Saudi Arabia: Change is coming as young Saudis crave freedom

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Some have questioned whether this can be dictated from the top in a country that is so deeply religious and intransigent in matters of faith.

Times of Ahmad | News Watch | Int'l Desk
Source/Credit: Toronto Sun
By Farzana Hassan | November 9, 2017

It is in Saudi Arabia where the Koran is the constitution and a dogmatic clergy has exercised tremendous power over the social order

Saudi Arabia thus far displays no advancement in the status of women.

They remain burka-clad, invisible, voiceless and anonymous if they venture out in public.

A fire in a Saudi school in 2002 killed fifteen girls. The reason? Escape would have required fleeing without the proper attire, the abaya that fully covers them and prevents anyone from noticing their contours.

Saudi Arabia bars women from driving cars or leaving the house without their husband’s permission.

Not only women suffer. Raif Badawi still languishes in prison from a blasphemy conviction and others have stood trial for “offences” that in the free world are considered an inherent entitlement to hold and express an opinion.

It is in Saudi Arabia where the Koran is the constitution and a dogmatic clergy has exercised tremendous power over the social order and sparingly dealt out human rights under the strict guidelines of a puritanical reading of sharia law.

Some are hoping all that will change with the young crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, exerting his influence to reform and modernize the oil kingdom.

He has taken away police powers to arrest people for perceived moral infractions. The prince has also incarcerated a number of clerics for expressing intolerance and disrespect for other religions. This is a radical idea in a country where no other place of worship can exist by law because no other religion is recognized as valid.

Prince Mohammad has expressed his progressive views on Islam with commendable courage. He openly stated recently at a business conference that there is a dire need to encourage a more moderate, tolerant strain: a “moderate, balanced Islam that is open to the world and to all religions and all traditions and peoples.”

Some have questioned whether this can be dictated from the top in a country that is so deeply religious and intransigent in matters of faith.

But there have been signs of change among some Saudis. The young people— men and women alike— crave greater freedoms.

Even atheism is on the rise in the desert kingdom. Of course, declaring non-belief in a nation founded on sharia still spells danger but a skeptical undercurrent is obvious even if the atheism remains covert.

It is crucial that Saudi Arabia changes to a more modern nation in its laws, its mores and especially its religious outlook.

In the last few decades, the Saudis have exported their Wahhabi fundamentalism to the rest of the Islamic world. Prior to this cultural exportation, Islam was being practiced in many parts of the world with its own indigenous flavours in such matters as dress and religious ritual.

Sometimes “pure” Islam was softened by the moderate influence of local traditions, in the same way that Catholicism was fused with pre-Christian influences in Latin America. Strict Saudi practices have recently infiltrated countries like Pakistan, where many women have adopted local Saudi names, nomenclatures, religious sensibilities and even strictures of sharia law, most notoriously the burka.

The shift toward fundamentalism has been exported from Saudi Arabia to other Islamic nations. The stricter sharia is, the harder it is to dislodge.

A more modern Saudi Arabia may reverse this damaging trend and bring some sanity and civility to the Islamic world.

There is a long way to go, but moderate Islam should welcome the influence of the Saudi crown prince.

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Farzana Hassan is on Twitter: @FarzanaHassan1


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