The nasty Saudi face

Salah Uddin Shoaib Choudhury

Saudia, the official flag career of Saudi Arabia has officially declared in its web sites that any passenger flying with it to Saudi Arabia are now allowed to carry ‘due to religious reason’. These include alcoholic beverages, pork and pork products, prohibited drugs and narcotics, firearms, explosives, edged weapons and pornographic materials.

Items and articles belonging to religions other than Islam are also prohibited. These may include Bibles, crucifixes, statues, carvings, items with religious symbols such as the Star of David, and others.

As soon as I came to know such heinous announcement, I called the local office of Saudia in Dhaka to know for sure if such restrictions on carrying holy Bible and other religious items were really forbidden. The reply was shocking and it was ‘yes’.

According to another information, 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.

When an employee at the Saudi Consulate in New York was contacted by a newspaper, it was told that anyone bringing a Bible into the country or wearing a crucifix or Star of David around their neck would run into trouble with Saudi authorities.

"You are not allowed to bring that stuff into the kingdom," the consular official said. "If you do, they will take it away," she warned, adding, "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."

It may be mentioned here that over the summer, the Saudi government-run Supreme Commission for Tourism announced a number of steps, such as issuing group visas to foreigners through tour operators and granting longer entry visas, in the hopes of boosting the number of foreign tourists to 1.5 million annually by 2020. I really fail to understand, who are those senseless and shameless people, who would love to visit this ridiculous land of wahabis knowing their extreme nasty attitude of religious intolerance.

Before I comment on the latest move of Saudi Arabian Airlines, let me try to look into this on Islamic perspectives. If I am not mistaking, one of the pillars of remaining Muslim is to believe in all previous prophets and previous holy books. If someone would violate this Koranic instruction, he or she will no more remain a Muslim. I know, Wahabism is not Islam. It is a kind of peculiar theory of the Arab monarchs in order to protect their crowns for centuries and let them remain at the helm of Muslim world. But, the latest decision of Saudia is a clear violation of Koran. So, it is no need to even argue that the Arab monarchs now automatically loses their rights to be termed as Muslims. They are Wahabis, not Muslims. And, in this case, my question to millions of Muslims around the world. Should we let those Wahabis remain the custodian of the key of Holy Kabaah?

Unfortunately, in today’s world, true spirit of Islam is being hijacked by many evil forces under many names. Wahabis, Hamas, Hezbollah, Ahmedinejad etc., etc. The entire Muslim world has become a kind of captive in the whims and cruelties of these bad elements. If the Muslims are truly willing to fight evils, they must raise voice against Wahabis, Hamas, Hezbollah, Ahmedinejad and others, which are continuing to spread poison of religious hatred in the world.

Those who tries to be non-respectful to Bible, Torah and other holy books and messengers of Allah should remember one very specific verse of Koran. It says, do not differentiate my prophets. If you do so, you will become atheist. So, being a Muslim, I can say with all my confessions that Wahabism is a Arab format of atheism. It is in fact even worst. Let us look into the Arab societies. One man is marrying several women and always leaving them unattended regularly and depriving them of their right accorded by Allah through the verses of Koran [Sura Nisa and others]. I know of facts of many Arab men having 10-12 wives. Now, even in Islam, it is not allowed to have more than four wives. How these Arabs marry more than four? This is surely not Islam!

And now going back to the titled topic, we heard of many injustice in Saudia for years. Last year, we published series news items on the sordid story of an Indian Muslim female, who worked for Saudi Arabian Airlines and finally was sexually harassed by her Arab colleagues. She knocked the doors of Saudi king. But, no result, as if the monarchism in Saudi Arabia are also ready to defend such notoriety of the men in their society. In fact, Saudi men are ‘skilled’ in sexual harassment. They consider women as a kind of amusement element – not human being. In ancient Arab time, even when fathers died, sons were becoming the owners of their own mothers. Mothers were then giving birth to child from their own sons. Just imagine the degree of sickness in that society. Can we really expect anything morale and good from those sick people? Nah!