Here’s a piece from Arab News as interesting for its content as its author. Jonathan Sacks is the Chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the [British] Commonwealth. It’s not often that rabbis get space in a Saudi paper.

He’s writing about a new exhibit of sacred texts at the British Library that brings together examples of Bibles, Torahs, and Qurans over the ages. He notes that not only is there an exchange of artistic influence manifest in the exhibits, but also and more importantly, a similarity of message within these books. He calls for a new period of ‘convivencia’, a period in which peoples of different faiths put aside their differences in order to find a way of living together in peace, if not total harmony. It’s a good piece.

The Peoples of the Book Need to Find a New ‘Convivencia’
Jonathan Sacks, Arab News

If you haven’t yet been to Sacred, the British Library’s display of religious manuscripts, go. It is a stunning exhibition of some of the oldest and most beautiful texts in Judaism, Christianity and Islam, shown side by side in all their complex, intricate glory. The idea was to show how much the three faiths have in common. And they really do.

For they are all religions of the Word, “Peoples of the Book”, faiths that believe that God who created the Universe did not hide His purposes in silence. He spoke to those humble enough to listen. They taught those words to others and preserved them in sacred texts which became their most precious possession: The Hebrew Bible, the Old and New Testaments and the Qur’an.

Here they are, displayed together: A fragment from the Dead Sea Scrolls, ancient versions of the gospels including the only remaining copy of a composite narrative written by Tatian, a 2nd-century Christian, and a Qur’an written in Arabia within a century of the Prophet’s lifetime.
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A peculiar article from the UAE’s Gulf News. The UAE is now insisting that Saudis under the age of 21 present permission from their guardians to travel to the UAE before they will be permitted entry. Whether this is a step to keep youths out of ‘Sin City’ or a way to prevent young would-be jihadists from using the UAE as a point of departure for Iraq or Pakistan is not at all clear. Both make sense. The fact that the new regulations apply to women as well doesn’t offer any clarity, either. It certainly could be seen as a step to protect morality, but it could also be simply that the UAE is now writing its rules and regulations with sex equality more in mind.

Saudis under 21 need permission to visit UAE
Mariam Al Hakeem, Correspondent

Riyadh: Saudi males and females under 21 years of age who want to travel to the UAE should get permission from their legal guardians and present the new identity cards, Saudi officials announced yesterday.

Travellers do not need their passports to travel following the recent agreement reached between Saudi Arabia and the UAE allowing their citizens to travel using the national identity card.

“The regulations in general did not change, but every traveller who is less than 21 years of age will be asked to get the approval of his legal guardian and show his identity card or the passport in case he does not have an identity card yet. This is also applicable for women,” said Captain Frias Bin Mohammad Al Tuwaiyyan, media chief at the General Directorate of Passports in press statements yesterday.
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I think the headline writer at The Washington Post doesn’t have his/her facts right if Jeddah is considered to be ‘marginalized’. [I stand corrected: Reuters is responsible for the headline as shown by the fact that other papers running the story share it.] This article, by Reuters correspondence Andrew Hammond, accurately reflects the tensions within the city between developers and preservationists. Jeddah does, in fact, have an historic ‘Old City’ that is worth preserving. The architecture is strikingly distinctive, though I’m not sure it’s unique, and it does represent a by-gone era that will never be seen again.

Right now, though there are measures to preserve the area, there is also great pressure to develop it. Few Saudis live in the old houses; they’re inhabited mostly by foreign laborers willing to exchange low rents for the lack of air conditioning and other modern conveniences, like inside toilets or enough electricity to power a refrigerator. But the owners of these buildings do have a right to profit from them. Instead of selling them to be torn down, only to be replaced by high-rise buildings like those that surround the Old City, it would be preferable to have the UN’s help in finding a way to buy and maintain them as an important part of world and Saudi history.

Marginalized Saudi city looks to U.N. for help
Andrew Hammond

JEDDAH, Saudi Arabia (Reuters) – Saudi Arabia is hoping that the United Nations will step in to help save the historic old city of Jeddah, whose unique Red Sea architecture is in danger of disappearing.

The ancient city in Saudi Arabia is in line to be included this year on the U.N.’s World Heritage List, which so far includes 830 sites including eight in Yemen and Oman, says Sami Nawwar, who is leading the effort to preserve Jeddah’s past.

Head of tourism and culture at Jeddah municipality, Nawwar hopes to succeed finally in internationalizing a battle begun over 20 years ago to instill respect for history and culture in a rapidly modernizing society with little interest in such things.

“I used only to get foreign tourists and bored housewives. Now Saudi families, schools and students come to study architecture and heritage. Everybody is starting to be proud of it,” he said in an interview.

“Now we have made an agreement with the education department in Jeddah to lecture in schools on the cultural history of the city, to do tours and involve male and female students in cleaning old buildings, beaches and the corniche.”
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It’s worth briefly noting that the British Broadcasting Corporation has recently updated its country profile of Saudi Arabia. There’s up-to-date information on statistical information like GDP and census figures, as well as freshened analysis. If you’re looking for basic data, the site’s worth a look:
Country profile: Saudi Arabia.

The CIA’s The World Factbook entry on Saudi Arabia has also been updated and includes various estimates on statistical information for July, 2007, though some data is older.

Here’s an interesting piece from The Washington Post on the development of variations on the abaya in Saudi Arabia. The article states that the all-encompassing black garment came to Saudi Arabia from Iraq or Syria, little more than 75 years ago. It became compulsory only in the 1950s, with the advent of girls’ schools and the need to protect the modesty of girls in a more public environment and became ‘national dress’. It notes that prior to this time, Saudi women, like other tribal Arab women, wore colorful, but modest clothing. Examples of this tribal dress, which claim high prices in antique stores, show them to be richly embroidered and patterned.

The article is definitely worth reading, if only to note how recently some ‘traditions’ have actually come into being and how, once cloaked in religious interpretations, they become as though engraved in stone. Equally noteworthy, of course, is how some Saudi women are rebelling against this and bringing color and pattern into their public appearances. The website has a rotating series of photos of the new abayas.

For Cloaked Saudi Women, Color Is the New Black
Faiza Saleh Ambah

JIDDAH, Saudi Arabia — Manal Fageeh never liked the abaya, the long black cloak she was forced to begin wearing at 13. She resented the fact that it was obligatory for women in Saudi Arabia, and the black absorbed heat in the often-scorching climate.

When Fageeh, a health industry executive, appeared at a recent business conference in a floor-length white abaya made of light cotton and monogrammed with an M, some of the attendees were shocked, she said. But others were inspired.

“When I saw her, I said to myself, ‘Yes! This is right,’ ” said Manal al-Sharif, an editor at al-Madina, a Jiddah-based newspaper. “Nothing in Islam imposes black on us. And I decided to make a brown abaya for myself.”

Saudi women have long been known in the West for their all-enveloping black attire, widely considered a mark of their oppression. But Sharif and Fageeh are among a growing number of women and girls here who are rethinking and reinventing the abaya to more closely reflect their personalities and religious beliefs.

The change is most striking in Jiddah, the kingdom’s most cosmopolitan city, where many young women now wear their head scarves around their shoulders and leave their abayas open to reveal pants and T-shirts. Medical students here often forgo the abaya altogether, frequenting malls and coffee shops in brightly colored head scarves and white knee-length lab coats over jeans.

Abayas with patches of fluorescent color, floral patterns, animal prints, embroidery and even zodiac signs have started to show up in other cities as well, prompting clerics to criticize the trend and reiterate that abayas were meant to deflect attention, not attract it.
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Asharq Alawsat runs this piece tracing the origins of the Lebanese Salafi movement back to the 1960s with numerous shifts and changes in direction and leadership. Various groups, like most revolutionary groups, appear to have morphed into new groups with differing agendas over the years. It’s interesting to read this piece along with one from the Shoo Fi, Ma Fi blog which, commenting on the current fighting, notes earlier groups that existed and how they changed as well as Al-Qaeda’s involvement with the groups.

Tripoli: The Salafi Gateway
Sanaa al Jack

Beirut, Asharq Al-Awsat- Terrorism inspired by religious fanaticism was always considered a frightening myth that many in Lebanon refused to acknowledge despite all warnings that indicated otherwise.

However, the myth became a reality with the confrontation between the militant Fatah al-Islam group and the Lebanese army currently taking place at Nahr al Bared and Tripoli in northern Lebanon.

The clash at the camp is the bloodiest internal conflict in Lebanon since the civil war ended 17 years ago, and poses a long term threat to Lebanon’s internal security.

Fatah al Islam is not the forerunner of violent extremism in Lebanon. The 1990s saw a similar phenomena that was born and based in Palestinian refugee camps, with the emergence of groups like Osbat al-Ansar; (who are accused of murdering Sheik Nazar al Halabi, the chairman of the Islamic Societies, in late August 1995.) and Jund al Sham, which formed in May 2004 and supports the Islamic caliphate concept, and are one of the many active Islamic militant groups in the Palestinian Ain al Hilweh refugee camp located in the southern Lebanese city of Sidon.

These “militant” movements were not the earliest Salafi presence in Lebanon.

The consensus amongst researchers asserts that the Salafi presence emerged in the northern Lebanese town of Tripoli, when Sheikh Salim al Shahhal launched a movement he named “Muhammad’s youths”.

The investigations into killing of four Frenchmen in the Madain Al-Salih region, north of Medina earlier this year continue. Since the February attack, the Saudis have arrested several for their involvement and, in a shootout with the police, the supposed leader of the group was killed. Others were arrested during the countrywide anti-terror sweep last month. Whether there are more in this group is yet to be determined.

Three Saudis Arrested Over French Murders

RIYADH (AFP) – Three Saudis have been arrested over the murders in February of a French teenager and three compatriots in the desert kingdom, the interior ministry announced Sunday.

A ministry spokesman said Majid bin Maidh bin Rashid al-Harbi was arrested on Sunday morning at Hail in the northwest of the kingdom.

He named the other two as Abdullah bin Sayer al-Mohammedi and Nasser bin Latif al-Belwi but gave no details of their capture.

The ministry had previously named the mastermind “of this abominable” crime as Walid Motlaq al-Raddadi, a 23-year-old Saudi who figured on a June 2005 list of 36 most-wanted suspected Al-Qaeda militants.

Raddadi was killed by police in the Muslim holy city Medina on April 6.

Arab News continues its coverage of the case being brought against the Saudi religious police by a man who claims they beat his brother to death. From the story, we learn that there was an official, anti-alcohol raid being conducted. What happened once the doors were breached is now a matter before the courts.

Unfortunately, this story, where the President of the Commission claims that any excesses are rare and individual, reads a bit too closely to the story below, where the Director General of Prisons claims the same excuse for excesses that may take place in the prisons. Again, the lack of transparency within the Saudi government leads to mistrust and cynicism.

Fair Probe Promised
Raid Qusti

RIYADH, 28 May 2007 — The president of the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, Sheikh Ibrahim Al-Ghaith, said yesterday that several suspects from the Riyadh commission were being questioned by authorities regarding the alleged beating to death of a Saudi citizen last Wednesday. “The Commission for Investigation and Public Prosecution as well as the Governorate of Riyadh are still investigating the matter,” Al-Ghaith said. He did not give the number of suspects from the virtue commission who are being interrogated. Several newspapers have reported that as many as eight are being investigated.

The Governorate of Riyadh issued a press statement yesterday about the alleged murder. It said that it had received information from the commission that the deceased, Sulaiman Al-Huraisi, was selling alcohol from his apartment. The statement also said that authorization had been given to the local police and the commission to raid the house according to regulations.
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According to the Director General of Prisons, Saudi prisons are not suffering from endemic cruelty or ruthlessness. This Arab News story quotes him as saying that drugs remain a serious problem, however, and that new inspection units are being set up to stop the smuggling of drugs into prisons. But, he believes, reports by human rights organization, both Saudi and international, are exaggerated and the opinions of foreigners is not needed.

‘We Don’t Need Foreign Groups to Come and Teach Us Human Rights’
Raid Qusti, Arab News

RIYADH, 28 May 2007 — Maj. Gen. Ali Al-Harithy, the director general of prisons, said yesterday that prisoners in the Kingdom were not tortured or beaten on a large scale, and that beatings were “individual cases,” which should not be generalized.

Al-Harithy was referring to a report released last week by the National Society for Human Rights (NSHR) in Saudi Arabia. “Regulations, directives and the constitution state clearly that there should not be any violations against prisoners. … There are, however, individual mistakes, but that rarely happens. And if it does happen, then prisoner rights are fulfilled by punishing offenders,” he said.

…The official denied that citizens or residents were detained for long periods without trial. “Regulations dictate that investigators are not allowed to keep a prisoner in jail for more than six months without transferring the case to court,” he said, adding that investigations were normally completed within five to 40 days.

Betsy Hiel, writing for the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, carries this story about the efforts of Saudi human rights reformers and the problems they’re facing. As I’ve noted before, the lack of transparency in just how the Saudi government acts creates additional problems for it. Even more fundamental, though, is the fact that most Saudis, afraid of change, stick resolutely to older traditions in fear of committing a sin. The way things were done in the past, they believe, must have been ordained by God to be done in precisely those ways. Anything that changes them is morally dangerous. Only education—which unfortunately takes a long time, as well as resolute efforts by government—can change this mindset. But it needs to be done.

Saudi activists face long fight for human rights
Betsy Hiel

DAMMAM, Saudi Arabia — In this oil-rich desert kingdom where public beheading, flogging and stoning remain punishments, Ibrahim Al-Mugaiteeb has his work cut out.

He’s been imprisoned and barred from travel for condemning human rights abuses. Yet the president of the independent Human Rights First Society won’t be quiet.

“My youngest grandchild is 3 years old,” he says. “She deserves to live in a better Saudi Arabia.

“They can throw me in jail, they can shoot me, but I cannot stop my activity. There are no human rights here.”

…Human rights activist Al-Mugaiteeb acknowledges that Saudi Arabia’s powerful Islamic establishment will oppose any change. It fought against the telephone, education for girls, satellite television — “they were against everything in the beginning.”

The government can overcome that, he says, as it always has. But he adds that “the regime and the political establishment are not stronger than the social code,” and Saudis themselves must change. “Saudi civil society needs to grow up.”

Saudi Gazette carries this item quoting the Saudi ambassador to Lebanon and Lebanese sources as saying there may well be Saudi nationals involved with the Fatah Al-Islam group fighting against the Lebanese government in Nahr Al-Bared. Interestingly, the ambassador says that the Saudi government is staying out of this, leaving it to the Lebanese military to deal with the wayward Saudis.

Fatah Al-Islam may have Saudis – Khoja

KINGDOM’S Ambassador to Lebanon Abdul Aziz Khoja has not ruled out the possibility of the presence of some Saudis among the fighters of Fatah Al-Islam, a militant group being besieged by the Lebanese army at a Palestinian refugee camp in Nahr Al-Bared in northern Lebanon.

Khoja said the ideology embraced by the Fatah Al-Islam militant group resembles that of Al-Qaeda as manifested in attracting young supporters from different nationalities.

In a telephonic interview with Al-Watan Arabic daily he said it is not yet clear whether there were Saudis among those killed in Nahr Al-Bared.

Lebanese sources announced the killing of four Saudis in the fight between the Lebanese Army and Fatah Al-Islam in the Palestinian camp in Nahr Al-Bared. Informed sources close to the group said that there were 30 Saudis with the Fatah Al-Islam in addition to supporters from Tunis, Morocco, Afghanistan, India and Maldives.
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If anyone ever wondered whether Saudi youths were plugged into the world outside the Kingdom, this piece from Saudi Gazette should allay all fears. With Saudi girls shaving their heads and Saudi boys growing long hair, there’s no question that young Saudis are completely aware of what’s going on around them.

This article bears echoes of the complaints once heard—back in the 1960s—in the US about boys whose hair is ‘too long’, or makes them ‘look like girls’. And of course there’s always someone to find that this is a symbol of the moral degeneration of the country. This is an amusing piece, but only because these wars have been fought (and lost) before….

While girls are aping a bald Britney, boys prefer the Johnny Depp style
Mohammed Al-Kinani

CONTRARY to the disturbing trend among young Saudi women to shave their head bald like satellite TV stars, it has become a fad among young men to keep long hair.

“This is today’s craze, and will end one day. Adolescents try to be like their favorite movie or football stars. I remember one day that they mimicked the Brazilian footballer who used to shave his hair clean,” Mohammed Ali, a secondary school teacher, told the Saudi Gazette.

“But now you can hardly see a young man doing the same. It seems that the trend has changed, they now prefer long hair cuts,” he added.
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