Religion Dispatches
…terpretations. It takes a certain amount of mind-twisting logic to look at Saudi Arabia’s laws that it calls shari’ah, where women are not allowed to drive and Iran’s laws that it calls shari’ah, where women are integral part of the government, and say that these systems form a unitary whole. There are certain laws that come out of Qur’an for which all Muslims agree are clear limits. These include commands not to murder, not to steal, to give char…
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…s it always has. We hear Newt Gingrich say all sorts of things about Saudi Arabia, but do we really think that if Newt Gingrich was in power he would suddenly drop that alliance? The Brotherhood’s position on foreign policy reflects to some degree a wider Arab and Muslim opinion on the region, and a vacuum in power which has emerged since America’s relative decline in the region has become increasingly obvious. We’ll simply see more countries pla…
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…our traditional allies in the region; especially Israel, Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia—something Mubarak is well aware of. Because Iran and the resistance it claims to lead has for now stymied our aspirations for Lebanon, we might be tempted to do whatever we can to preserve the “moderate” Arab regimes (here, “moderate” implies a secular dictatorship and nothing more) and make sure our interests suffer no further reversals. It’s all too easy for…
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…The Sudan, there are of course strong restrictions around women’s dress in Saudi Arabia. That’s possibly 2 countries for the other side. (In fact, in the whole Muslim world, only two other countries legally mandate the veil: Iran and Afghanistan.) There must be an explanation for why a journalist would make such a broad, unsubstantiated statement, and it returns us to the simple need to define Arabs as either secular (like us) or religious (unlike…
Read More…in Alexandria, Virginia, called it “the protocols of the learned elders of Saudi Arabia,” when I interviewed him for a story I wrote two years ago. In that story, I reported on how the Clarion Fund was founded by officials with the ultra-orthodox Jewish group Aish HaTorah, although Ronn Torossian, the group’s spokesperson, denied official involvement. (Torossian represents other right-wing religious individuals and organizations; after the Washing…
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…hear the word “Shari’ah” and reflexively think of oppressive regimes like Saudi Arabia. Fish heightens such anxieties when he passes along a generalization about the difference between Muslims and the West made by Ann Black in her book Shari’a in the West (Oxford, 2010), “Muslims do not conceptualize Islam in terms of the Westernized sociological categorization of religion which places the individual at the centre of all analyses.” This isolated…
Read More…the Oklahoma ballot measure that prohibited Sharia law in state courts. In Saudi Arabia, the Mecca Clock Royal Tower is under construction. When finished it will be the second tallest building in the world. It is also located right next to the Kaaba, Islam’s holiest site. And there is now a video game rating system based on “the society, culture, and the special values of Islam.” The Chaplain for the NBA’s Cleveland Cavaliers is asking fans to for…
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…gement (Libya). Massive peaceful protest movements in Morocco, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia have led to important legal and constitutional reforms creating space for a greater share of freedoms in the Arab kingdoms of the Middle East. The regional political atmosphere has been reshaped. The Arab League has suspended Syria’s membership; the King of Jordan has called for the resignation of Bashar al-Assad; the growing influence of Turkey in the regional…
Read More…I have some flexibility. Keep in mind, for example, that people already in Saudi Arabia, and even some minimalists from outside, will only come for the hajj proper. Although it tends to be crowded there starting with Ramadan, there is some semblance of ‘before and after.’ To maximize my before, I think having some time to be there, but not in the ihram for umrah will give me a kind of spiritual quiet in the storm of people and practice. I’ll need…
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…e uncovering the face is either prohibited or severely restricted, like in Saudi Arabia itself, for the hajj, the face must be uncovered. Technically, hajj is one long ritual and women are also prohibited to cover the face for the other ritual performances like salah. But what is the idea behind a woman not having any other particular specifications for ihram? Well, honestly I have no idea. It does mean she can wear red, or blue or green if she wa…
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