January 8th, 2005
Letter #6 from Saudi Arabia
The infamous muttawa
R.F. Burton
Private Papers

On December 7, 2004, the United Nations sponsored an all-day forum on tolerance towards Muslims entitled, "Confronting Islamophobia: Education for Tolerance and Understanding." I wonder when, if ever, Secretary-General Kofi Annan will open a similar forum on tolerance towards Christians in Saudi Arabia, where, as the State Department reported in their 2003 annual report, "worshippers risk arrest, imprisonment, lashing, deportation and sometimes torture for engaging in religious activity that attracts official attention."

Logically, you wouldn't think it would be a problem for Christians to practice their religion here. After all, Jesus' name pops up over twenty times in the Qur'an. The Qur'an also contains numerous references to Jesus—Isa as Muslims call him—as the son of Mary, as the Messiah, as the messenger and servant of Allah, and as the "Sign," "Spirit," and "Word" of God. Muslims believe Jesus was a prophet of Allah. Muslims believe in the virgin birth. Muslims believe Jesus delivered a message from god: the gospel.

Muslims believe Jesus was raised to heaven by Allah, that he is still alive, waiting to descend to earth, that his return is preordained, and that when he comes he will end all trouble and war and bring eternal peace to our contentious planet.

There are points of divergence between the two religions: 1) Muslims do not believe Jesus is a god or the Son of God, and 2) Muslims do not believe Jesus is dead or was ever crucified. But let's not quibble over the number of jinns on the head of a dagger. All Muslims think Jesus is, was, and always will be a swell, all-round stand-up kind of guy. So what's wrong with Christians practicing their religion?

A lot, according to the muttawa.

The muttawa—or religious police—are a self-elected goon squad of fundamentalists who surveil the Magic Kingdom's inhabitants, particularly its expatriates. The purpose of their scrutiny is to ensure conformity to their own warped, narrow-minded interpretation of Islam. Their scrutiny is often asinine and always absurd, as the following mundane example illustrates.

A woman and her female friend were sitting on a bench in the Kingdom Mall, eating ice cream cones, when along came a muttawa, accompanied by a police officer. (You can always spot a muttawa by his beard, his thobe—the white gown worn by local men—that is always four or five inches too short, and a mien of profound hatred of all things different.) The muttawa approached the women, pointed a menacing claw, and hissed, "Don't lick it that way!"

Not being an authority on the subject, I can't with any confidence say there isn't a sura buried somewhere in the Qur'an covering the moral etiquette of licking ice cream. I suspect, though, the muttawa had wandered a bit beyond his moral jurisdiction.

"We just looked at each other," the woman told me. "I mean, how else are you supposed to eat an ice cream cone? You have to use your tongue, right? We just sat there and watched our ice cream melt until he wandered off. Stupid muttawa."

When the muttawa are not busy harassing women, ensuring unmarried men and women don't mingle, or using camel crops to whip sluggish pedestrians into mosques during prayer time, they are up to more sinister activities.

On March 25, 2004, Brian O'Connor was arrested by the muttawa in Riyadh for preaching Christianity. According to the International Christian Concern (ICC), Mr. O'Connor was "abducted, imprisoned, and tortured" in a mosque. He was then transferred to a police station in Olaya. The police said they didn't have any evidence against Mr. O'Connor, but would hold him anyway because the muttawa "claimed" to have evidence. Mr. O'Connor told visitors that the muttawa had beaten and kicked him. After hanging him upside down, according to Mr. O'Connor, they, "played football with me." They also lashed his back and the soles of his feet with an electric cord. Mr. O'Connor is currently wasting away in a cell, waiting to face the kangaroo court they call justice in Saudi Arabia. A swift verdict is expected in only six or seven months.

Expatriates aren't the only targets. The muttawa like to go after the natives too.

On November 29, 2004, Emad Alaabadi—a Saudi who converted to Christianity—was arrested by the muttawa in Jeddah. If the charge is true, Mr. Alaabadi has much to worry about. Apostasy is against the law in the Saudi Arabia. Conversion from Islam to another religion carries a sentence of death. Like mafiosi, once you become a member, you become a member for life—or else. One shudders to imagine what the muttawa have done to Mr. Alaabadi. The ICC reported that he telephoned his mother on December 4. She said he didn't sound good. No one has heard from him since.

These are only two recent incidents showing how Christians are treated in Saudi Arabia. At least these two reports made the press. Most incidents are never reported. There was one such incident where I work, involving a Filipino who disappeared.

The Filipino had worked at the company for fifteen years. A couple of days after his disappearance management asked the Security Department to investigate. One week later, a report came back that the Filipino was not being held in any police station or hospital in Riyadh. Other than that they didn't have a clue to his whereabouts.

It was time for management to bring out the big gun: Hussain. Most reputable companies in the Arabia have someone like Hussain on the payroll. Our Hussain has the personality of a poisonous toad. When he does come to work, which isn't often, he sits in his office fuming and smoking one cigarette after another. Even though he appears to be utterly useless, Hussain had something of inestimable value: wasta. Arabic for connections, wasta is the mysterious, unseen force that gets things done in the Middle East. Hussain not only has wasta, he has big wasta, the kind with sticky tentacles that stretch all the way from downtown Riyadh to the Saudi Embassy across the street from the Watergate Hotel in Washington, D.C.

Two days on the case, Hussain discovered the Filipino was being held at a secret detention center run by the muttawa. The only reason a person ends up in that circle of Hell is for "engaging in religious activity that attracts official attention"—not that the muttawa have any kind of "official" authority, aside from the scraggly, under-sized policemen who accompany them on their iniquitous escapades.

One the third day the Filipino was released. Unquestionably, Hussain was worth every halala the company paid him. When the Filipino returned to work weeks later he was a different person. I won't say he was a broken man, but he was different. Sullen and withdrawn, he didn't talk to anyone about his ordeal. Several months later I asked one of his closest friends what happened.

He told me his friend had gone to a Bible reading on the Friday afternoon he disappeared. The apartment where the reading was held had been under surveillance by the muttawa for several weeks. They nabbed the Filipino as he came out of the building, along with two others. He didn't know where they took him. He was beaten, starved, kept in isolation, and deprived of sleep; the usual grab bag of sadistic tricks that small-minded, evil men inflict on the helpless. The Filipino was lucky there was someone like Hussain to rescue him. Most expatriate workers who have brushes with the muttawa aren't so lucky, and such encounters are rarely reported.

Back in April 2000, in a statement to the UN, Prince Dr. Turki Ibn Mohammed Ibn Saud Al-Kabeer said, "No non-Muslims had ever been subjected to prosecution or punishment because of their religious faith" in Arabia.

I'm not certain which of Saturn's moons the Prince Doctor resides on, but he should hitch a ride back to Earth aboard the Cassini orbiter and spend some quality time in his homeland. That way he could gain a better understanding of events on the ground. Then if he's ever asked to make another statement to the U.N. regarding religious prosecution and punishment in his country against Christians, he will be able to say something that bears at least a semblance of truth.

Perhaps Mr. Annan is waiting for such a statement from the Prince Doctor, perhaps Mr. Annan is waiting for the State Department's latest annual report, or perhaps Mr. Annan is just waiting for more incidents to be reported to the press before considering a forum on tolerance towards Christians in Arabia.

One thing is certain. Until international attention is focused on Christian persecution in Saudi Arabia, the likelihood the injustice will end is as good as that of a camel going through the eye of a needle.