Russian Muslims ask Moscow to lobby Saudis for increased haj quota to Mecca
Spiritual leaders from Russia’s large minority of Muslims asked President Dmitry Medvedev on Tuesday to press Saudi Arabia to increase the number of worshippers allowed to perform the annual Haj pilgrimage. Almost three million Muslims flock to Mecca every year for Haj, a duty every able-bodied Muslim who can afford it must perform at least once in their lifetime. Riyadh allocates quotas for Muslims around the world.
Russia, home to 20 million Muslims, or around one seventh of the population, is allowed to send 20,000 Muslims a year for Haj, Mufti Ismail Berdiyev told Medvedev. They were attending a meeting with other Muslim leaders in Kabardino-Balkaria’s capital Nalchik in the mainly Muslim North Caucasus.
“So many people want to go. Maybe you could bring this up in talks with Saudi Arabia?” asked Berdiyev, who heads the Muslim community in Karachay-Cherkessia, not far from Nalchik.
Since the fall of Communism 20 years ago, Russia’s Muslims have embraced a spiritual revival after decades of Soviet authorities forcing all religions underground. Mosques across the North Caucasus are swelling in number, learning Arabic has become popular amongst the young and Muslim media outlets are sprouting up across the country. Around half of Russia’s Muslims live in the North Caucasus, a patchwork of mountainous republics on its southern fringe, also home to a growing Islamist insurgency.
Medvedev vowed to bring it up with Saudi officials next time they meet. “We have open dialogue with them on all issues,” he told Berdiyev and other muftis.
Read the full story by Denis Dyomkin here.
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Did Bahrain’s Shi’ite opposition squander its democracy chance?
As martial law comes to an end in the Gulf Arab state of Bahrain this week, opposition activists are wondering whether they threw away what might have been the first real chance for democracy in the Gulf Arab region.
Shortly after young Bahrainis, inspired by uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia, converged on a roundabout in early February, the government offered dialogue with opposition parties on political reforms. But the talks failed to get off the ground. After weeks of behind-the-scenes discussions during which sectarian tension worsened between the Shi’ite majority and Sunnis who saw the ruling Al-Khalifa family as protection, Saudi troops poured in on March 15, martial law was declared the next day and the roundabout encampment was broken up on March 16.
Critics say the leading opposition party Wefaq, headed by Sheikh Ali Salman, failed to show leadership during the unrest, allowing hardliners within the ruling family and among the Shi’ite opposition to steer events. “What a massively missed opportunity. Wefaq should have had the conviction to stand ahead of the others and sit at the table. I’m sure they rue it,” one Western diplomat said. When talks eventually resume, he said, “the ceiling will be lower” and reforms could have been set back by a decade.
On Tuesday King Hamad called for reform talks “without preconditions” from July 1. But the parameters were vague, and with opposition leaders in jail, protesters off the streets and Wefaq attacked daily in state media, the government will have the upper hand to steer them away from parliamentary reforms.
Munira Fakhro of secular opposition group Waad says Wefaq was paralysed by fear of losing the street — Shi’ite protesters radicalised by the deaths of their comrades when security forces made a botched attempt to clear the roundabout on Feb. 17.
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Witness – Searching for reforms in King Abdullah’s Saudi Arabia
Ulf Laessing was Reuters chief correspondent in Saudi Arabia until last week when the government terminated his accreditation over coverage of recent protests in the kingdom. He was based in the Saudi capital Riyadh since 2009 and previously worked in Kuwait after joining Reuters in his native Germany in 1997. In the following piece he describes the little progress of reforms launched by King Abdullah often titled as “reformist” in the Western press.
By Ulf Laessing
RIYADH (Reuters) – The moment my wife and I left our apartment compound in downtown Riyadh, a jeep screeched to a halt in front of us and a bearded man stepped out. “Is this your wife? I want to give you some advice. Don’t let her wear makeup,” said the religious policeman, dressed in a traditional white robe. “If she uses makeup, other men will only look at her,” he added, raising his forefinger to stress his point and staring hard at me.
A woman wearing makeup or not completely covering up would go unnoticed in most parts of the world, but in Saudi Arabia it can be enough to get you detained for “immoral behaviour.” Encountering religious police roaming the streets to uphold the kingdom’s values of an austere version of Sunni Islam was one of the most striking experiences of living in Saudi Arabia. It was also a reminder that the Gulf Arab state remains a deeply conservative country despite hype in the West praising King Abdullah for reforms such as overhauling outdated state education or liberalising the economy.
“Moderate” and “reformer” are regular descriptions of Abdullah by Western diplomats, intellectuals and business people since he took office in 2005. Some even call him “liberal.” But during my two years as Reuters correspondent in the Saudi capital, I did not notice any changes in a strict social code banning unrelated men or women from mixing and forcing shops and restaurants to close five times a day for prayers.
In fact, I felt the country got slightly more conservative, not just because of religious police cops roaming the streets.
Saudi Shi’ite protests simmer as Bahrain conflict rages
Hundreds of young Shi’ite men marched down a commercial street in the Saudi city of Qatif, near the heart of the kingdom’s oil industry, pounding their fists in anger over their country’s military intervention in Bahrain. “With our blood and soul we sacrifice for you, Bahrain,” they chanted as they walked, according to videos of a recent protest posted on the internet. Some wore scarves to conceal their faces. Others waved Bahraini flags.
“People are boiling,” one Shi’ite activist in Qatif told Reuters by phone, asking not to be named for fear of arrest. “People are talking about strikes, demonstration and prayer to help the Bahrainis.”
The protests were in response to Saudi Arabia, the world’s top oil exporter and most powerful Gulf Arab state, sending troops to Bahrain last week to help quell weeks of protests by majority Shi’ites in the Sunni-led monarchy. Bahrain’s opposition called it a declaration of war.
Riyadh, facing Shi’ite protests of its own, fears a sustained revolt in neighboring Bahrain could embolden its own Shi’ite minority, which has long grumbled about sectarian discrimination, charges Riyadh denies. The military intervention, however, appears to have only deepened Shi’ite resentment in the kingdom, where between 10 and 15 percent of the 18 million Saudi nationals are Shi’ites.
Read the full story by Cynthia Johnston here.
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Bahrain declares martial law, Sunni-Shi’ite tensions flair
Bahrain declared martial law on Tuesday as it struggles to quell an uprising by the island’s Shi’ite Muslim majority that has drawn in troops from fellow Sunni-ruled neighbour Saudi Arabia. The three-month state of emergency will hand wholesale power to Bahrain’s security forces, which are dominated by the country’s Sunni Muslim elite, stoking sectarian tensions in one of the Gulf’s most politically volatile nations.
The United States, a close ally of both Bahrain and Saudi, said it was concerned about reports of growing sectarianism in the country, which is home to the U.S. Navy’s Fifth Fleet, and warned that violence from any side would make matters worse.
“A political solution is necessary and all sides must now work to produce a dialogue that addresses the needs of all of Bahrain’s citizens,” White House spokesman Tommy Vietor said in Washington.
On Monday, more than 1,000 Saudi troops rolled into the kingdom in a long convoy of armoured vehicles at the request of Bahrain’s Sunni rulers, flashing victory signs as they crossed the causeway that connects the two oil producers. The United Arab Emirates said it also would send 500 police. Analysts saw the troop movement into Bahrain as a mark of concern in Saudi Arabia that concessions by the country’s monarchy could inspire the conservative Sunni-ruled kingdom’s own Shi’ite minority.
Over 60 percent of Bahrainis are Shi’ites who complain of discrimination at the hands of the Sunni royal family. Calls for the overthrow of the monarchy have alarmed the Sunni minority, which fears that unrest could serve non-Arab Shi’ite power Iran.
Bahrain has been gripped by its worst unrest since the 1990s after protesters took to the streets last month, inspired by uprisings that toppled the leaders of Egypt and Tunisia. Unlike those countries, where the mainly Sunni populations united against the regime, Bahrain is split along sectarian lines, raising the risk of a slide into civil conflict.
Read the full story by Lin Noueihed and Frederik Richter here.
Top Algerian Salafist’s fatwa says unrest is un-Islamic
The spiritual leader of Algeria’s influential Salafist movement has issued a 48-page fatwa, or religious decree, urging Muslims to ignore calls for change because he says that democracy is against Islam. The fatwa by Sheikh Abdelmalek Ramdani, who lives in Saudi Arabia, comes at an opportune time for President Abdelaziz Bouteflika as Algerians watching protests in other Arab states have begun pushing their own political and economic demands.
“As long as the commander of the nation is a Muslim, you must obey and listen to him. Those who are against him are just seeking to replace him, and this is not licit,” Ramdani wrote in the fatwa obtained by Reuters. “During unrest, men and women are mixed, and this is illicit in our religion,” said Ramdani, who claims several hundred thousand followers here.
Algeria has been shaken since January by a wave of protest sparked by a spike in food prices. The opposition has made several attempts to march in Algiers for democracy, transparency and a change of leadership. Anxious to keep a wave of popular revolts in the Arab world from spreading to Algeria, the government has lifted a 19-year state of emergency and opened up state media to the opposition. It has also been paying out huge sums in subsidies, wage increases and interest-free loans to placate discontent.
Ramdani, who moved to Saudi Arabia after threats from radical Islamists, wrote in his “Fatwa on Unrest” that an observant Muslim can only “pray and be patient” when faced with an unwanted ruler.
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Saudis want more science in religion-heavy education
Saudi teenager Abdulrahman Saeed lives in one of the richest countries in the world, but his prospects are poor, he blames his education, and it’s not a situation that looks like changing soon. “There is not enough in our curriculum,” says Saeed, 16, who goes to an all-male state school in the Red Sea port of Jeddah. “It is just theoretical teaching, and there is no practice or guidance to prepare us for the job market.”
Saeed wants to study physics but worries that his state high school is failing him. He says the curriculum is outdated, and teachers simply repeat what is written in text books without adding anything of practical value or discussions. Even if the teachers did do more than the basics, Saeed’s class, at 32 students, is too big for him to get adequate attention. While children in Europe and Asia often start learning a language at five or six, Saudi students start learning English at 12. Much time is spent studying religion and completing exercises heavy with moral instruction.
The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia sits on more than a fifth of the globe’s oil reserves and thanks to high oil prices it has almost tripled its foreign assets to more than $400 billion (248 billion pounds) since 2005. The region’s thinkers had a profound influence on the evolving western science of the Middle Ages. But from kindergarten to university, its state education system has barely entered the modern age. Focussed on religious and Arabic studies, it has long struggled to produce the scientists, engineers, economists and lawyers that Saudi needs.
High school literature, history and even science text books regularly quote Koranic verses. Employers complain that universities churn out graduates who are barely computer-literate and struggle with English. So frustrated are some students, they have taken to the streets in protest.
“Education in our country cannot be compared to education abroad,” says Dina Faisal, mother of a 15-year old student in Jeddah. “We have a lack of sciences, physics, and biology. That is what is needed to push the country forward. There has been some change but it is far from being complete.”
Read this special report by Ulf Laessing and Asma Alsharif here.
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The US needs more Christianity in it’s science heavy education! The macro evolution faith movement and secularization of church and state have laid waste to a generation!! Science without religion is inept-Einstein!
U.N. restores gay reference to violence measure
The United States has succeeded in getting the United Nations to restore a reference to killings due to sexual orientation that had been deleted from a resolution condemning unjustified executions.
Western delegations were disappointed last month when the U.N. General Assembly’s human rights committee approved an Arab and African proposal to cut the reference to slayings due to sexual orientation from a resolution on extrajudicial, summary and arbitrary executions.
The 192-nation General Assembly approved on Tuesday a U.S. amendment to the resolution that restored the reference to sexual orientation with 93 votes in favor, 55 against and 27 abstentions. The amended resolution was then adopted with 122 yes votes, one against and 62 abstentions.
After ensuring that violence against gays would be back in the resolution by voting in favor its own amendment, Washington sent an ambiguous signal about its support for the overall declaration by joining 61 other nations in abstaining. It was not immediately clear why Washington withheld its support. The only country that voted against the resolution was Saudi Arabia.
The main opposition to the U.S. amendment came from Muslim and African nations, which had led the push to delete the reference to sexual preference from the resolution last month.
The General Assembly passes resolutions condemning extrajudicial, summary and arbitrary executions and other killings every two years. The 2008 declaration had included an explicit reference to killings committed because of the victims’ sexual preferences.
Iraqi Shi’ites mark Ashura without incident, Saudis scuffle in Medina
More than two million Shi’ite pilgrims in Iraq’s holy city of Kerbala marked Ashura, commemorating the slaying of the Prophet Mohammad’s grandson Imam Hussein at the battle of Kerbala in 680, with no major violence reported amid tight security. But Saudi security forces dispersed crowds of Shi’ite and Sunni Muslims after scuffles broke out in the holy city of Medina.
Shi’ites from across Iraq, along with thousands of foreign pilgrims — most dressed in black — streamed into Kerbala for the emotive ritual on Friday in which the faithful beat their heads and chests and gash themselves with chains and swords to mourn the event that defines Shi’ism and its split from Sunni Islam.
“According to official statistics, there are more than two million Iraqi pilgrims and 248,000 foreign pilgrims who have entered Kerbala city,” said Mohammed al-Moussawi, head of the Kerbala provincial council.
Security officials assigned thousands of police officers and soldiers to protect the pilgrims as they headed to Hussein’s shrine in Kerbala, 80 km (50 miles) southwest of Baghdad. Authorities imposed a city-wide ban on cars and motorcycles to help prevent attacks. Read the full story here.
In Saudi Arabia, the Shi’ite website Rasid.com said a group of Sunnis had attacked several Shiites with stones late on Thursday as they were outside commemorating Ashoura in Medina, Islam’s second holiest city. A local Shiite resident also confirmed the incident to Reuters. He said it had occurred near the landmark Quba Mosque.
Saudi Shi’ites mark Ashura festival in anxious mood
Like their Shi’ite brethren across the Middle East, Hussein and his Saudi friends marked the mourning day of Ashura on Thursday, their mood tinged with worry over their future in the strict Sunni Muslim kingdom. Hundreds of black-clad Shi’ites in the small Gulf town of Qatif, in Saudi Arabia’s oil-rich Eastern Province, rose early to join once-forbidden processions to mark the slaying in 680 of Prophet Mohammad’s grandson, Imam Hussein.
Long viewed as heretics or even agents of Iran by the Saudi authorities and hardline Sunni clerics, Shi’ites have been testing pledges to let them practice their rites more freely. Now they fear a reversal in their long struggle for recognition. The freedom to mark Ashura relatively unhindered in Qatif and nearby villages is a fruit of changes launched by King Abdullah since he ascended the throne in 2005.
But the king is about 87 and is in New York for medical treatment. His slightly younger half-brother, Crown Prince Sultan, spent the past two years abroad with an unspecified ailment. With a possible succession in prospect, many Shi’ites worry that a more conservative king might be tougher on them.
“Our future depends on whether we have a liberal or more conservative king,” said Hussein, who, like his friends, would only give his first name because the issue is so sensitive. One future royal contender may be Prince Nayef, the interior minister. Nayef heads a vast security apparatus and is close to the Wahhabi clerics who uphold the kingdom’s austere brand of Sunni Islam. “We’re afraid of Nayef,” said another young Shi’ite named Abdullah.
Jane Kinninmont at the Economist Intelligence Unit said such fears were widespread because Abdullah’s reforms often produced only shifts in the style of governing, not institutional changes. “As a result, there is a risk of reversals,” she said.
Read the full story here. For more on Ashura, see also Sacred Shi’ite ritual tests Pakistan’s security resolve
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