Jeddah to spend her time and will be lashed after delivery of her baby who will take the mother’s last name. – Okaz/SG

From HERE.

Fatima bint Muhammad al Matayri, martyr of Saudi Arabia

Hi All,

In August of 2008 Fatima bint Muhammad al Matayri of Saudi Arabia was martyred--burned to death by her brother who also cut her tongue out. She was 26. I have a PDF file with some of her writings, both in English and Arabic, and some other background info. It is pretty short, but very powerful.

If I were Catholic I would work for her canonization. Heck, maybe as an Anglican I'll do it anyway. But if anyone would like the PDF file (about 1 MB) e-mail me. winterlightning [@+] safe-mail [d0t] net.

Salam u Ramadan Mubaarak,

AD

Women visiting KSA (Saudi Arabia)

Women considering relocating to Saudi Arabia should be keenly aware that women and children residing in Saudi Arabia as members of a Saudi household (including adult women married to Saudi men, adult women who are the unmarried daughters of Saudi fathers, and boys under the age of 21 who are the sons of Saudi fathers) are considered household property and require the permission of the Saudi male head of their household to leave the country.

From

HERE

.

Tourism in Saudi Arabia (that's a joke)

I believe that KSA is the only major country in the world that does not have a tourist visa. You can get other kinds, like religious or professional or (I have heard) a transit visa, for those long drives from, say, Aqaba (Jordan) to Sana'a (Yemen). But some smart guy over at the Saudi Government has had an idea--that Saudi tourism will create 900,000 jobs. How silly is this? Read and enjoy:

Tourism In Saudi?

Can I ask what in the world would a tourist do in Saudi? This is totally besides Mekkah and Madinah, we can understand that millions of Muslims would come to these areas. But I can't help but choke on the word 'tourism' in relation to Saudi. What in the world will they see?

The wonderful zoos? oh sorry there aren't any
Water parks? uhhh nope wrong country none in Saudi
The wonderful oceans and the included activities? uhhhh only if you include garbage and more garbage and limited activities especially for women. But you can scuba dive in Jeddah.
The big grand amusement parks? well the ones they have are emergency room visits waiting to happen.
The green luscious lands? oh sorry wrong country
Movies? Nope sorry
Museums? not exactly
Wildlife? only thing that comes close to wildlife are kids

ohhhh Malls yes plenty of those closed until 4pm but life as a night walker is good in a mall a/c, lights, too many people on the weekends. Yea I would fly to another country for a good mall (ok that is a lie)

LINK.

Saudi Martyrs

Saudi girl executed for becoming Christian

A young girl in Saudi Arabia was brutally executed by her Muslim father this week after he learned his daughter had converted to Christianity.

Middle East business news website Zawya.com reported that the man, who is a prominent member of a "virtue committee," first cut out his daughter's tongue and held a one-sided religious debate with her. He then burned his daughter alive.

Observant Muslims hold that their Prophet Mohammed taught that Muslims who convert to any other religion must be killed, often in extremely brutal fashion.

From HERE.

I would really like to know if anyone knows the name of this young lady who was martyred for her faith.

Saudi Jeans on the Judicial System in KSA

Saudi Jeans is one of the most famous blogs in the the Arab blogosphere (AKA البلوغوسفير العربي) and he has some interesting comments on the state of the Saudi Judicial system. There are some hopeful stirrings. But hope in KSA is like water poured onto desert sand more often than not.

I mention the topic since there was so much discussion on the recent post about the eight year old girl and 47-year old man being married and then the little girl being denied a divorce requested by her mother.

Here is the whole post from Saudi Jeans:

Court of Embarrasment

Not so long ago, criticizing the judiciary was a taboo in this country. But with more people learning more about their rights and finding new outlets to express their dissatisfaction, they began to clearly show their impatience with the performance of the justice system. The system has become a battlefield between reformers who demanded change and conservatives who defended the judges fiercely, arguing that since their verdicts are based on Sharia then they should be unquestionable.

Luckily for the rest of us though, the complaints did not fall on deaf ears. In October 2007, King Abdullah announced a $2bn plan to overhaul the legal system. It is a large undertaking and it will certainly take a long time to see the effects of this plan. The resistance of the old guard in the system will only make this process slower and more difficult. But one of the good immediate effects of this plan is that it has placed the judges under increased scrutiny. The past two years have witnessed a number of high profile cases that attracted much attention from people and the media, not just in Saudi Arabia but around the world.

I think that last week’s case in Onaiza, where a court rejected a divorce petition filed by the mother of a an eight-year-old girl whose father married her to a 58-year-old man, should be seen in that context. Sure, the verdict is outrageous and unfair, but hey, this is the K of SA, a country where judges are not tied to written laws and justice is a subjective matter that pretty much depends on their whims. Does Sheikh Habib al-Habib know that his government has [signed] the international Convention on the Rights of the Child since 1996? I don’t think he does, and I think he does not care because such international laws are made by mere mortals while he probably believes that he is applying God’s laws.

Abdullah Al-Jutaili, the lawyer representing the girl’s divorced mother, said he was going to appeal the verdict. Let’s hope judges at the appeals court will be wiser than their colleague here when they deal with this case that not only exemplified the kind of injustices the people of this country have to go through when their [misfortune] leads them to a court, but also further tarnished the already distorted image of Saudi Arabia in the world.

CNN: Saudi Judge Refuses to annul marriage of girl, 8

Actually, if you read the legal aspects of the case everything is indeed according to shari'a as far as I can tell. The mother does not have a right to file this case, and as long as the little girl's husband agrees to wait until puberty to have sex with her then he has fulfilled his obligations. Also, the giving of a daughter in marriage to settle a debt is entirely permissible in Islamic law. The fact that the man is 47 and the girl is eight is not material at all. The girl is a minor and so she has no say in this matter. Her father is her guardian, and then her husband is after the marriage.

Anyway, read it all here:

CNN: Saudi Judge Refuses to annul marriage of girl, 8

The Churches of Saudi Arabia

I managed to read almost all of Christianity and Islam in Spain A.D. 756-1031 by C. Haines over the weekend, and it is, well, passable. And number three or four on my reading list is Early Christianity in Arabia by Thomas Wright, so I should know more about the topic within three weeks or so.

But for now I do know of two churches in Saudi Arabia, including one recently discovered one. There is a link HERE on the church in Jeddah, but the site is in Arabic but I guess you can use a translator site if you want. And then there is a 4th C. Assyrian church also, the article is in English with some beautiful pictures HERE.

Technically under shari'a either of these could be rebuilt or repaired into functioning churches. But there is hadith (of questionable authenticity) saying that there should only be one religion in the Gulf, and that is why KSA has not allowed any visible church congregations to exist in the country.

TV shows cause controversy in the Arab world

Very insightful article here from the IHT. TV is huge during Ramadan because people will stay inside most of the day just lounging around until iftar, when the fast breaks in the evening.

A segment:

The recent controversy over soap opera-style serials suggests that the Arab authorities, whether religious, tribal or political, are anxious about the extraordinary public reach of such muselselaat and their power to challenge accepted ideas or traditions.

Perhaps the best example is "Noor," the popular Turkish series that ran over the summer. The show violated Arab cultural taboos in a number of ways: besides having Muslim characters who drank wine with dinner and had premarital sex, a cousin of the male protagonist, Muhannad, had an abortion.

Perhaps more important, Muhannad treats his wife as an equal and supports her career as a fashion designer.

The show and the liberties it displayed prompted unusual condemnations from hard-line clerics throughout the Middle East, including Sheik Abdul Aziz al-Asheik, Saudi Arabia's leading cleric, who issued an instruction that Muslims should not watch it.

Saudi convert burned to death by her father

Well, this stuff happens quite often and I don't post every incident I hear of, but John Stringer has done a fine job collecting info and some insightful commentary as well, so check it out over at his blog. The first paragraph:

In Saudi Arabia, a young woman was executed by her own father, an officer of the Muttawa, as he felt obliged by honor to cleanse his family of his daughter’s shame. She had become a Christian, God forbid!

EN 41: indestructible witness and martyrdom

§40 is the beginning of Section IV, and sets up the question: how to evangelize? Paul makes some comments about how it is especially the role of the bishop to decide how to evangelize, which is ironic because the evangelism I have seen in the Catholic church usually happens despite the hierarchy, not because of it. Of course my experience is quite limited and I'm guessing there are bishops out there who wake up and ask, how can I seek the conversion of the people in this city?

But the central question has turned to one of method, after discussing the definition of evangelism, and then its relation to liberation and politics and human rights.

§41 stipulates that "the first means of evangelization is the witness of an authentically Christian life, given over to God in a communion that nothing should destroy and at the same time given to one's neighbor with limitless zeal." Again we note the personal-communal balance which Paul has so carefully preserved, quite explicitly, several times. And when I hear 'that nothing should destroy,' from over here in Dar al Islam, I think of martyrdom and physical persecution right away. It is simply a fact of life here for the Christian who is an active witness to non-Christians.

And then here we have a very quotable line:

"Modern man listens more willingly to witnesses than to teachers, and if he does listen to teachers, it is because they are witnesses."

Which seems prescient to me. He was writing in 1975 which one could say was during the shift or mutation from Modernism to post-modernism, and thus the primacy of personal experience over didactic teaching. Let us also recall that in Greek the words 'martyr' and 'witness' are the same.

But I must say that I have found a certain romanticism about persecution among Christians in the West. Everyone likes to quote Tertullian: the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church. In general it is true that there is a spiritual dynamic to the Kingdom of God which subverts or deconstructs the patterns of ordering of our age--"nostra aetate". But when one considers the desert of North Africa which was once home to a vibrant Christian community, or Asia Minor which is now the spiritual wasteland of Turkey, one must amend Tertullian (himself from North Africa):

The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church, except when Islam is involved.

Saudis to retrain 40,000 clerics

Saudis to retrain 40,000 clerics

[...] Saudi clerics have long been accused of encouraging Saudi youth to join global jihad and of inciting hatred of non-Muslims.

Nearly 1,000 imams have already been sacked over the past few years.

The Saudi royal family has come under increasing pressure - mainly from Washington - to change religious textbooks and to rein in militant clerics.

But critics are sceptical about whether such initiatives would work as long as the powerful, and ultraconservative, religious establishment in Saudi Arabia continues to exert enormous influence over society.

Only last week, a prominent cleric called for the beheading of two liberal writers who had questioned the orthodox view that Muslims can not change their religion.

A Church in Saudi Arabia?

Very unlikely, IMHO. But still worth reading. Maybe in one of the special economic zones where regular Saudis are not allowed in without special permission...

A Church in Saudi Arabia?

Presiding over the cradle of Islam and home to its holiest sites, the Saudi monarchy has long banned the open worship of other faiths, even as the number of Catholics resident in Saudi Arabia has risen to 800,000 thanks to an influx of immigrant workers from places like the Philippines and India. Mosques are the only houses of prayer in a country where the strict Wahhabi version of Sunni Islam dominates. But Archbishop Paul-Mounged El-Hachem, the papal envoy to the smaller countries on the Arabian peninsula, such as Kuwait and Qatar, has confirmed that talks are under way to establish formal diplomatic relations between the Vatican and Saudi Arabia, and to eventually allow for Catholic churches to be built there. Pope Benedict XVI is believed to have personally appealed to King Abdullah on the topic during the Saudi monarch's first ever visit to the Vatican last November.

Top Vatican spokesman Father Federico Lombardi said that a Catholic parish in this key Islamic country would be "a historic achievement" in the push to expand religious freedom and foster a positive interfaith rapport. [...]

Honor Killings all around!

Recent honor killings in:

Jordan

Israel

And a conference on the practice in Saudi Arabia

Saudi Arabia bars all things red through Valentine's Day

When I think of Valentine's Day I think, "I wonder where I could get an icon of Saint Valentine?" But it looks like I'm not the only who has unconventional thoughts:

Saudi Arabia bans all things red ahead of Valentine's Day

(CNN) -- Saudi Arabia has asked florists and gift shops to remove all red items until after Valentine's Day, calling the celebration of such a holiday a sin, local media reported Monday.

With a ban on red gift items over Valentine's Day in Saudi Arabia, a black market in red roses has flowered.

"As Muslims we shouldn't celebrate a non-Muslim celebration, especially this one that encourages immoral relations between unmarried men and women, " Sheikh Khaled Al-Dossari, a scholar in Islamic studies, told the Saudi Gazette, an English-language newspaper.

Every year, officials with the conservative Muslim kingdom's Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice clamp down on shops a few days before February 14, instructing them to remove red roses, red wrapping paper, gift boxes and teddy bears. On the eve of the holiday, they raid stores and seize symbols of love.

The virtue and vice squad is a police force of several thousand charged with, among other things, enforcing dress codes and segregating the sexes. Saudi Arabia, which follows a strict interpretation of Islam called Wahhabism, punishes unrelated women and men who mingle in public. [...]

Latest from Saudi Arabia

Since the US President is there, here are a few links with recent news from The Kingdom, aka the Custodian of the Two Holy Places:

Bush asks for more oil production

POTUS and King of KSA agree on huge arms deal

Saudi Blogger Al Farhan still imprisoned for, uh, talking and stuff
(Sad ironic note, his surname, Al Farhan, means 'the happy one' in Arabic.)

Map: Kingdom of Jerusalem

KSA: Obsessed with Segregation

From the indefatigable Saudi Jeans:

For some reason, Arab News chooses not to name KSU when they write about the stifling restrictions Saudi Arabia’s oldest university impose on their female students. Considering how this country is obsessed with segregation, there is no surprise here. And the ironic thing is, they say the university “is supposed to be a place where young women experience greater freedoms.” Says who? Wake up girls! This is freakin’ K of SA you are living in. The university, as you may expect, claim that the point of these restrictions is to protect the students. Again, no surprise. Welcome to Saudi Arabia, where everyone claims moral authority over the rest.

In the other hand, the newspaper chooses to name another university in Riyadh, Imam Mohammed bin Saud Islamic University, which supposedly is even more strict than KSU. It is said that IMSIU is to launch a new college of medicine, but according to Ali Al Mousa in Al Watan daily, the university president could not answer the question of whether female students would be accepted in the new college. Al Mousa tends to cut the president some slack because answering that question might put him in confrontation with the extremists who would, for sure, use the ’segregation’ card. Let’s wait and see how this drama is going to play out. [...]

Abu Daoud says, especially interesting are the comments at Saudi Jeans. Also, if you don't know what indefatigable means click HERE.