A glimpse of the Sharia existence that the global mujahedin are working so hard to bring to us. From AP, with thanks to Mathew:
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia - I was still looking over the menu when the commotion began. The waiter sprinted in and shut off the TV that was airing a female pop singer's video clip. Another waiter hastily put up a wooden partition to screen me from the male diners.Saudi Arabia's religious police were on the prowl.
Eating out in Riyadh is an unusual experience, apt on occasion to give the diner indigestion. The restaurants are trendy and serve all manner of local and foreign delicacies. But they are subject to the austere mores of an Islamic kingdom — no unmarried men and women together, no pop music, not even service with a smile.
Saudis in the capital take the extremes of the muttawa, or religious police, in stride. But among expatriates, they're a favorite topic of conversation.
They tell of the inspector who tried to yank the TV set's wires out of the wall because the Lebanese singer Maria was on the TV screen sitting in a bathtub full of milk and cocoa puffs singing "Play, Play."
And the waiter who was made to rinse the gel out of his hair because he was suspected of trying to look good for the ladies. And another whose sin was to serve dishes directly to women. He was marched to the inspector's car and made to sign a pledge to hand meals to the diners from behind a screen.
That's not all. Restaurants and cafes must shut their doors for prayers, five times a day for 30 minutes at a stretch.
I once found myself sitting on the steps of a coffee shop with two women — an American and a Canadian — after being ordered out during the prayer break. We found it interesting that in a country that takes extreme measures to shield the sexes during meals, we were being made to eat on the street.
Read it all.
Do you have to take along your marriage certificate to prove that you are man and wife?
Ah yes, eating as a woman in the Islamic world. Check out the video on my blog, scroll to the bottom of the page. This woman tries to eat spaghetti through a veil.
http://islam-watch.blogspot.com/
A serial offender?
From the article:
No, it isn't a puritan strain of Islam. There is no strain of Islam that would allow unmarried couples to dine together. This is the true Islam. However, it is encouraging to read that so many new restaurants are opening. The world cannot have too many restaurants.
I wouldn't fancy dining out in Saudi Arabia - no wine. A meal without wine is like a day without sunshine. However, the ban on pop music and hair gel would be a bonus.
Closer to home, in the area round North London's Finsbury Park Mosque known to many as "Little Algiers" there are a number of cafés full of Muslim men. Muslim women do not seem to eat out in this area.
Often very funny is The Religious Policeman (click at the left), a completely Westernized Saudi (who for some reason continues to call himself a Muslim, possibly out of that well-known filial piety -- but clearly his Islam is of the most vestigial sort, and he an example of a "Muslim-for-identification-purposes-only" Muslim. Lots of stuff about that country named after a family by that family, and now suffering from all those princes, princelings, and princelettes who, when they are not busy funding assorted Jihad activities, are outdoing even Lee Raymond (retiring head of Exxon-Mobil) in their greed, and Paris Hilton in their decadence, all funded by the oil money that they are still permitted to appropriate for themselves, and to which those who object find themselves forced to offer as the answer not simply, as we would in the West, anti-corruption measures, or a revolution to destroy the regime, but Islam and more, even more, Islam.
While Islam and humor are ordinarily immiscible, humor among those "Muslim-for-identification-purposes-only" Muslims who, having been raised in the West, knowing a Western language perfectly, have more or less rejected Islam even if they claim to be Muslims, and have somehow acquired a borscht-belt-or-Sid-Caesarish sensibility (Call for Papers at the MLA or the American Political Science Association: Jewish Humor and Muslim Dissident Blogs), can be found here and there. The Religious Policeman is one example.
And no doubt, in the whole wide world, another five or six can be found.
Who in their right mind would visit Saudi Arabia?
(Except as a spy?)
Is any amount of blood-money worth it, otherwise?
Doesn't the humiliation sour any profits?
Or is greed so sweet it can flavor even existential degradation?
I was talking with an older women in my biz last week and she mentioned that her son was in Saudi Arabia. I asked if he was in the Air Force, and she said: "Yes, a pilot, retired. But he's over there to start a company..."
I wanted to say: "Doesn't he understand that he is aiding the enemy of our civilization?" but didn't want to hurt her obviously proud feelings for her "successful" son. (And I have to give him the possible benefit of the doubt that he is working as a covert operative...)
But, if you are not a spy, or a secret Christian missionary, what could lure you to want to prop up this terrorist-feeding-and-promoting gang of petro-pimps?
Are the lunches that good?
Hey thethinker, great blogspot and a brilliant piece depicting islam's despicable history, bravo!
I was in Saudi Arabia for five years (actually for 60 paychecks, one each lunar month). We were on what we called a "cultural exchange program", that is, we exchanged some of our culture for a lot of their money. I don't feel guilty about it. At least the recycled petro dollars that flowed through me and others like me ultimately ended up in the hands of American merchants back home, not Wahabbi dominated mosques in Dearborn, Nashville or Brooklyn. We even used some of it to buy fine wine and spirits back home. This Bud's for you Abdullah!
We once saw the mutawwa (moral police) storm into a small grocery store on the compound where we lived. They proceeded to sweep the shelves of the recently arrived shipment of Nabisco animal crackers onto the floor where they angrily stomped on every box. The manager of the shop was hauled off to jail. Graven images you see.
Simians. The whole region is infested with them. That's why I don't worry about the outcome of any all-out war with the entire Muslim world. The scale of human suffering worldwide that now seems inevitable however, is indeed a dreadful and terribly heart breaking spectre. We will undoubtedly succeed in cramming the genie of jihad back into the bottle to which it was confined by our ancestors with cannons. The toll will be high, perhaps higher than any conflagration in history, including the war of 1939-45.
Victors write history. Non-muslims will be writing this one. They will be Americans, Europeans, Chinese, Indians, Japanese, Australians, Israelis, Latin Americans, Koreans, Russians, Canadians ...
Somebody pass the dromedary oysters, please.
Said K Aburish's 'The House of Saud' is a good read for anyone unversed in the ways of that part of the world (although 'true' Islam gets a free pass from the author).
Other than the brutality, depravity, vulgarity, indolence, squalid self-regard and pure evil of the Saudi 'Royal' family, I was struck by the educational problems of its young princes (the women aren't worthy of education obviously). Put bluntly, tutors are so afraid to tell them to study properly that their level of educational achievement often fails to rise above remedial.
I was particularly interested in this because at the end of last year I got a business call from a young Saudi who had studied in England and who was genuinely convinced he had discovered a new theory of gravity and wanted some help 'taking it to market'.
I decided to meet up with him out of sheer curiosity. When I asked him what he did I got no real answer other that he was something to do with shipping. He had no scientific credentials at all. He did however suggest that his credibility should not be in doubt as he had 60-odd educational qualifications.
He was obviously a wealthy man - money was no object for the project apparently - and I do wonder if he was a family member or merely an ordinary Saudi subject.
So do they allow married people to sit together? So much for a family sitting down to a good meal. Shouldn't restaurants have women serving women's meals??? Oh , I forgot, women aren't allowed to work. I'm surprised they serve women at all.
As bad as they appear to hate women, it makes you wonder how they could want to marry or mate with one. Or more.
If any muslim women read this site, RUNNN, RUN away as fast as you can!!! Islam is not good for you! You are brainwashed if you believe otherwise. Use your brain and open your eyes. Run!!
Our ally (i.e. pimp), just warms the heart doesn't it?
The sheer joylessness of Islam never fails to amaze me. Whenever I read a report like this, I think about the gatherings we have in our church, full of food and music, families with their children laughing and talking; the block parties all over our city, the festivals and celebrations with bands and performers of every type, artists showing off their works, the weekend nights where everyone goes out to eat or simply to stroll the downtowns. Teenagers flirting in giggling groups, little kids in playgrounds, people tossing tennis balls to their dogs, young couples holding hands or showing off their babies to the world.
What does Islam have to offer us in return for the destruction of civic joy? The furtive gobbling of food behind screens, in silence, always watching for the police. Women faceless and smothered, cringing and scuttling behind their husbands when they dare to appear in public. Repetitive scribblings instead of paintings, sculpture, and photography; the complete erasure of those smiling dogs leaping to fetch a frisbee. And instead of music, five times a day, every day, the howling from the minarets.
Anecdotes and trivial information like this I can provide in abundance about the great Kingdom. I spent 7-8 years of my life there from 6th grade in middle school till high school graduation. It was in an Indian school of course...wouldnt dream of studyin in jihad university.
Little anecdotal and otherwise tidbits of information about the great Kingdom can be provided by me due to my 8 year stay from age of 10 to 18.
Curious little facts: I've been 'hit on' 6-7 times by random Saudi boys and men. The offers ranged from 50 Saudi Riyals to 500 (conversion: 1 USD = 3.75 SR) All my other friends (males) have also been hit on in the street or in taxicabs. Its a perversely stifled society. Geography textbooks of Saudi kids contain 'opinions of Sheikhs'. Some learned ones might even include the contention that the 'earth is flat' or that the Kingdom is not prone to earthquakes or seismic activity due to the gift of the Prophet's birth in the land.
I could go on...
I could go on...
Tushar Saxena...Please do, I find it fascinating.
Alright Caratacus,
Pakistani kids joined hands with Arab kids in harrassing my brother (they were all 8 year olds) hurling such choice epithets as "Kaafir kaalb" (infidel dog). In all the fights I and my friends have had with Arabs the word 'kaafir' and 'mushrik' always flew first.
After the Muhammad Al-Doura incident in the Palestinian territories, random 15 yr old boys would force me to shout Fuck Israel or be beaten up. I did not know what Israel had done neither cared.
Often on the streets, I or my friends would be randomly stopped by the muttawas (the religious police mentioned in the post) and forced to remove any dogtags, necklaces, bracelets etc we might have been wearing.
During Ramadan, infidels better not be caught outside eating during fast time or they could be subject to fines and imprisonment.
a borscht-belt-or-Sid-Caesarish sensibility (Call for Papers at the MLA or the American Political Science Association: Jewish Humor and Muslim Dissident Blogs)
Suggested title - "Caesar Saladin".
What do the Religious policemen wear?
I met tourist police in Egypt many years ago. They just wore white uniform suits and badges on their shoulders that said "Tourist Police"
Despite the fact that the muttawas have been responsible for so many deaths and misery (the Mecca schoolgirls are the obvious example) I can't stop imagining something on the lines of Pythons "Church Police" - Vicar Sergeant and Detective Parson.
Oh, there's another dead mullah on the landing. I've got three of 'em down by the bin, and the dustmen won't touch 'em!
Granny W - The Church Police? Haven't thought about them for yonks.
"Oh Lord we beseech thee, tell us who done it..."
Klaus: It's a fair cop, but society's to blame.
Detective: Agreed. We'll be charging them too.
Detective: Right. I'll now ask you all to conclude this harrest with a hymn.
All: All things bright and beautiful,
All creatures great and small,
All things wise and wonderful,
The church police nicked them all.
"They [the religious police in Saudi Arabia] proceeded to sweep the shelves of the recently arrived shipment of Nabisco animal crackers onto the floor where they angrily stomped on every box. The manager of the shop was hauled off to jail. Graven images you see."
-- from a posting above
Shirley Temple would not have been amused.
And here's an idea for instructors in survey courses in Western art. Before the students have opened their Janson or their Hartt, why not pass out a page of quotations designed to prompt a little interest in, even perhaps a vague foreboding that various kinds of art among those we simply take for granted -- the contents, say, of the nearest large museum -- should not be taken for granted, either in its past embodiments, or in its future unhindered expression.
It's a way to get students interested, before presenting them with those photographs of flat cycladic goddesses, and then those relatively well-rounded kouroi.
Teaching about Western art, Western literature, Western history, not with the wonted blandness, but just a little bit "against," could do wonders among the jaded students, their baseball caps still on, their gum still being chewed, in the classrooms of colleges all across this land.
Unfortunately, Islam is very appealing to many women, including teenage girls. I spotted a story earlier today (and of course I can't find it now--where do these stories disappear to?) about a 16-year old Muslim girl who has become the first in her family to wear the hijab. She is also studying the Quran and Hadith and hopes to have seven children like her mother and grandmother. She lives in Massachusetts and was obviously pleased with the sense of belonging and place that Islam gave her. One would like to tell her to live in Saudi Arabia so she can live a completely Islamic life style, not as a matter of personal "choice". It's disturbing to hear of 2nd or later-generation Muslims going through "de-assimilation" like this, not to mention the converts who drift their way.
Found the link! Here it is http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0412/p20s01-lire.html. It's absurd teenagers can think Islam is "cool" or permits "ambition" or "autonomy" among women. But I guess the Hitler Youth and League of German Girls felt the same way.
And now for an Islamic threat to Egypt's ancient heritage: http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0418/p01s02-wome.html?s=itm.
"If any muslim women read this site, RUNNN, RUN away as fast as you can!!! Islam is not good for you! You are brainwashed if you believe otherwise. Use your brain and open your eyes. Run!! "
How? Can't get a passport without guardian male's approval. Can't leave the religion without getting murdered. Can't drive. Suicide seems like about the only way out - I wonder what the SA women's suicide rate is?
You're right Lili, but there are a lot of women who aren't in middle eastern countries.
And there are a lot of women who begin as free women and turn to islam because of boyfriend, husband, boredom, ignorance or stupidity.
All these women that turn to islam are giving themselves a jail sentence. Others were given the jail sentence by birth.
I once heard that in KSA, the only 2 reasons one is allowed to visit is business & pilgrimage. No tourism, or any other such reasons.
Tushar, I sympathize. None of my business of course, but what took you and your family to KSA?
thank god my wife listens to meonce in a while she wanted to go to sudia arabia but there is noway in hell she would ever were anything but blue jeans and a t shirt
and the idia of her wereing a head covering or viel or head totoe dress forget it from what i have been reading here a feminist like her would not be safe from over sexed moslem men