This article was shared with me and as I read the words, wished to post on the blog for further discussion and perspective. The article certainly highlights the distinctions between “Then and Now” in Saudi Arabia.
Women imprisoned by Saudi fundamentalists’ false claims of ‘tradition’
By Saad Sowayan—Saturday, 11 November 2006
When you see your dear aunt or sister after a long absence you expect them to run to you with overt joy and open arms to kiss you and hug you with her bare hands and uncovered head. Now, she meets you coolly with her head tightly wrapped in a scarf and hands tucked in black gloves and she barely shakes hands with you. Funny jokes and joyful laughs have completely disappeared, replaced by austere religious formulas and clichés, as if every minute of our lives should be used solely and exclusively preparing our souls for the grave and life after death.
You no longer see women walking down the streets, only moving bodies completely draped in black. You call your friend on the phone and if one of his women folk answer you on the other end you no longer hear the polite niceties and sweet utterances used by ladies in the past – only harsh barking and rough answers because it is no longer permissible for women to be nice and polite with men.
What is happening to us?
Why are we becoming so obsessively uptight about gender relations?
Why are we getting so anxious to hide and conceal our women, as if we were trying to deny that they ever exist?
If we look at old travel books and ethnographies on the parts of Arabia constituting what is now called Saudi Arabia (from H. R. P. Dickson to Alois Musil to C Snouck Hurgrornje) we find that in most areas – especially in the desert and in the southern region of Saudi Arabia bordering Yemen – women only partly cover their faces or do not cover them at all, especially married women, and they rarely wear the black cloak.
It used to be a common sight to see men and women mingling together in the village market and engage in haggling and joking. A woman with a suckling baby meets no objection whatsoever to baring her breast to feed her hungry baby in public and in the presence of other men.
On weddings and festive occasions when young girls don their best, it was considered accepted practice for young boys on such occasions to flirt with young girls and to steal a look, or even a kiss. Young girls were encouraged to exhibit their feminine charms. Women were supposed to appear and look and behave like women in their apparel, gestures, body language, and the way they walk and talk.
Values of honor, decency and decorum have always been upheld very highly and observed very strictly in Arabia. But such observance has never reached the point of turning into almost complete denial of any contact between the two sexes. Until quite recently, it was common among the nomads for young boys and young girls to graze their flocks together in the empty desert and no one suspected any foul play. Among farmers, men and women worked together in the fields and no one raised a brow.
Al-Qusaybi, Madani: victims of slander
Nowadays Dr. Ghazi al-Qusaybi, the Minister of Labour in Saudi Arabia, and Iyad Amin Madani, the Minister of Culture and Information, are turned into targets of slanderous attacks by the fundamentalists only because the two ministers are trying to find respectable work outlets for unemployed women.
The ministers are keen to find suitable employment opportunities for women that do not violate either the religious dogma or the cultural codes of Saudi Arabia. Yet the very fact that they entertained the idea of finding jobs for women outside the home – in roles other than the raising of children and gratifying their husbands sexually – was considered blasphemy and a good reason for the fundamentalists to tarnish the reputation of the two ministers and to subject them to a severe and unfair campaign of character assassination.
The sin committed by al-Qusaybi was that he wanted women to work as sales ladies in women’s cloth shops to sell women’s garments to other women, instead of men doing the sale. As for Madani, he wanted to employ Saudi women in Saudi TV to present programmes related to women, children and the family.
Perfect bodies
Of course, not all women accept this demeaning status to which they have been reduced.
Now and then one hears voices raised and complaints lodged, and we are hearing more and more of such voices lately. But the majority of women seem to go along either out of real conviction or out of fear or as a defence mechanism and a form of denial of the other alternative. I mean by that – and here I am only surmising – that maybe when Saudi women look at television and see movie stars and singers and really beautiful women with their make-up, they might get the wrong impression; that is that what they are seeing really does represent all the women of the outside world. They may not even be aware that what they are seeing is not real at all and that it is heavily manicured and synthesized.
Many women in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf Region are not aware of or familiar with physical fitness, body makeup, and all the gadgets used by women to make themselves look beautiful even if they are not. It goes almost without saying that certain skin colours, body shapes and hairstyles are pushed by the media and advertising agencies as the ‘standard’ of feminine beauty.
The best defense mechanism against such an onslaught is to reject it altogether, and instead of working on your body you deny it completely and cover every bit of it. The problem becomes acute when the woman is reduced to merely a body to be enjoyed and not a mind to be appreciated and a human being to be respected.
Fundamentalists: an obsession with sex
The irony of it all is that the fundamentalists (government paid religious police) keep insisting that the oppression they practice on women and their imprisonment in the home is takreem for them, that is ‘difference’ and ‘honour’.
This is actually not as far-fetched as it sounds, since in traditional Arab culture – and in most nomadic cultures, and cultures with an aristocratic outlook – work especially manual labour, is considered demeaning and degrading. This conforms with the conservative and reactionary thinking of the fundamentalists.
Lust occupies a central place in the thinking of the fundamentalists. The greatest reward they expect to get in the hereafter for the ‘good work’ of persecuting others in this world is unabated sexual drive and unlimited gratification by unlimited number of huris in paradise. A woman for the fundamentalists is but a body in which resides only lust and the devil.
Therefore, when a man and a woman come together the only thing that could happen between the two of them is sex – no intellectual exchange, no professional association, no friendship, no human camaraderie or common interests: only sex. Al-ikhtilat – that is, the mixing or coming together of a man and woman (or men and women) is the catch word for the fundamentalists these days. No man is allowed to be seen sitting or talking with another woman, not even in a public place such as a restaurant or cafe, unless she is his first-degree relative. The fundamentalists could easily stop your car on the highway to make sure that the woman riding next to you is really your wife. You have to show them the marriage certificate.
This is exactly what was happening in the old days of the al-ikhwan of ibn Saud. But in those days there were no marriage certificates. So to prove that the lady with you is your wife they asked you to kiss her, under the premise that you would not dare do it unless she is really your wife. Many illicit kisses were exchanged gratis between unwed couples in this way just to avoid the harassment of those stern ikhwan.
Back to the future
The social havoc caused by those fundamentalists is unbelievably grotesque. It verges on the surrealistic. We are entering the twenty first century, yet they want us to go back and live according to the norms and standards of the sixth century: the time of the Prophet and his companions. They seem to confuse religion with culture and social customs. Even if we grant that religion is eternal and timeless, cultures do change. But they have a very static view of the world and a very comprehensive view of religion, which covers all aspects of life.
These fundamentalists believe neither in change nor in diversity. The only truth for them is the revealed truth – a truth which only they have the right to understand and interpret to others. They keep saying that Islam is suitable for every time and place, but instead of adapting their concept of Islam to different times and different places they only want to straitjacket every time and place to their extremely narrow understanding of Islam.
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Excellent post Carol. You know, I remember being at a Mosque in Madison (famous for being a lair for women haters) and I had to go in to pray. I was about to enter the masjid, (no one was in there) and pray in the back row, as I assumed it was the womens section. Suddenly a man appeared and said that I COULD NOT enter and had to go UP AND ACROSS the balcony and over to the other side of the building where the “womens’ section” uh, I mean CAVE was. Because I was really a lot more bashful back then, I obliged and as I was walking from the balcony towards the women’s corral, a man opened up a door of an apartment he was leaving on the 2nd floor and looked at me and started to SHAKE, I mean SHAKE as he frantically tried to open his door to get back in. At this point, I was pissed because this was the second nutty man I had encountered so I yelled “Asalamu-alaikum, you know, regardless to what you’ve been told, I DON’T BITE!”. Of course, this practically gave him a heart attack and he threw himself back through the doorway into his apartment. LOL. As if us women are diseased or something! I’ll never forget that and that was one of many episodes I’ve had like that over the years. Personally, I don’t get it. He probably went to his office job the next day and had to talk to female co workers, I bet he isn’t shaking around them! Ridiculous! I see no problem with talking to members of the opposite sex with respect and forthrightness. I do not treat men like lepers, because I do not believe that is the sunnah. But some people see that even saying a simple Salaam makes you a harlot.
I think Muslims are going crazy over this stuff, ie; gender segreg. overkill, photoshopping hijabs and the like….because spiritually, Muslims are LOST. It is a lot easier to look at the OUTWARD things and focus on them than to turn inward and focus on our own diseased hearts.
My last 2 cents for 2009! Huzzah! Happy New Year Carol! May God bring you good health and much happiness!
Wow, you both sound like something has really upset you lately. The problem is that not everyone feels the same at the same time. We, in the states now cannot pray in our public schools if we want to because it would be stepping on the toes of the unbelievers. We cannot even say the Pledge for our country because it invokes the name of God. We cannot openly give a deserving slap to our child who is out of hand, and then we wonder why our children grow up with no boundaries at all sometimes. Not all Saudi men are ‘cave’ men, and not all cave men are Saudis.
I think there is something to be said on some (not all) Muslims becoming lost due to the way Islam and Muslims are starting to be even more radically perceived by too many in and outside of muslim countries and by those who are doing acts alledgely in the name of Islam and claim to be pious devout muslims yet there acts and words are anything but islamic.
So what’s your solution to adapting islam to ‘different time and place’ should men and women stop covering because you don’t like it? how about stop punishing people for adultery because everyone does it these days. it seems your problem is just not the ‘fundamentalis’ but the religion itself
Anon, he is not saying people should not cover but that when things are done in extreme they loose all meaning and become even dangerous.
Its absurd that men and women can’t talk to each other normally. Having normal relationships doesn’t mean that you are being unmodest or acting filthy or anything. I’m not a whore if I say hello or want to hug my best friend, or my grandfather.
anon – I am sorry that for speaking such candid views and asking very good questions, you feel you have to be anonymous…c’est la vie – that is your choice.
However with recent events around the world and actions taken and spoken by individuals who do view themselves as pious muslims yet their acts are so contradictory to islam and how it is to be practiced, it does have me questioning not islam itself but what is becoming skewered that islam is too much now associated with extremism and acts of terror and not with the goodness and kindness of what one expects from the religion.
A future post on this topic is coming up.
In the meantime it is important to share the various views and perspectives. I hope you read MY comments that I posted with the article to encourage discussion on changes and perception for better understanding; not meant to provoke but apparently in your case, it struck a chord.
Just because women enjoyed certain freedoms in the past doesn’t mean that men viewed women any differently, For example, muhammad asad, the jewish austrian convert recounts his travels around saudi (or what is now saudi) and it would appear that marrying another wife (in addition to the 1 st)was seen by some of the men he encountered as a cure for any ill. similarly, he also recounts a family’s attempt to marry him off to a girl of 11 (which he found to be very distasteful).
happy new year!! I agree with sabiwabi…I have always lamented the dwindling of Islam to a dress code.
The strangest thing for me is how many women are brainwashed into being compliant.
I thought the concept of muslims being spiritually lost was spot on. To get crazed over something so minor as a hijab is ridiculous.
Great article. Thanks for bringing it to our attention.
Happy New Year!
http://adnisa.wordpress.com/2010/01/01/jerusalem-mayor-okays-baby-clinic-for-jews-but-not-for-palestinians/
I think it’s much more than a fundamentalist interpretation of religion. Saudi Arabian policy makers have taken a conscious decision to turn the country into a police-state. This fundamentalism is a tool being used by the state and the clergy to control the society, to keep the people in a tight noose, so that they can’t challenge the authority of either the State or the clergy. Monitoring every aspect of people’s lives is a part of this police-state.
The intolerant, fundamentalist attitude is reflected in the Muslims’ behaviour pattern in the West, because probably there they feel cut off from their roots and hence, try to hold on to them by showing a crazy fundamentalsm.
Complimentary to this is the tendency to isolate themselves from the other groups. Remember the Internet posts of the Nigerian terrorist on the Northwestern Airline. In these posts, he refers to himself as lonely because he can’t find enough Muslim friends. The question is why he could not live with non-Muslim friends. The problem is that these Muslims feel they are the only true followers of God’s word in the world and therefore, they should cut themselves off efrom those whose lifestyles are different. This also attempts to take this group away from other kinds of lifestyles such as the culture of cosmetics.
It should be a woman’s right to decide whether she wants to use cosmetics or not. In India, many women even in metropolises don’t use cosmetics because they don’t want to, they feel fine without them. The Saudi woman doesn’t have the choice to decide whether she should show make-up or not. But to consider oneself as the sole authority on how any religion should be interpreted and to force everyon to follow one’s own dictats is nothing but the reflection of a diseased mind resulting from a diseased society and an unsatiated lust for meaningless power which wants to asserts itself not by bringing positive changes in the society, but by keeping the people in straight-jacketed prison-like state.
The most deplorable aspect is that it is this diseased version of Islam practised by Saudi Arabia that is gradually creeping into other parts of the world because many people have this wrong notion that this is the right way since Saudi Arabia does it this way. Even scarier part is that it is very, very difficult to break this mindset to follow the diseased Saudi Islam blindly – I have just been experiencing how difficult it is to convince people that there are other, more benign versions of Islam available in the world which should be given equal, if not more importance.
This situation can change only and only if people inside and outside Saudi Arabia understand that Saudi Arabia is a diseased State and a diseased society and it has to change and certainly others should not follow its version of Islam. But it is very difficult to make people see that even Saudi Arabia can be wrong. It is much easier to criticise the US.
Unless Saudi Arabia realises – and others realise along with this country that this is an outdated, diseased state they are living in, change can not come there. Only some superficial changes will be made by the present King and after he is gone, perhaps fundamentalism will come back even with greater vengeance.
Carol,
Happy new year to you and family! I hope your husband and you get health and happiness this year.
Happy New Year to all!
happy new year carol, Best wishes and lots of happiness to you adn your family this year
I must relate an incident that happened fri jan01. we went to a local islamic center to drop off my husband and his brother and this guy took it upon himself to advise us loudly . it was quite a shock , and F saw, come back and then started the yelling match. uugghh . We did not EVEN park , we dropped the guys off and my son and me switched seats. well i didn’t know the end of that arguement but it ruined the mood for me.
all i hope for is that this year we all become a little less judgemental about others and their choices, religious or otherwise.
I find it funny that people feel the need to advise me on what I choose to wear Islamically.
When I make it clear to them that I am happy and comfortable with how I live my life, the clothes I wear, the family set up I choose to be in, all of a sudden, I “must have been brain washed ” into being like that, or “some dude must be oppressing or forcing” me because I must have lost my mind to freely choose to live my life the way I do.
Some comments from complete strangers are so patronising, biased and ignorant too it’s almost painful listening to it on a daily basis.
Makes me laugh for all the wrong reasons.
The saying “live and let live” escapes minds when it comes to muslims in general.
But obviously the stero typing does go in the oppsite direction too.
It’s even more of a shame when muslims turn on each other just because they may see things from different prospectives. Sad state of affairs really.
wow. great piece Carol!
Thanks! [?]