Front Page Magazine, a reliable source of Saudi-bashing, has a semi-accurate article from Daniel Pipes, himself no friend of Saudi Arabia.

The article is semi-accurate because while I assume it is correctly reporting what was posted on the Saudi Arabian Airlines website and what a reporter was told by a Saudi Airlines employee, the information conveyed was erroneous. The confusion is due, in no small part, to the ambiguous manner in which the Saudi government addresses the issue.

Various newspaper and blog stories have focused on how Saudi informs passengers that they not bring Bibles, non-Islamic holy texts, or non-Muslim religious paraphernalia into Saudi Arabia as they are ‘forbidden’ in the country. Perhaps the airline does so.

That is not an accurate representation of the facts, however. Official Saudi Customs policy does not prohibit the importation of such materials, per se. It does prohibit the importation of large quantities of these materials in order to prevent proselytizing. It also prohibits the public display of such materials within Saudi Arabia. There is no question that the Saudis have not much tolerance for religious freedom. [See the US State Dept.'s annual report on Religious Freedom.]

But people do successfully bring such materials into the country, when it is done discreetly. Bibles and other sacred texts can be found. Religious artifacts are owned and religious services are held. The problems start when they are not handled with discretion and come to the attention of individual Saudis, whether private citizens or government employees, who disagree with government policy and seek to impose their own, more restrictive policies in the name of Islamic purity.

I know this because I have seen such materials and attended such services in Saudi Arabia, even in non-diplomatic areas which have their own, innate immunity. There are Christians, Jews, and others who practice their religion in Saudi Arabia. They do it privately and quietly, under the risk of adverse action if discovered.

The article is right in that non-Sunni Muslims, whatever their faith might be, are viewed with deep suspicion by the majority of Saudis, including some government officials. It is wrong, however, when it casts this as official government policy.

The Saudi government could certainly do more to clarify this situation. It is, instead, happy to walk an ambiguous line by supporting religious freedom in documents and in meetings with foreign officials, but not in working to inform its own people of its formal policies.

Uniting to Exclude Saudi Arabian Airlines
Daniel Pipes

Saudi Arabian Airlines (known as Saudia) declares on its English-language website that the kingdom bans “Bibles, crucifixes, statues, carvings, items with religious symbols such as the Star of David.” Until the Saudi government changes this detestable policy, its airline should be disallowed from flying into Western airports.

Michael Freund brought this regulation to international attention in a recent Jerusalem Post article, “Saudis might take Bibles from tourists,” in which he points out that a section on the Saudia Web site, “Customs Regulations,” lists the forbidden articles above under the rubric “Items and articles belonging to religions other than Islam.”

Freund followed up by calling the Saudia office in New York, where an employee identified only as “Gladys” confirmed that this rule really is applied. “Yes, sir, that is what we have heard, that it is a problem to bring these things into Saudi Arabia, so you cannot do it.” An unnamed official at the Saudi consulate in New York further confirmed the regulation. “You are not allowed to bring that stuff into the kingdom. If you do, they will take it away. If it is really important to you, then you can try to bring it and just see what happens, but I don’t recommend that you do so.”

Responding to the Saudi ban on churches and Bibles and Stars of David, some would ban mosques, Korans, and crescent moons in the West, but that is clearly untenable and unenforceable, given the freedoms of speech and worship. The Koran, for example, is not a Saudi artifact and cannot be held hostage to Saudi policies. However closely it identifies with Islam, the Saudi government does not own the religion.

Further, as Stephen Schwartz of the Center for Islamic Pluralism points out, signs in Saudi airports warn Muslim travelers that the airport’s mutawwa’in, or religious police, confiscate Korans, other Islamic literature, and Muslim objects of non-Saudi origin. While discriminating specifically against Shiites and Ahmadis, this policy manifests a wider insistence on Wahhabi supremacism. More broadly, the Saudi leadership runs a country that the American government has condemned repeatedly as having “no religious freedom” and being among the most religiously repressive in the world.
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