Sabria Jawhar is a Saudi columnist and reporter for the Jeddah-based English-language daily newspaper Saudi Gazette. She currently lives in Newcastle Upon Tyne, United Kingdom, where she is a PhD student at the University of Newcastle.
She earned her bachelor’s of arts degree in English language and literature at the King Abdul Aziz University and a master’s degree in applied linguistics at Umm Al-Qura University in Makkah.
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02/10/2010 - 3:58 a.m. CST
-- by Sabria Jawhar
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The Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice is
going through another transformation. This time the duties of members
of the Hai’a are more defined and detainees and members of the public
who have contact with them are to be told whether a commission staffer
is acting in his official capacity or exercising personal judgment. This
is a good step forward, but let’s not forget that the commission has
been down similar roads before with not much to show for it. Just a few
years ago there was an announcement that the Hai’a would take a more
measured and gentle tone with the public that emphasized instruction
and less on force. The results have been limited. A more vocal
public and perhaps impatience over continuing mistakes have prompted
the Shoura Council this week to define the commissions’ duties in a
written document. In essence, a Hai’a staff member now has a written
job description. People who have contact with a commission member now
will have a clearer picture of how and why the staffer is conducting
commission business. In the past few years, there have been increasing
reports of Hai’a members pursuing their own agenda. Now, that will be a
thing of the past. The Hai’a is needed in Saudi society. As
Muslims we should welcome and give our thanks for their aid, sacrifices
in performing an unenviable job, and for their instructions in matters
of behavior and our religious obligations. To strip the commission of
its duties, and render them nothing more than an agency in name only is counterproductive. The
Hai’a, however, has a serious image problem. Saudis and expatriates
loathe having contact with them. Saudi women, in particular, fear them.
Somewhere in the past decade or so the commission has lost its way, and
few people were willing to help them find the right path until there
was a series o... [Read More]
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01/13/2010 - 6:30 a.m. CST
-- by Sabria Jawhar
Saudi businesswomen in
the Eastern Province this week won a hollow victory when two women,
Hana Al-Zuhair and Samira Al-Suwaigh, were appointed by Commerce
Minister Abdullah Zainal Alireza to the Asharqia Chamber board. The
appointments are lauded as an historic victory and a step forward for
Saudi women trying to gain a foothold as players in the Saudi business
community. Alireza is to be commended for making two of his eight
appointments women. Yet the appointments ring false. Neither Al-Zuhair
nor Al-Suwaigh had run for election. The three women who did run – Suad
Al-Zaydi, Fawzia Al-Karri and Dina Al-Fari – captured less than 100
votes between them. Al-Zuhair and Al-Suwaigh have excellent
business credentials to qualify for the chamber. It seems odd, though,
that the three female contestants, who lost but did garner at least
some backing from the business community, couldn’t muster the support
of Alireza for an appointment. Eastern Province businessmen and
women share the blame for this failure to allow females a voice. The
women candidates were tainted from the beginning when three Eastern
Province men lodged a complaint with the Asharqia Chamber that the
women should not run for election. The men claimed it was against
Shariah. Although their complaint was denied, it served to validate the
beliefs among many male voters that women did not belong on the chamber
board. A greater travesty, however, is the behavior of eligible
female voters. One comes to expect male chamber members to vote for
their male colleagues and business acquaintances. Social networking,
word-of-mouth and telephone campaigning by businessmen bring votes to
male candidates and freezes women out of the process. But only 60 of
the nearly 900 eligible women voted in the election. The remaining
800-plus women were either too lazy or lacked the interest to bother
going to the poll... [Read More]
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12/17/2009 - 2:43 a.m. CST
-- by Sabria Jawhar
There’s nothing like a little money to help put aside those nagging issues of principles, honor and just doing the right thing.
No,
I’m sorry, it’s not a little money, but $26.7 million (SAR100 million)
that eases one’s conscience. I’m referring to the Rotana Media Group
that just inked a deal that gives News Corp., which owns the
Muslim-hating, Saudi-bashing Fox News, a 10 percent stake in the Saudi
company. The deal apparently leaves the door open for News Corp. to
purchase another 10 percent of Rotana.
The agreement looks to give
Rotana, a part of the conglomerate Kingdom Holding Company, a 30
percent market share in Saudi Arabia and Egypt. Rotana’s regional reach
will exceed the Dubai-based and Saudi-owned MBC.
News Corp. is run
by Australian Rupert Murdoch, who has allowed his Fox News to run amok
on cable TV with the likes of Glenn Beck and Bill O’Reilly, a pair of
conservatives who use the word “Muslim” as an epithet.
Saudi Arabia
has spent considerable energy since 9/11 attempting to correct the
stereotypes and outright lies about Islam, but whatever campaigns
Saudis lead takes a backseat to the Fox propaganda machine.
Shortly
after the Ft. Hood attacks that left 12 US soldiers and one civilian
dead at the hands of a Muslim, Fox trotted out Michelle Malkin to give
her two cents about the motives behind Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan. Malkin,
who wrote a book arguing that interning Japanese-Americans during World
War II was just fine and mass internments should be brought back today,
railed against “Muslim soldiers with an attitude” who are able to
“infiltrate” the US military with “jihadi intentions.”
Another Fox News host suggested that all Muslim military personnel be treated as “potential threats.”
In 2006, Glenn Back demanded the US Muslim Congressman Keith Ellison “prove to me that you are not working with our enemies.”
For
every interfaith dialogu... [Read More]
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12/09/2009 - 1:36 p.m. CST
-- by Sabria Jawhar
While I was in Jeddah last month I received a telephone call from a
young woman. She was timid, nervous, upset and desperate. She was a stranger, but her story touched me as it should touch all women. This young woman had been attending medical school in Saudi Arabia and was in her fourth year when her father died. As her sole benefactor
her father had gone to great lengths to ensure that her tuition was
paid. He saved his money from the income of his job and apparently had several other sources of income from business acquaintances that
helped fund his daughter’s education. As customary, he spared her the
details of the source of her tuition so she could maintain her dignity
and focus on her studies.
When the father died, the daughter was left without parents or any
male family members. She no longer had the money to continue her
education and the medical school suspended her studies and asked to
leave campus. The Ministry of Higher Education turned down her
requests for a scholarship.
My initial reaction was that this was impossible. How could an
intelligent, well-spoken and committed Saudi woman be denied a medical degree in a country where there are so few Saudi physicians, let alone female doctors? The Saudi medical community recruits hundreds of foreign doctors to fill its ranks, but snubs a medical student in its own backyard. Surely, a private scholarship would be available to her.
But the crux of her problem soon revealed itself. After further
questioning, I discovered this desperate woman was not a Saudi
citizen. Her mother was Egyptian and her father originated from a
small African country. Yet everything about her -- from her demeanor,
language, tone and even manners -- shouted that she was Saudi. She was born in Saudi Arabia, and knows no other country and speaks no other language other than Saudi. Sh... [Read More]
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12/02/2009 - 2:11 a.m. CST
-- by Sabria Jawhar
What does Europe want from the Muslim community?
Well, you got me.
Like a party host who complains that her country cousins aren't mingling with the guests, and then seats them at the children's table at dinnertime, Switzerland, Denmark and France can't make up their mind about the so-called "Muslim problem."
The French want to ban the burka. Danish newspapers like to poke sticks at Muslims by publishing offensive cartoons. Now, 57 percent of Switzerland's voters have passed a referendum to ban the construction of minarets on mosques. Yet some European government officials complain, "Why don't Muslims assimilate into our society?"
And I ask: "Why would I want to?"
For all the phony talk about Muslim assimilation into white European Christian society, some EU countries do their best to marginalize us. In Switzerland, about 6 percent of the population is Muslim, a great many who are war refugees from Kosovo and Bosnia and Herzegovina.
I agree that it's likely that these first-generation Muslims have difficulty assimilating into European society, but that's true of first-generation immigrants in any country throughout history. Their offspring, however, are a different story. In 20 years time we'll see many second-generation Eastern European Muslims fit right into Swiss society. That is as long as the government resists the temptation to pass discriminatory laws against their right to worship and practice their cultural customs and traditions like everyone else.
There are two troubling aspects of the minaret ban. There is little of the Islamic extremist ideology found in Switzerland that would prompt such discrimination. And the country's constitution essentially prohibits anti-religious laws.
Unlike France and Denmark, there has been little talk of the "Islamification" of Switzerland. There are few burka-clad, dark-skinned Asian Muslim women walking the streets of Geneva and Zur... [Read More]
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11/11/2009 - 11:14 a.m. CST
-- by Sabria Jawhar
Nearly a year after Saudi King Abdullah warned religious
scholars that issuing careless fatwas gives extremists credibility as religious
experts, the Ministry of Islamic Affairs, Call, Guidance and Endowment has
finally said enough is enough.
Recently the Ministry issued a memo that fatwas were not to be issued to just
anybody asking for one. The Ministry has ordered that Saudi imams refer people
seeking fatwas to the Senior Board of Ulema. Apparently the Ulema got tired of
having their own fatwas contradicted by some obscure rural cleric who thinks of
himself as a religious scholar. This new rule, although long overdue, thrills me to
no end. If ever there was an aspect of Islam that has been so thoroughly abused
by people who have no idea what they’re doing it’s the fatwa.
Fatwas, which are basically opinions or edicts, are supposed to be issued by
Islamic scholars after careful and lengthy deliberation. The fatwa’s source
comes from the Qur’an and the sayings of the Prophet, peace be upon him. Once
upon a time each and every word of a fatwa was agonized over and issued only
when necessary.
Somewhere down the line more than a few imams from Seattle to Somalia fancied
themselves fatwa experts and abused the privilege. As a result, trousers have
been deemed sinful, Mickey Mouse was discovered to be Satan’s foot soldier, and
Saudi guys were given permission to take non-Muslim Western girls as wives for
a couple of months to, well – just take a guess.
Although I am not one to concern myself with the internal politics of Saudi
clerics, it’s long troubled me that there often seems to be no rhyme nor reason
as to what qualifies as a fatwa and who should be responsible for issuing one.
At the very least it presents am image of disorganization among the Islamic religious
community. At worst, it presents a picture of ignorance that leads to mockery
of Islam.
... [Read More]
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10/13/2009 - 11:52 p.m. CST
-- by Sabria Jawhar
Perhaps one of the most misunderstood aspects of Saudi society in the non-Arab
world is the myth that all Saudi women are banned from driving cars. Read any
English-language news periodical and the message is absolute: It’s illegal for
Saudi women to drive.
Well, that’s kinda-sorta-usually-but-not-always true.
For decades, Saudi women have been driving on highways and streets outside of
urban areas. They must drive because their families’ survival depends on it.
While men are working, wives are tasked with taking the kids to school,
transporting livestock to market, and managing the
house. They also drive big tankers to bring drinking water to their villages.
Many of these women are also Bedouins who travel from village to village
earning a living by transporting goods.
This is not a case of heading down to the local Danube supermarket for a box of
corn flakes. This is a long drive, sometimes hundreds of miles, over a harsh
desert environment usually in a 2-ton Mercedes truck or a Hilux pickup. These
moms, some who arm themselves with a handgun for protection while driving
alone, are a hardworking, tough lot that can handle a truck better than most
men. I remember as a child my uncle in
one of the Yanbu villages going to work at 4 each morning, leaving the
management of the house, the family and the harvesting of their crops to my
aunt. She drove all over the region to make sure not only her kids but the
extended family were cared for.
As a practical issue, the police and Hiy’a (Commission for the Promotion
of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, commonly referred to as the religious police)
can’t effectively patrol these remote areas. For the most part, women have had
free reign in driving vehicles where they please.
Common sense, which is not always a prime ingredient when journalists address
perceived wrongs with Saudi Arabia, tells us... [Read More]
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10/07/2009 - 12:15 a.m. CST
-- by Sabria Jawhar
It came as something of a shock when
I learned the other day that the number of domestic violence cases in Saudi
Arabia does not exceed 650.
What a relief to live in a country where violence against women and children is
virtually non-existent. This good news comes from none other than the man who
should know: Ali Al-Hinaki, the general manager of Social Affairs Department in
the Makkah province.
Al-Hinaki told a Jeddah reporter that there are no statistics on the number of
abuse cases, but he estimated that there were no more than 650. Yet the Social
Affairs Department does not explain that if there are so few domestic
violence cases in Saudi Arabia, why is there the need to sponsor this week a
three-day awareness forum in Jeddah? Or why establish 17 committees to deal
with family protection? By Social Affairs Department’s logic that amounts to 38
abuse victims per committee. Now that is what I call great response to such a
minor issue.
But all kidding aside, this ridiculously low statistic is an insult to every
Saudi woman and child whether or not they have been the victim of abuse. There
are more than 27 million people – 22 million of which are Saudis – living in
Saudi Arabia. Just how did the law of averages
elude the Social Affairs Department?
Earlier this year Abdul Aziz Al-Dakhil, an attorney and a leading expert on
domestic violence, said, “If we are informed that there are 10 cases of abuse,
there are for sure 1,000 more suffering in silence and not spoken about.”
Al-Dakhil has a better grasp of reality, but the numbers don’t adequately
convey the urgency of establishing codified laws protecting abuse victims.
Al-Dakhil points out that there is no established definition in Saudi Arabia of
what constitutes domestic violence. Family members who perpetrate violence
against their victims confuse guardianship and Islam with discipli... [Read More]
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