Free On Saudi Arabia: Its People, Past, Religion, Fault Lines - and Future by Karen Elliott House Page A

peace greeting since waving is a Western practice.
    More consequential life issues also are prescribed by the religion. For instance, Saudi religious scholars insist that a Muslim woman must cover her entire body in the presence of a man who is not a relative. While the Saudi religious authorities acknowledge, in a fatwa on veiling, that there is historic evidence of the permissibility of uncovering the face and hands, this, they say, was in practice before the revelation of Sura 33:59 requiring veiling (“O Prophet! Tell your wives and your daughters and the women of the believers to draw their cloaks all over their bodies”) and before the Prophet commanded women to observe it. Therefore the former is abrogated by the latter.
    Some rules apply to all Muslims, regardless of gender. Any sexual deviancy is forbidden. So is any public display of affection between opposite sexes, whether related or married. The only acceptable display of affection in Saudi Arabia (in contrast to the West) is between two men, whose hand holding is seen as a display of trust. Eating only with the right hand is required of all Saudis, because the left is reserved for toilet functions or touching other unclean objects.
    Despite its great rigidity, Islam also is pragmatic enough for believers to meet its requirements without excessive hardship. For instance, those who are ill or traveling may forgo fasting during Ramadan and make up for it by fasting another time. Similarly, if a worshiper has no access to water to cleanse for prayer, there is what amounts to a dry cleaning procedure. The process is called
tayammum
and involves rubbing a bit of sand on one’s hands and face or, if indoors, patting a cushion to make dust rise, a symbolic cleaning.
    Educated, modern Saudis, especially the young, often chafe at the restrictive nature of Wahhabi Islam and even more so at the growing gulf between what is enunciated in mosques and fatwas and what is practiced by many of the ruling political and religious elite. Increasingly, traditional, conservative Saudis see the ruling authorities as corrupted, while more liberal Saudis see the same authorities as hypocrites who say one thing and do another.
    “Things that used to be
haram
[forbidden] like music are now everywhere,” says a professor at Imam University, one ofthe kingdom’s premier religious schools. “We memorize the Koran but we don’t live it.” This man is offended to see the government erect a huge new mosque across from a run-down hospital, and to see a popular Saudi blogger imprisoned for exposing government corruption in an arms deal with Britain. “During the whole of Islamic history, these [the Council of Senior Ulama] are the most corrupt religious authorities.”
    A colleague, who confesses to fighting his brother to prevent him from committing the offense of listening to music, says, “We have replaced religion with ritual. Imam University teaches people to memorize, not question.” The insistence that Muslims never ask “how” or “why” dates from at least the tenth century.During the first two centuries after the Prophet Muhammad’s death, Islamic scholars debated a range of religious issues, but that pretty much ended in the tenth century. “The efforts to explore the content of faith by reason had led to a confusing mass of theories and views that threatened the community’s harmony,” wrote German scholar Tilman Nagel. So questioning “how” or “why” became forbidden and remains so in Wahhabi Islam.
    Glaring contradictions abound. For instance, fatwas from religious
ulama
forbid the use of gold- or silver-plated dinnerware or utensils. “If anyone drinks from vessels of gold or silver, it is as if the fire of Hell is rumbling in their stomach,” one fatwa quotes the Prophet as having said.The Prophet further said, “Do not drink from vessels of gold or silver and do not eat in plates made from them. They are for them [unbelievers] in this world and for you