Word: wahhabi
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...banned the open worship of other faiths, even as the number of Catholics resident in Saudi Arabia has risen to 800,000 thanks to an influx of immigrant workers from places like the Philippines and India. Mosques are the only houses of prayer in a country where the strict Wahhabi version of Sunni Islam dominates. But Archbishop Paul-Mounged El-Hachem, the papal envoy to the smaller countries on the Arabian peninsula, such as Kuwait and Qatar, has confirmed that talks are under way to establish formal diplomatic relations between the Vatican and Saudi Arabia, and to eventually allow...
When the deaths of al-Huraisi and al-Bulawi hit the newspapers, Saudis were shocked, yet not entirely surprised. The morality police, whom Saudis sometimes derisively refer to as the "Taliban," are notorious for committing excesses in their fervor for enforcing the Kingdom's puritanical Wahhabi brand of Islam. Typically, squads of mutaween patrol streets and shopping malls, caning shopkeepers who fail to shutter their doors at prayer time, scolding women who allow flesh to show from under their mandatory black gowns, and lecturing adolescent boys caught following or talking to girls. By the commission's reckoning, its members "correct...
...been unruly. Last year, according to Saudi Arabia's al-Watan newspaper, there were 21 recorded instances - including a number of shootings and stabbings - in which people attacked mutaween. Just four years ago, the government pressured al-Watan to fire its editor after it published articles criticizing the Wahhabi establishment and holding the mutaween accountable for alleged abuses. Nonetheless, others are speaking up, too, and the outcry is intensifying the pressure on King Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz al-Saud to act against the mutaween. A new nongovernmental organization, the National Society for Human Rights, issued a report in May that...
Saudi sources have told Time of numerous other instances of disturbingly routine abuse. One involved a female Shi'ite Muslim student at King Saud University in Riyadh who was allegedly badly beaten last year for being in the company of a Sunni Muslim boy. Because Wahhabi doctrine regards Shi'ites as infidels, they have frequent run-ins with the mutaween over their religious practices. Non-Wahhabi Sunnis also regularly run afoul of the mutaween, who - in accordance with Wahhabi doctrine - bar them from celebrating the Prophet Muhammad's birthday or performing certain rites during burials...
...complicating factor is the lack of a single homogeneous Muslim community in Britain. Rather there is a rich tapestry of communities from different countries (Bangladesh, Iran, Pakistan, Somalia, various Arab states), with different languages (Arabic, Persian, Urdu) and different ways of practicing Islam (Shi'a, Sunni, Wahhabi). Among them are a significant number of inward-facing Muslims?economic immigrants who aren't particularly interested in learning to speak English, participating in British culture or making friends outside their community. There is little contest in their eyes between the importance of their faith and their status as U.K. residents or citizens...