The king makes some striking changes, but gradualism is still the watchword
King Abdullah sends a Valentine
REFORM-MINDED Saudis cheered when Abdullah became king four years ago. The avuncular Custodian of the Holy Places, as Saudi monarchs title themselves, had a reputation for probity, tolerance and humility that augured change for the better. Yet few of his tentative reforms have stuck. Initiatives to modernise state schools and courts have stalled in the face of entrenched religious conservatives.
But in a move of rare boldness for the stately kingdom, on February 14th the 86-year-old king decreed sweeping changes in government. His reshuffle affected top posts in education, the courts, the armed forces, the central bank, the health and information ministries, the religious police and the state-appointed religious hierarchy, as well as the royally-appointed, 150-man proto-parliament, the Shura Council.
It was not the scale of the turnover that raised eyebrows; most senior ministers retained their posts. More striking was the injection of reformist blood into the ossified school and court systems. With his background in intelligence, and as a son-in-law of the king, the new minister of education, Prince Faisal bin Abdullah bin Muhammad, may be better equipped to flush out teachers who are failing to comply with curricula that have been revised to emphasise tolerance in Islam.
The departure of Sheikh Saleh Luhaydan as head of the supreme judicial council, along with several other senior judges, suggests a new push to modernise the courts. Mr Luhaydan was notorious for rulings such as one that said it would be legal to kill the owners of TV channels broadcasting "immorality". During his tenure judges faced little pressure to adopt new rules meant to make the kingdom's unique and often harsh forms of sharia justice more open and consistent. Similarly, the sacking of the head of the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice will be seen as a response to a chorus of demands to curb the morality police, whose puritanical agents have often been accused of harassing law-abiding citizens.
Equally significant, the new appointments are markedly diverse. The 21-man board of senior clerics which issues official religious rulings, or fatwas, now for the first time includes representatives of all four schools of Sunni Islam, so breaking the monopoly, exercised solely in Saudi Arabia, of the arch-traditionalist Hanbali school associated with Wahhabism. The body still excludes Shias, a minority numbering about 10% of Saudis that faces widespread discrimination. But King Abdullah has compensated in part by increasing Shia representation in the Shura Council.
A far bigger slice of the population that has been kept to the margins of society, namely women, also got a boost with the appointment of a female deputy minister, the highest-level government post yet to be filled by a woman. Nora al-Fayez, an American-educated schools administrator, is to run the girls' section of the ministry of education, a division managed until recently by Wahhabist clerics.
Should such personnel changes give an impetus to the deeper reforms that many Saudis long for, King Abdullah will have secured an important legacy. But a quite different reform, decreed by him three years ago, may bear fruit sooner. Addressing concerns that the line of succession to kingship, which traditionally passes between brothers before reaching their sons, would produce a series of brief reigns by dotards, King Abdullah created a 25-man family council to elect future kings.
The council was to meet only after his own brother had succeeded. But the current crown prince, Sultan, is in his 80s and said to be very ill. In all likelihood, it is the council that will choose Abdullah's successor, in what might prove to be, even if restricted to a handful of senior princes from the Al Saud family, the first quasi-democratic transition of power in Saudi history. It would be a momentous feat. But it will also set nerves jangling.
King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia shook up his kingdom by boldly appointing the first female minister to his government cabinet earlier this week.
Norah al-Faiz is now the deputy minister of women's education — the most senior role ever held by a woman in Saudi Arabia.
Though al-Faiz occupies a new post, she is still very much bound by the stringent laws that dictate how women live within the kingdom. Like all women in Saudi Arabia, al-Faiz is only permitted to do what her closest male relative allows, based on the guardianship system.
Al-Faiz, who received her master's degree in education from Utah State University, is fully cognizant of the challenges ahead of her, stating that the "guardianship system" is the first thing that should be removed by the new Saudi government.
During my own time living in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia in the late 90s, I recall needing my father — my closest male relative — for anything that required me leaving our compound walls. From driving me to the mall (women aren't permitted to drive) to accompanying me to a doctor's appointment, I needed a male escort for everything. And while there is no law stating that a male must accompany a female to the doctor (though a male often has to authorize all procedures at the doctor's office), females are not allowed to interact with unrelated males—and almost all doctors in Saudi Arabia are males.
Even when it came down to something as simple as getting a shawarma sandwich, I would have to ask my father to order because it was frowned upon for women to enter the restaurant and interact with men. My mother and I would wait in the car as my father walked into the restaurant crammed with men ordering for a parking lot filled with hungry women.
Putting all shawarma aside, women aren't even permitted to testify in a criminal court unless there isn't a male witness and the testimony is related to a personal matter. And even then, the testimony of a woman only counts for half that of man's testimony, leaving it up to the court to decide whether or not it is to be accepted as valid.
Saudi feminist and writer, Wajeha al-Huwaider, said it is unclear if al-Faiz will have any real power, or if she will follow the path of other Saudi women who had been appointed to lower councils but were never heard from.
But Haifa Jamal Al-Lail, dean of Effat College in Jeddah, is more optimistic. "This is not just about having the first woman deputy minister. It's about having more women in important positions. Al-Fayez's presence in the Ministry of Education will make women's voices heard."
For a country where, under Saudi law, women are considered the property of men, appointing al-Faiz as the first female minister, though she's only in charge of women's education, is a big step in the right direction.
"People are attracted to new preachers like me because they want religious solutions to daily problems," says Mostafa Hosni, pictured on the set of his TV show in Cairo.
By Jeffrey Fleishman December 31, 2008
Reporting from Cairo -- The Islamic preacher slipped on a pair of shorts and talked about the Koran while playing beach volleyball, eating barbecue and joking about hot cars and palaces in paradise.
If the West were to dream up its version of an ideal imam, he might look and sound like Mostafa Hosni, a 30-year-old former Nestle accountant who's comfortable in argyle sweaters and hip to self-help. A video of his seaside sermon posted on his website was a cross between a travel brochure and a spiritual quest for the BlackBerry generation.
"We decided to leave the city and go somewhere with a sea, clear sky and mountains so that we can meditate about almighty God's greatness," Hosni says with a gentle surf behind him. "It is hard for one to meditate about that in the crowded city. In fact, we want to draw some link between the beauty of the Earth and that of paradise."
The West's picture of the Muslim preacher is often caricature: a bearded man in a tunic bellowing ancient verses and spinning asides about American imperialism. But that icon is changing as the image and message of mainstream Islam are softened to appeal to upwardly mobile, twentysomething followers less concerned with dogma than bleeping out life's annoyances on the way to success.
"I try to preach with simple language, not the language of scholars," said Hosni, who has a weekly TV talk show and whose sermons are sold on CDs in front of Cairo University. "People are attracted to new preachers like me because they want religious solutions to daily problems, not someone talking to them about the afterlife."
Hosni's path is similar to that of other popular TV preachers, such as Amr Khaled and Moez Masoud, charismatic men who started in commerce and were eventually drawn to religious fervor and a desire to repackage Islam. This brand of preacher has not eclipsed the influence of imams and clerics, but it has forced traditional holy men to reckon with the power of the Internet and the allure of simplifying centuries-old texts to fit modern times.
The new preachers are an intriguing blend of enthusiasm and calculation. Hosni is casual but pious, answering questions with schoolboy earnestness, careful about how he might be perceived. He is as adept at deciphering the market penetration of satellite TV as he is at weaving metaphors with verses of the Koran.
"People want to change their lives in the way they are devout," said Hosni, who sat the other day with his head newly shaved from a recent hajj pilgrimage. "We are in a defining time in Islam, and this will help us open ourselves up to the world."
Unlike the radical Muslim Brotherhood and fundamentalist clerics, Hosni doesn't blame the state for the problems arising from Egypt's corruption and troubling economic transition from national industries to open markets. This suits his followers, upper-middle-class professionals who came of age during the country's Islamic revival and have largely abandoned politics to seek fulfillment in a compliant religion that speaks to the frustrations of jobs, marriage and family.
Islam, he said, should not deprive people of "the different pleasures of life."
This broadening of religion beyond the austere rhetoric and walls of the mosque appeals to Mai Hafez, a 19-year-old university student who turned to Hosni after finding puritan sheiks too detached from her lifestyle and far too constricting.
"Those conservative preachers always tell you: 'There is no time. The Judgment Day is coming. When will you wake up?' You feel you are doomed," she said. "Hosni understands what we talk about and what problems we face and how we think. In colleges, we talk about dating. We don't talk about the Koran or religion, and Hosni talks about our issues. . . . He has a very simple style that allows him to reach our minds and souls."
Such praise can draw a wince from Abu Islam Ahmed Abdullah. He does not wear chinos and there probably is no argyle sweater in his bottom drawer. Abdullah is a hard-line Salafi sheik, a man who dresses in gray tunics and whose wife is veiled from head to toe, including black gloves on her hands. Although he admires their stagecraft and concedes that old-school imams could learn from their marketing, Abdullah condemns modern televangelists, such as Hosni, as demeaning to Islam.
"These new preachers are nice and pleasant, but they follow the line of the government. They are not preaching Islam. It's a sham," he said. "They are an extension of the Western conspiracy to influence the region. . . . It doesn't impact the spirit. The girls in their audiences wear veils, but they also wear lipstick and tight clothes. They think they're religious because the modern preachers tell them so. They're deceived."
One need only spend a morning with Hosni and an afternoon with Abdullah to understand the struggle within Islam over modernizing a religion that for centuries has resisted change. This is an era when fatwas can be called in on talk shows and onetime village sheiks dab on makeup and practice enunciation for global broadcasts.
Religion, like sports, has become a competitive arena of buzz and marketing.
"Sheiks used to yell and shout because the prophet himself spoke loudly," Abdullah said. "But TV teaches you not to scream, not to yell as if the microphone is stuck deep in your throat. You're trying to win people over. Our scholars, God forgive them, used to say the media was haram [forbidden] and Muslims should not even have TVs in their homes. The media was held up as a sin, and even three years ago, sheiks would meet and say, 'Should we go on TV?' The problem is, we started too late."
Abdullah's first television venture went bankrupt when donations dried up in 2007. The show was a defense of Islam against Christianity. It epitomized the views of fundamentalists that Islam should be a buttress against Western liberalism. With his laptop open in a sparse apartment at the edge of a train track, Abdullah is planning to launch an online video program and website that he said would reach 500,000 households in the Middle East, Europe and the United States.
"I believe very soon there will be an awakening, and we will see true Islamic programming," he said.
Hosni, who is married and has two children, is not concerned with Western conspiracies or leading his flock through thickets of Islamic laws. He preaches in conversational tones, using pragmatism that speaks less to a global resurgence of Islam than to themes such as honesty, frustration, dating, working women and redemption.
"One of the devil's famous tricks is to instill complete despair that God will not forgive a person for committing a sin," Hosni said in a recent sermon that sounded very unlike the more brooding teachings of conservative preachers. "Even if one commits a sin, there is a very wide gate for repentance. We are not encouraging sins, but we are talking about God's unlimited mercy."
Hosni did not grow up in a devout home; he graduated from college with a degree in business and worked in the financial departments of Nestle and the Saudi-owned Iqraa satellite TV channel. He described himself during those years as a man concerned with the accouterments and fun of the secular world. In 1999, he began regularly attending mosques and in 2006 received a degree from a two-year school that trains preachers.
"God chooses you," he said. "There wasn't one seminal moment in my life that turned me to this. It was more like signposts along the way. . . . When I started preaching, there was mockery, sarcasm and rejection from friends who had known me before. But eventually their resistance faded."
For all his modern inflection and openness to the West, Hosni does have a bit of tradition in him. In two interviews at the New Generation International School on the sand-blown outskirts of Cairo, where he teaches morals to elementary school students, Hosni never made eye contact with an unveiled female interpreter.
Some believe an unveiled woman can be a temptation that could nudge a man off the true path. Hosni's eyes darted from wall to window, fixing on a point, darting again. He steeled himself in practiced piousness.
In one of his sermons, Hosni had urged men to -- instead of fantasizing about their girlfriends wearing bikinis -- imagine them veiled and making a pilgrimage to Mecca. Such an anecdote might appear old school, too righteous for a preacher like him. But Hosni said that being modern does not mean contradicting Islam; it means finding a way to be devout in a modern world.
Saudis indulge long banned passion for silver screen
20 hours ago
JEDDAH, Saudi Arabia (AFP) — They howled and clapped, munching popcorn while cheering the figures on the screen -- a normal movie theatre scene elsewhere, but revolutionary in Saudi Arabia where films have not played publicly for decades.
Massive lines snaked out from the King Abdul Aziz Cultural Centre as Jeddah residents queued up to see the first feature film open to the public for 30 years, hoping the event heralded a big change in the ultra-conservative kingdom's stinted cultural scene.
In what took hush-hush negotiations with senior political officials and the strict religious police, the Red Sea port of Jeddah and the nearby city of Taif allowed the Rotana entertainment group, owned by powerful Saudi tycoon Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, to put on its new comedy "Manahi" for nine days.
The result was overwhelming, the 1,200-seat hall hardly meeting the demand for the 15-riyal (four-dollar) tickets over more than a week.
"The hall was filled up to the very last seat during the two shows scheduled each day, forcing us to add a third show after midnight," organiser Mamdouh Salem told AFP.
Decades ago film lovers in Saudi Arabia would crowd into clubs and halls to watch the same movies enjoyed throughout the Arab world.
But in the 1970s, clerics of the ultra-conservative Wahhabist version of Islam which is practised in the country cracked down and banned cinemas as having a corrupting influence on society.
The taboo has been broken somewhat in recent years, with videos and satellite television, and movies shown surreptitiously at night in popular coffee shops.
But to see a movie in a real theatre, Saudis still have to travel to neighbouring countries.
Putting on the film in Jeddah, a progressive city compared to the capital Riyadh, took the support of Prince Khalid al-Faisal, the powerful governor of the province of Mecca, himself a poet and supporter of the arts.
The local religious police, from the feared Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, inspected the hall ahead of the screenings to ensure that women and men would be separated, following Saudi Arabia's strict rules of segregation between the sexes.
Salem said it was an adventure to get "Manahi" shown in a place where there are no real cinemas, adding that it was exciting to see the audience's thirst for movies.
"This is a hall with 1,200 seats. It was not built for movies, and the projector is not made for 35mm films," he said.
With women sitting apart in the balcony, and men and boys on the ground floor below them, the hall echoed with raucous laughter as they took in the story of the misadventures of a Saudi country farmer who finds himself in the city of Dubai.
On hand for the opening, "Manahi" star Fayez Malki said he was pleased at the turnout.
"This encourages me to play in more Saudi films and I plan to make a new one with Rotana," he said.
"It is an honour to have my name associated with the first Saudi film shown in public here."
Khaled al-Amri, who brought his children to see "Manahi", said he slakes his passion for film on trips to Cairo and Dubai.
Roua Mohammed, an interior designer, said she visits Cairo three times a year to check out the latest releases in the theatres.
"Why can't they be shown here?" she asked.
Despite the success in Jeddah, it was not yet clear whether Rotana would be able to show "Manahi" in Riyadh, where the religious police are much tougher and government officials more conservative.
As the shows drew to a close, religious police chief Sheikh Ibrahim al-Gaith branded movies "an absolute evil".
But on Saturday he eased his stance, allowing that some films might be appropriate.
"I did not say that we reject all cinema," Sheikh Gaith said.
"A movie could possibly be acceptable if it serves good and is suitable under Islam, but I said that we were not consulted during the organisation of these movie showings."
And while a senior government official told AFP that "it was not the right time yet" to toss out controls on movies, some property developers appear ahead of the game: their newly-built malls seem already set up to install cinemas, if and when the time comes.
A man and his children outside a theatre in Jeddah
WASHINGTON (AP) — President George W. Bush's foreign policies may be unpopular in the Middle East, but Arab leaders showered his top diplomat with jewelry worth far more than a quarter of a million dollars last year.
While Bush himself didn't fare nearly as well, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice raked in at least $316,000 in gem-encrusted baubles from the kings of Jordan and Saudi Arabia alone, making her one of top recipients among U.S. officials of gifts from foreign heads of state and government and their aides in 2007.
In January, Jordan's King Abdullah II gave Rice an emerald and diamond necklace, ring, bracelet and earrings estimated to be worth $147,000, according to the State Department's annual inventory of such items released Monday just in time for Christmas.
The king and his wife, Queen Rania, also gave Rice a less expensive necklace and earrings along with a jewelry box valued at $4,630, the document shows.
Not to be outdone, King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia presented Rice with a ruby and diamond necklace with matching earrings, bracelet and ring worth $165,000 in July. The inventory also includes a $170,000 flower petal motif necklace the Saudi monarch gave to Rice in 2005, which the department says was not previously disclosed.
From the same Arab leaders, Bush received just over $100,000 in gifts in 2007, the list shows.
Other gifts include an $85,000 sapphire and diamond jewelry set and $10,000 piece of artwork depicting a desert scene of bedouins, camels and a tent made of gold given to first lady Laura Bush by Saudi King Abdullah.
Unfortunately for the Bushes, Rice and other recipients, they won't be able to enjoy the gifts as they have been turned over to the General Services Administration and government archives in accordance with federal law, which bars officials from accepting personal presents in almost all circumstances.
The inventory, prepared by State Department's Office of Protocol, catalogues all gifts given to top administration officials. The presents range from the modest — a $6 assortment of nuts and dried fruit from the Dalai Lama to Mrs. Bush — to the extravagant — Rice's jewelry — and the odd — a $570 Brush Cutter with "comfort grip handles" from the Swedish prime minister to the president, presumably for use at his ranch in Crawford, Texas.
Bush got a $150 bronze platypus paperweight from an Australian official. The prime minister of Singapore gave Bush $450 worth of fitness equipment, including a "uSurf Wave Action Exerciser" and an "iGallop Core and Abs Exerciser," according to the documents, which offer a window into the tastes of foreign leaders.
The wife of Japan's former prime minister Shinzo Abe appears to be an animal lover, having given Laura Bush two red, white and blue hand-embroidered pillows with American flag designs and the names and images of first dogs Barney and Miss Beazley worth $100 last year.
She also gave the first lady a $700 porcelain Limoges box with the two pets painted on it and a stuffed black fleece Scotty toy valued at $100, the inventory shows.
Some gifts reflect the recipient's specialty. Gen. Peter Pace, the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff received two machine guns — one mounted — worth $1,300 from his Colombian and Russian counterparts, while Defense Secretary Robert Gates got a $3,200 decorative Arab knife from a Bahraini official and a steel dagger valued at $345 from the Jordanian king.
The source of gifts to U.S. intelligence officials is classified, but CIA chief Michael Hayden took in $8,000 in gifts, including a sword, fountain pen and silk rug, in 2007.
RIYADH (Reuters) - The head of Saudi Arabia's religious police has eased his criticism of a return of cinema to the conservative Muslim country saying he saw no harm in it as long as what is shown complies with Islam.
Cinema made a low-key return in the Islamic kingdom after a three decade ban, but a sharp reaction by Ibrahim al-Ghaith, the religious police chief, showed efforts to relax tough religious laws face tough opposition.
But Ghaith, the kingdom's second-most influential cleric, changed his tone in favor of the moviegoing revival.
"We are not against having cinema if it shows the good and does not violate Islamic law," al-Hayat newspaper quoted him on Sunday as saying.
It was unclear why Ghaith had apparently changed his approach and the religious police were not available for comment.
A locally produced comedy, "Menahi," premiered in two cultural centers in Jeddah and Taif this month before mixed-gender audiences, earlier a taboo in Saudi Arabia whose strict Islamic rules ban unrelated men and women from mixing.
Ghaith, who heads the morals police -- called the Commission for Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice -- demanded in remarks carried on Saturday by Saudi newspapers that cinema remains banned, calling it an evil the kingdom could do without.
"We have enough evil already," he was quoted as saying.
"Menahi," produced by billionaire Prince Alwaleed bin Talal's media company Rotana, shows the comic escapades of a naive farmer earlier played on television by popular Saudi actor Fayez al-Maliki.
The film has attracted such large crowds that the film had to be played eight times a day over a 10-day period, the organizers said. It had to be stopped in Taif due to overcrowding in the hall, Rotana spokesman Ibrahim Badi said.
Showing the film was the latest attempt to introduce reforms by King Abdullah, who has said the world's largest oil exporter cannot stand still while the world changes around it.
Political analysts say Alwaleed could not have gone ahead without the blessing of royals with key decision-making roles.
The kingdom's Grand Mufti Sheikh Abdul-Aziz Al al-Shaikh has not commented on the issue.
Ghaith's religious police have wide powers to search for alcohol, drugs and prostitution, ensure shops are closed during prayer and maintain a strict system of sexual segregation in Saudi society, where women are even banned from driving.
(Writing by Souhail Karam; editing by Ralph Boulton)
Jidda Journal As Taboos Ease, Saudi Girl Group Dares to Rock
By ROBERT F. WORTH
Published: November 23, 2008
JIDDA, Saudi Arabia — They cannot perform in public. They cannot pose for album cover photographs. Even their jam sessions are secret, for fear of offending the religious authorities in this ultraconservative kingdom.
But the members of Saudi Arabia's first all-girl rock band, the Accolade, are clearly not afraid of taboos.
The band's first single, "Pinocchio," has become an underground hit here, with hundreds of young Saudis downloading the song from the group's MySpace page. Now, the pioneering foursome, all of them college students, want to start playing regular gigs — inside private compounds, of course — and recording an album.
"In Saudi, yes, it's a challenge," said the group's lead singer, Lamia, who has piercings on her left eyebrow and beneath her bottom lip. (Like other band members, she gave only her first name.) "Maybe we're crazy. But we wanted to do something different."
In a country where women are not allowed to drive and rarely appear in public without their faces covered, the band is very different. The prospect of female rockers clutching guitars and belting out angry lyrics about a failed relationship — the theme of "Pinocchio" — would once have been unimaginable here.
But this country's harsh code of public morals has slowly thawed, especially in Jidda, by far the kingdom's most cosmopolitan city. A decade ago the cane-wielding religious police terrorized women who were not dressed according to their standards. Young men with long hair were sometimes bundled off to police stations to have their heads shaved, or worse.
Today, there is a growing rock scene with dozens of bands, some of them even selling tickets to their performances. Hip-hop is also popular. The religious police — strictly speaking, the Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice — have largely retreated from the streets of Jidda and are somewhat less aggressive even in the kingdom's desert heartland.
The change has been especially noticeable since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, when the Saudis confronted the effects of extremism both outside and inside the kingdom. More than 60 percent of Saudi Arabia's population is under 25, and many of the young are pressing for greater freedoms.
"The upcoming generation is different from the one before," said Dina, the Accolade's 21-year-old guitarist and founder. "Everything is changing. Maybe in 10 years it's going to be O.K. to have a band with live performances."
Dina said she first dreamed of starting a band three years ago. In September, she and her sister Dareen, 19, who plays bass, teamed up with Lamia and Amjad, the keyboardist.
They were already iconoclasts: Dina and Dareen wear their hair teased into thick manes and have pierced eyebrows. During an interview at a Starbucks here, they wore black abayas — the flowing gown that is standard attire for women — but the gowns were open, showing their jeans and T-shirts, and their hair and faces were uncovered. Women are more apt to go uncovered in Jidda than in most other parts of the country, though it is still uncommon.
"People always stare at us," Dareen said, giggling. She and her sister are also avid ice skaters, another unusual habit in Saudi Arabia's desert.
The band gets together to practice every weekend at the sisters' house, where their younger brother sometimes fills in on drums. In early November, Dina, who studies art at King Abdulaziz University, began writing a song based on one of her favorite paintings, "The Accolade," by the English pre-Raphaelite painter Edmund Blair Leighton. The painting depicts a long-haired noblewoman knighting a young warrior with a sword.
"I liked the painting because it shows a woman who is satisfied with a man," Dina said.
She had thought of writing a song based on "Last Supper" by Leonardo da Vinci but decided that doing so would be taking controversy too far. In Saudi Arabia, churches are not allowed, and Muslims who convert to Christianity can be executed.
Dina held out her cellphone to show a video of the band practicing at home. It looked like a garage-band jam session anywhere in the world, with the sisters hunching over their instruments, their brother blasting away at the drums and Lamia clutching a microphone.
"We're looking for a drummer," Lamia said. "Five guys have offered, but we really want the band to be all female."
Although they know they are doing something unusual, in person the band members seem more playful than provocative. Unlike some of the wealthier Saudi youth who have lived abroad and tasted Western life, they are middle class and have never left their country.
"What we're doing — it's not something wrong, it's art, and we're doing it in a good way," Dina said. "We respect our traditions."
All the members are quick to add that they disapprove of smoking, drinking and drugs.
"You destroy yourself with that," Lamia said.
Yet rock and roll itself is suspect in Saudi Arabia in part because of its association with decadent lifestyles. Most of the bands here play heavy metal, which has only added to the stigma because of the way some Western heavy metal bands use images linked to satanism or witchcraft. In Saudi Arabia, people are sometimes imprisoned and even executed on charges of practicing witchcraft.
The first rock bands appeared here about 20 years ago, according to Hassan Hatrash, 34, a journalist and bass player who was one of the pioneers, and their numbers gradually grew. Then in 1995, the police raided a performance in the basement of a restaurant in Jidda, hauling about 300 young men off to jail, including Mr. Hatrash. They were released a few days later without being charged. There is no actual law against playing rock music or performing publicly.
"After that, the scene kind of died," he said.
Mr. Hatrash, who has graying shoulder-length hair, recalled how the religious police used to harass young men who advertised their interest in rock and roll. He once had his head was shaved by the police.
In recent years, with the religious police on the defensive, bands have begun to play concerts, and a few have recorded albums. Occasionally young men bring their guitars and play outside the cafes on Tahlia Street in Jidda, where young people tend to congregate in the evenings.
Although the music is mostly familiar to heavy metal fans anywhere — thrashing guitars and howling vocals — some of the lyrics reflect the special challenges of life and love in this puritanical country.
"And I Don't Know Why," a song by Mr. Hatrash's band, Most of Us, has these lyrics:
Why is it always so hard to get to you
When it's something we both want to do
Every time we have to create an alibi
So that we can meet and love or at least try...
As the Saudi rock scene grew, Dina gathered the courage to start her own band. It plans to move slowly, she said, with "jams for ladies only" at first. The band members' parents support them, though they have asked them to keep things low-key. Eventually, Dina said, they hope to play real concerts, perhaps in Dubai.
"It's important for them to see what we're capable of," she said.
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia — Saudis and foreigners crowded into a gallery at the French Embassy, checking out the paintings and sculptures of seven Saudi women artists, the latest opening in a growing art scene in the conservative kingdom.
One artist took advantage of the venue to hang an abstract painting of a woman, with one breast clearly depicted — a hint of nudity still taboo outside the diplomatic confines of the embassy, where Saudi Arabia's religious police cannot enter.
Saudis look at artwork during the opening of art exhibition featuring the work of seven Saudi female artists at the French Embassy in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, Wednesday, Nov. 26, 2008. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)
The Wednesday night showing in a small hall was packed with expatriates and, more significantly Saudis, whose presence was a reflection of the surge of interest in the arts in the kingdom in the past few years. Local arts shows have been on the rise, more Saudi artists are participating in overseas exhibits, and more universities and schools are offering arts degrees.
The first non-governmental arts society was established a year ago, with four women on its 10-member board. Saudis have become more accepting of abstract art, which, only a few years ago, was the subject of ridicule. And in many Arab cities, Saudi collectors are snapping up works by local artists, some of whom get special orders from their rich clients.
In a sign of the government's attempts to support the arts, the Foreign Ministry and the tourism board held a kingdom-wide competition last year for the best works of art. Those chosen will be displayed in the kingdom's embassies.
The change is dramatic from a few years ago.
In 2001, when one of the artists in Wednesday's show, Manal al-Harbi, enrolled for her masters in sculpture, she was the only student in the only university that gave a degree in that major. The specialty was frowned upon by many because of a prevalent view that the depiction of human form violates Islamic law and that sculptures look like idols.
"They would bring me teachers from Egypt," recalled al-Harbi, whose sculptures depict Arabic calligraphy, not humans.
Despite the progress, there still are limitations in this conservative country, where men and women are strictly segregated. Artists say they keep works that depict nudity away from public shows and if they display them at all, it's only at embassies.
At the French Embassy, abstract paintings in bold yellows, reds and greens adorned the walls. Sculptures made of rocks from various areas in the kingdom rested on one stand.
On one table stood the work of artist Eman Jibreen, expressing the dichotomy between a Saudi woman's public appearance and her inner self. A series of tall boxes were painted on the exterior with images of Saudi women swathed in the mandatory black cloak. Inside each box were pictures of Albert Einstein, a child, a kitchen — an expression of each woman's individuality that is masked by the cloaks.
A nearby caption read:
"We may look the same to you
"A scarf and a featureless black blob. ...
"But it is just a cover over our heads. Our faces maybe.
"But it has never been a cover for our brains."
Jibreen's uncle, Abdul-Rahman Jibreen, said he was overjoyed to see his niece's work displayed in public.
But he said he wished Jibreen, who did not attend the function because of another commitment, lived in "an environment that appreciates art more than here."
"In a place like Italy, France or England, she would've done miracles because she would've been exposed to more museums, art and other artists," he said.
US: Saudi has 'long way to go' on religious tolerance
WASHINGTON (AFP) — The White House said Wednesday that Saudi King Abdullah knows that his country has "a long way to go" on religious tolerance and is trying to make progress on the issue.
One day before US President George W. Bush heads to a Saudi-sponsored UN conference on religious tolerance, spokeswoman Dana Perino was asked about Riyadh's ban on public practice of religions other than Islam.
"He welcomes the opportunity to have this event, and he believes that the king of Saudi Arabia has recognized that they have a long way to go and that he is trying to take some steps to get there," Perino told reporters.
The meeting, which aims to promote dialogue among the world's monotheistic religions, will be a follow-up to a similar conference in Madrid in July at King Abdullah's initiative.
Bush, who will address the meeting, sees it as "an opportunity for him to reaffirm his commitment to religious freedom and tolerance and the importance of people of all faiths coming together," said Perino.
Saud Arabia hosts Islam's holiest shrines and does not permit the public practice of religions other than Islam.
"This dialogue is a good way to bring people of all religions together. And you'll hear more from the president tomorrow," said Perino.
DAMMAM, Saudi Arabia—Once a month, Nayla says, she writes a letter to Oprah Winfrey.
A young Saudi homemaker who covers her face in public might not seem to have much in common with an American talk show host whose image is known to millions. Like many women in this conservative desert kingdom, Nayla does not usually socialize with people outside her extended family, and she never leaves her house unless chaperoned by her husband.
Ms. Winfrey has not answered the letters. But Nayla says she is still hoping.
"I feel that Oprah truly understands me," said Nayla, who, like many of the women interviewed, would not let her full name be used. "She gives me energy and hope for my life. Sometimes I think that she is the only person in the world who knows how I feel."
Nayla is not the only Saudi woman to feel a special connection to the American media mogul. When "The Oprah Winfrey Show" was first broadcast in Saudi Arabia in November 2004 on a Dubai-based satellite channel, it became an immediate sensation among young Saudi women. Within months, it had become the highest-rated English-language program among women 25 and younger, an age group that makes up about a third of Saudi Arabia's population.
In a country where the sexes are rigorously separated, where topics like sex and race are rarely discussed openly and where a strict code of public morality is enforced by religious police called hai'a, Ms. Winfrey provides many young Saudi women with new ways of thinking about the way local taboos affect their lives — as well as about a variety of issues including childhood sexual abuse and coping with marital strife — without striking them, or Saudi Arabia's ruling authorities, as subversive.
Some women here say Ms. Winfrey's assurances to her viewers — that no matter how restricted or even abusive their circumstances may be, they can take control in small ways and create lives of value — help them find meaning in their cramped, veiled existence.
"Oprah dresses conservatively," explained Princess Reema bint Bandar al-Saud, a co-owner of a women's spa in Riyadh called Yibreen and a daughter of Prince Bandar bin Sultan, the former Saudi ambassador to the United States. "She struggles with her weight. She overcame depression. She rose from poverty and from abuse. On all these levels she appeals to a Saudi woman. People really idolize her here."
Today, "The Oprah Winfrey Show," with Arabic subtitles, is broadcast twice each weekday on MBC4, a three-year-old channel developed by the MBC Group with the Arab woman in mind. The show's guests, self-improvement tips, and advice on family relationships — as well as Ms. Winfrey's clothes and changing hairstyles — are eagerly analyzed by Saudi women from a wide range of social backgrounds and income levels.
The largest-circulation Saudi women's magazine, Sayidaty, devotes a regular page to Ms. Winfrey, and dog-eared copies of her official magazine, O, which is not sold in the kingdom, are passed around by women who collect them during trips abroad.
The particulars of Ms. Winfrey's personal story have resonated with a broad audience of Saudi women in a way that few other Western imports have, explained Mazen Hayek, a spokesman for the MBC Group.
Saudi Arabia was an impoverished desert country before it was transformed by oil money and, in just a couple of generations, into a wealthy consumer society. Saudi women readily identify with "this glamorous woman from very modest beginnings," Mr. Hayek said, in a phone interview from Dubai.
Maha al-Faleh, 23, of Riyadh, said, "Oprah talks about issues that haven't really been spoken about here openly before.
"She talks about racism, for example," she said. "This is something that Saudis are very concerned about, because many of us feel that we're judged for the way we veil or for our skin color. I have a friend whose driver touched her in an inappropriate way. She was very young at the time, but she felt very guilty about it — and Oprah helped her to speak about this abuse with her mother."
MBC edits some "Oprah" episodes to remove content banned by censors in the region, officials at the channel say. It does not broadcast segments on homosexuality, for example. But the officials say they make most episodes available to their regional viewers uncensored, including some about relations between Arabs and Westerners and about living with the threat of Islamic terrorism.
Saudi women say they are drawn to Ms. Winfrey not only because she openly addresses subjects considered taboo locally, but also because she speaks of self-empowerment and change.
Wafa Muhammad, 38, a mother of five from Riyadh, said she believed that, in their adoration of Ms. Winfrey, Saudi women are expressing a hesitant sense of longing for real change in their country.
"Many of us feel that the solutions for our problems have to come from outside," Ms. Muhammad said. When President Bush visited Saudi Arabia in January, she continued, as an example, his presence briefly became a locus of hope for Saudi women. "A lot of women were saying that they wished they could talk to Bush about problems like forced marriage, about how our children are taken away if our husbands divorce us."
In a country where women are forbidden to vote, or to travel without the permission of a male guardian, a sense of powerlessness can lead women to look for unlikely sources of rescue, Ms. Muhammad explained. "If women here have problems with their fathers or their brothers, what can they do but look to Oprah?" she asked. "The idea that she will come and help them is a dream for them."
Nayla, the homemaker in Dammam, a Persian Gulf port city, says Ms. Winfrey helps her cope with a society that does not encourage her to have interests. "The life of a woman here in Saudi — it makes you tired and it makes you boring," she said, sighing.
Like many Saudi women, Nayla struggles with obesity, a major issue in the kingdom because many women are largely confined to their homes and local custom often prevents them from participating in sports or even walking around their neighborhoods.
She says that Ms. Winfrey has inspired her to lose weight and to pursue her education through an online degree course, a method acceptable to her husband since she will not have to leave home.
As she spoke, Nayla sat on the floor of the women's sitting room of her mother-in-law's house. A battered wooden bureau, its top littered with hairbrushes, plastic figurines, and perfume bottles, was the only piece of furniture.
Several female relatives sat with Nayla, and the door was kept slightly ajar so that their small children, chasing one another in the hall outside, could enter. But at the sound of heavier, male footfalls approaching, the women all jumped to their feet and scurried to hide their faces behind the bureau. It would be shameful if a brother-in-law accidentally caught a glimpse of their uncovered faces, Nayla explained.
"Oprah is the magic word for women here who want to scream out loud, who want to be heard," Ms. Muhammad said. "Look at what happened to the girl from Qatif," she said, referring to the infamous case of a young woman who was gang-raped, then sentenced to flogging because she had been in a car with an unrelated man.
"The Qatif girl was heard outside the country, and she was helped," Ms. Muhammad said. "But we need to have Saudi women who help women here. We need to have women social workers, women judges."
"We have a very male-dominated society, and it's very hard sometimes," Ms. Muhammad said. "But for now I have my coffee, and sit, and I watch Oprah.
FINAL CHECK: A student applying for scholarship checks her documents. (AN photo)
RIYADH: Manal Al-Quais, a 23-year-old Saudi, won a scholarship from the King Abdullah Scholarship Program to study nursing in Canada. There's only one problem: She can't find a close male relative to go with her for the entire duration of the study; they have their own families and responsibilities to attend to.
Recently, two key governmental departments have initiated a debate on how women in Manal's situation can take advantage of Saudi Arabia's national scholarship program.
The Higher Education Ministry will not lift the requirement that these students bring a guardian (a close male relative or husband) in order to study abroad, while the governmental Human Rights Commission (HRC) disagrees on the importance of the "mahram" accompanying the students.
"This would help hundreds of women who don't have male guardians available or ready to go with them to pursue higher education outside," said HRC spokesman Zuhair Al-Harithy.
In a recommendation sent to the Council of Ministers, the HRC argues that the permission of a guardian should suffice, just as it is done for allowing women to travel unaccompanied.
But for the time being, Higher Education Ministry will stick to the existing policy. Saudi women who go abroad to study at their own expense are exempt from this requirement.
"Any woman student whose guardian leaves the country where she studies will immediately lose financial support," said Abdullah Al-Moussa, general supervisor of scholarships at the Ministry of Higher Education.
Some guardians prefer to accompany their relatives for a couple of months and return to work and family. And some Saudi women, like Maram, who in her late teens dreams of going to college abroad to study events management, simply do not have any close male relatives.
"The rule expects that every house has a man," Maram told Arab News, adding that the rules don't allow her mother to accompany her.
The way the government ensures that Saudi women receiving these scholarships follow the requirements is simple: They don't give the allowance money to the woman, but rather directly to the guardian whose passport is submitted along with the prospective student during the application process.
"The complaints (on the policy of requiring "mahrams" to accompany these young women) also come from parents," said Al-Harithy. "They object to the rules that prevent their daughters from studying abroad when they have given their full approval for them to do so."
Contrary to a popular misconception, women in Saudi Arabia are allowed to travel abroad alone (or without their male relatives) if their guardians give permission. The permission slips are affixed to the passports to show to the authorities.
Al-Harithy pointed out that the HRC efforts in this regard are not only because of individual complaints, but also because of the impact of this rule on society and the economy.
With approximately 30 percent of these scholarships going to women, according to official figures, there are many families with college-bound daughters who can't afford to send a male relative with them, or the male relatives have their own lives and responsibilities that prevent them from being able to take this time off.
According to media reports, the problem has even led some women to seek out marriages of convenience with men willing to become "temporary husbands" and therefore guardians of these women during their stay abroad.
Sociologist Wafa'a Taibah, a professor at King Saud University and HRC member, expressed concern about these short-term marriages. "Such marriages are based on selfish interests," she said. "They raise the rate of divorce and adversely affect any children born out of these marriages."
The guardians themselves are affected. Should they decide to accompany their women relatives, they can end up spending years outside the work force and return to Saudi Arabia jobless.
Abdullah, 31, who did not want to provide his family name, is an example. He works in a legal office, but will soon resign to go to Brisbane, Australia, to act as his sister's guardian while she earns her Ph.D.
"I will have to resign from my work because the management refused to give me three years' leave," he said.
Furthermore, in many cases these men will not be able to legally work in the countries where they reside temporarily. Guardians abroad receive monthly allowances from the ministry for staying with their student relatives.
In some countries, such as the United States and Britain, the guardians receive monthly stipends of SR4,000.
Wajeha Al-Huwaider, a Saudi women's rights activist, said this policy should change and that there is no legitimate religious basis for prohibiting women from living alone in general.
"If we look around us we will find a number of Saudi women living alone with their kids after divorce, or after their husbands pass away," she said. "Tribal customs and traditions must not interfere in education because it will slow women empowerment."
Kingdom's grand mufti condemns 'malicious' Turkish soap operas
Hassna'a Mokhtar | Arab News
JEDDAH: The grand mufti of Saudi Arabia, Sheikh Abdul Aziz Al-Asheikh, has condemned Turkish soap operas, which have charmed millions of people across the Arab world, and prohibited people from watching them, Al-Watan daily reported yesterday.
"It is not permitted to look at these serials or watch them. They contain so much evil; they destroy people's ethics and are against our values," said the mufti during the closing ceremony of a forum, which took place in Riyadh on Friday. He added that these "malicious" Turkish soap operas corrupt individuals and spread vice in society.
"Any TV station that airs them is against God and His Messenger (peace be upon him). These are serials of immorality. They are prepared by people who are specialists in crime and error, people who invite men and women to the devil."
Al-Asheikh was referring to two Turkish soap operas, "Noor" and "Lost Years," which have become extremely popular in the Arab world over the last couple of months. The soaps are dubbed in colloquial Syrian Arabic and are currently being shown on channels run by the MBC Group.
The soaps are proving such a big draw in the Kingdom that many people plan their day around the programs, which have also become popular dinner table conversation.
According to mbc.net, "Noor" has become "a turning point in the lives of its Arab audience and the way Arabs view Turkish dramas."
"The TV series is awaited daily by millions of eager Arab viewers from the Atlantic to the Gulf who follow the latest developments in Muhannad and Noor's love story. It has opened the door for Arab viewers, especially since it contains an area of romance, which Arabic dramas have recently lacked," says MBC's webpage.
Sana, a 25-year-old mother of two, is crazy about the Turkish family, their culture and their love story. "What infatuated me with 'Noor' is that, unlike other love stories, we get to see what happened after the happy ending when the couple got married," said Sana, adding that she feels the dramas have much in common with Saudi lifestyle.
"I love the portrayal of human feelings, and their everyday struggles in life," she said.
As a result of the soaps, Turkey expects the number of Saudi tourists this year to top 100,000. "From 41,000 (tourists) last year to 100,000 this year — the same year this soap became phenomenally successful," said Turkish diplomat Yasin Temizkayn. "It's more than just a coincidence."
But do people know what it is that attracts them to watch soap operas everyday?
Nisreen Bukhari, a family therapist and marriage counselor, said that the producers of such programs succeeded in invading the minds of their audience and getting them addicted to them.
"Watching soap operas brings the viewer some mental contentment... Women who have an emotional void find fulfillment in watching this romance on a daily basis. It makes them run away from unhappy realities," said Bukhari.
"Another factor that draws people to their favorite soap opera is that in the real world, they acquire a sense of self-existence and self-awareness, while they are able to experience the characters' every different emotion: joy, fury, sorrow, or happiness," she added.
Bukhari said that in recent counseling sessions, women complained to her that husbands compare Noor's attitude and problems to theirs. On the other hand, women accuse husbands of not being like Muhannad who is sensitive and loving.
Maha Al-Hujailan, a Saudi columnist and a medical researcher at King Khaled University Hospital in Riyadh, wrote that the women's attachment to male characters in "Noor" and "Lost Years" cannot just be attributed to their good looks.
"What really attracts women and gets them attached to these characters is the romance and the way they show their genuine love to their loved ones... Saudi women miss something important in their men: the feeling of love and security," wrote Al-Hujailan.
A Saudi grandmother in her mid-70s told Arab News that, although she usually watches Arabic dramas, "Noor" has turned her life upside down.
"I couldn't sleep the night when Noor was kidnapped. Her image haunted me. I just want to see what is at the end," she said.
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia (AP) — A Saudi newspaper says religious police have arrested 21 allegedly homosexual men and confiscated large amounts of alcohol.
Al-Medina daily says the Commission for the Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice, which employs the religious police, was told Friday of a large gathering of young men at a rest house in Qatif, in eastern Saudi Arabia.
The paper says scores of men were initially arrested but only 21 remain in detention.
Homosexuality is seen as a sin in Islam and prohibited in Saudi Arabia and most other Muslim nations. In the conservative kingdom, the offense can be punished by flogging or prison.
Members and fans of the all-women Jeddah United basketball team gather in front of a basketball court at the First Women's Welfare Society in Jiddah, Saudi Arabia, Wednesday, April 30, 2008. Such is the start of women's sports in Saudi Arabia, a Muslim country so conservative that the fledgling women's sports leagues and teams that have begun to appear here in recent years remain almost entirely underground, far from public scrutiny or religious clerics' eyes. (AP Photo/Donna Abu-Nasr)
Underground sport: Saudi women shed veils to play basketball
By DONNA ABU-NASR
JIDDAH, Saudi Arabia (AP) — The players bounded into the gym, shedding their long black cloaks and veils to take to the basketball court. Up this night: Jeddah United against the Jaguars, as 30 women spectators hooted and hollered from the stands.
Such is the start of women's sports in Saudi Arabia — a Muslim country so conservative that the fledgling women's sports teams that have begun to appear in recent years remain almost entirely underground, far from public scrutiny or religious clerics' eyes.
"One day we're going to look back on such events and hopefully say, 'Wow, we've gone a long way,'" said Lina al-Maeena, the founder and team captain of Jeddah United.
"Future generations won't have to start from zero."
It is a far cry from Title IX, the landmark 1972 U.S. anti-discrimination law that spearheaded women's equal treatment in sports at a time when the women's rights movement was gathering steam across the West.
In Saudi Arabia, women cannot drive or vote and have few legal rights. The restrictions stem from the strict version of Islam the kingdom follows. Many conservative adherents believe that women's emancipation will lead to decadence and a dissipation of Islamic values.
For these religious conservatives, keeping the sexes segregated and maintaining male guardianship over women is not enough. They want to ban anything they believe might encourage women to abandon conservative Muslim values.
Because of the influence conservative clerics have on government and society, sports and physical education classes are banned in state-run girls' schools. Women's games and marathons are canceled when the powerful clergy get wind of them, and female athletes are not allowed to participate in the Olympics.
Despite such obstacles, Saudi women have quietly been forming soccer, basketball, volleyball and other teams throughout the kingdom in the past few years. Some operate under schools and universities, others are under the umbrella of charities. A few, like Jeddah United and the Jaguars, are independent.
The teams have none of the privileges that men's leagues — which have existed for decades — enjoy.
They're not part of the General Presidency for Youth Welfare, the federation that oversees sports. They find it hard to get corporate sponsorship. They don't have proper facilities where they can train, or even certified referees. And they are not allowed to participate in international competitions.
And while men's games are broadcast on TV and take place in huge stadiums, women rarely advertise their games — or even talk openly about them — for fear the clergy will stop them. That makes it difficult for them to reach spectators from outside their immediate circle of friends and family. And teams in one city often do not know that teams in another exist.
In March, Sheik Abdul-Aziz Al-Sheik, the kingdom's mufti, or senior cleric, told Okaz newspaper he had ordered a university in the capital, Riyadh, to cancel a women's marathon. Last year, clerics barred a women's soccer game in the Eastern Province.
Abdul-Kareem al-Khodair, a professor at Imam University, wrote on al-Muslim Web site that introducing physical education classes for girls at government schools would be tantamount to "following in the devil's footsteps" — an argument conservative clerics make to highlight the corrupting influence of women's sports.
That attitude is one reason why the rate of obesity among Saudi women is higher than among men, health care officials say. About 52 percent of Saudi men and 66 percent of women are either obese or overweight, according to Saudi press reports.
The women playing basketball on a recent night last week were conscious of the controversies.
Al-Maeena, 29, stressed that her efforts to promote sports are aimed at combating such "social ills" as obesity, osteoporosis and depression, and providing healthy alternatives for women, who spend their time shopping and smoking waterpipes. She and the others emphasized they do not seek broader liberties, such as an end to segregation of the sexes or the wearing of veils and abayas, the black cloaks all women must wear in public.
"We look at it as part of our national duty. It's not just for getting into the Olympics or competing in international games," al-Maeena said before the game started.
Did she worry the game would be canceled?
"The key is to have publicity later," she said. "It's also a matter of luck, but you're more likely to get lucky in Jiddah compared to other places" because the seaport city is the kingdom's most liberal.
One of the toughest things for the women's teams is finding coaches, said Lina Abouznada, board member in charge of the sports center at the First Women's Welfare Society, which fields its own team.
The society, which cares for 36 female orphans, was the venue for last week's game. The players bounced into the center around dusk, dressed in loose-fitting, knee-length shorts and jerseys underneath their flowing abayas.
No men were allowed in. The players had trained in courts they rent at gyms, or in those attached to private homes.
Before playing, the women shed their cloaks — permitted under the country's laws because no men were around.
Jamila Antone, the Jaguars' American coach, compared the game to amateur league play in the United States — even though the two Saudi teams are among Jiddah's top four.
"If the girls had facilities like boys do for all sports, they would do better than the boys," she said.
Norah Ashrur, a 22-year-old special education teacher, watched as her team, dressed in Jeddah United's colors of raspberry, white and gray, played.
"It bothers me that nobody cares," said Ashrur, who lived in Fort Collins, Colo., from the age of 7 to 12. "In the U.S. everybody would be there."
But because of segregation rules, not even her father could come to the game.
In the end, the Jaguars — whose colors are blue, yellow and gray — won.
Abouznada insisted the situation of Saudi female athletes will change for the better. "Doing things step by step is better than doing it in one step," she said.
"But we need to speed it up," al-Maeena interjected. On the Net:
Acquiring Women's Rights in Saudi Arabia: Between Gradualism and Haste
Raghida Dergham Al-Hayat - 09/05/08/
Riyadh -- During the relatively historic National Experts Meeting on Domestic Violence held at the Marriott Hotel in Riyadh, a glass shield was installed to separate the male and female sides of the audience.
The meeting was historic because it was the first of its type to openly address domestic violence, including sexual violence against women, and because the program to eliminate domestic violence was established by royal decree. Were it not for political will, such a program would have never seen the light, and neither males nor females would have met under the same roof with nothing separating between them but a low wall of glass, an accomplishment by all means in the long and difficult path to openness and breaking the walls of gender segregation! Desegregation in hospitals between male and female doctors is permissible, as female autopsy teachers and students from the opposite sex revealed. But those female doctors and professors participating in such a progressive convention have almost rejoiced at the glass shield, as they compare it to the separate closed rooms where members of the two sexes could only convene through low-quality video screens during regular seminars.
Ultimately, the status of women in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia remains different in contrast to the status of women in the rest of the world, including Arab women in several Arab countries. However, the developments in the Kingdom are stimulating evident curiosity among Western media, which constantly perceives the Saudi woman's path as a barometer indicating whether change will be short-lived or will be institutionalized, as women and human rights organizations wish.
Coincidentally and in parallel with the two-day meeting on domestic violence, the "Scientific Seminar on the History of King Faisal bin Abdul Aziz" convened at the Intercontinental Hotel along with an exhibition on the late King organized by Al-Faisal family and descendants of both sexes. The memorial photograph included only sons and grandsons though the seminar and the documents clearly indicated that King Faisal and Queen Effat have raised in tandem the banner of educating girls and establishing the model school for mixed education.
Today, Princess Loulwa bint Faisal chairs the Dar al-Hanan School and the Effat College board of trustees. She co-chairs with the Archbishop of Canterbury, Lord Carey of Clifton, the World Economic Forum's C-100. The chairpersonship was assigned to Princess Loulwa who was nominated by her brother Prince Turki al-Faisal, in a move approved by King Abdullah bin Abdul-Aziz and perceived as a symbolic precedent with significant implications.
Princess Effat's upraising in Ataturk's Turkey where she was born before returning to the Kingdom at the age of 16 (she is of Saudi origin from Al-Thunayyan family) may have had an impact on King Faisal's perceptions of the education of girls and desegregation in secondary schools even though Islamic education enjoyed a much higher position among the King's priorities. The relationship between the two was based on respect and openness and was translated into the desire to entrench these two values in society.
Several factors obstructed this desire. These factors were the subject of debate, as the participants in the meeting discussed the background, causes, and elements behind the declining respect for women's fundamental rights and the hindered openness to religious regulations and legislations that offer women basic protection against the violations of men who have used religious traditions to achieve selfish goals.
A part of the women who belong to the openness-to-education generation under King Faisal and who later became degree-holding professionals is angry. These women are angry at the "step-by-step" gradual approach to acquiring self-evident rights of women. They are also angry at the "delight" of their comrades with the separating glass shield. Another part insists that the Saudi environment can only tolerate a gradual approach to attaining women's rights patiently and diligently, away from the media, and yes…celebrating the glass shield because, as one participant put it, "at least we now breathe the same air."
One of the women upset with the slow gradual approach says, "So many decisions and initiatives have been made, only to die in the crib because of the absence of administrative institutions. Institutionalism does not exist. Everyone behaves according to his cultural, tribal or regional nature and background." She adds that what practically happens is "one step forward and ten backward." Hence, "gradual change is not successful; we need a set of laws and a system to protect us."
According to this opinion, "no progress in science, education and health can be achieved without desegregation. Isolation is tantamount to backwardness and will persist even if the segregating wall is made of glass." This view admits that "something new is happening and there is change, namely the state's policy to improve the status of women." Those who embrace this view, however, speak of the control exercised by the clergy over the decisions issued or to be issued by the state. They refer in particular to the tradition of guardianship.
Dr. Asia Al-Ruwaf, who has been standing next to men inside the surgery room for 27 years and established a ward for pediatric surgery, blames the religious tide which started in 1979 with the Khomeini revolution in Iran and left direct marks on the progress of women everywhere. She says, "The problem lies in customs not in religion or law." She points out to "the divide in the religious voice between the hardliners and the moderates who are closer to the reformist movement." She sums up the situation as follows: "The politicians side with women, the clergy are divided, and the public still side with the hard-line religious current."
According to news from Riyadh reported in Al-Hayat this week, dwellers of Saudi mosques will notice new expressions such as "human rights" uttered by preachers during Friday prayers, "as the Ministry of Islamic Affairs vowed to mobilize its imams and preachers to spread awareness about human rights as part of a new partnership with the official rights entity." The task will cover this time the rights of children, girls, wives and servants.
According to the international definition of human rights, the concept of guardianship, like gender segregation, opposes the fundamental human rights. The Saudi woman is subjected to these practices because traditions - not religion or laws - require that she demand permission from her father, brother, husband, or son, even when she is in need of urgent healthcare, not just in matters of travel, education, work, and marriage. In confronting domestic violence, a woman has to practically seek her husband's permission to file a complaint against him.
None of this is the result of enacted laws but rather, the result of the lack of legislation that bars these violations and practices. This is exactly what the Saudi woman is gradually breaking down to eliminate the discrimination against her and to develop herself into a member of society that deserves respect and protective laws prohibiting such humiliating practices. Hence, women themselves are not divided over the need for change.
Yet, they disagree over the pace of change. In the eyes of some women, the participation of businesswomen in the official delegation that accompanies King Abdullah on official visits represents an unprecedented move that highlights the significant official support for women and proves King Abdullah's determination to support women in the path of change.
The advocates of gradual change believe that hasty change could be counterproductive, whereas gradual change offers more guarantees for women's rights. They speak of the importance of raising awareness among men and women alike. They say that there is no need to clash with the opposition, since the path is paved for change. As such, there is no need to rush things and end with a confrontation.
One woman underlines the importance of focusing on women's needs to have these needs met calmly and given the necessary care instead of being turned into a matter of rhetoric. The Breast Cancer Association, for example, established by Dr. Suad bin Amer and now headed by Princess Haifa al-Faisal, is a leading association in the region specialized in raising awareness, assisting female patients and setting up testing centers for women.
Led by its Secretary General Princess Moudi bint Khalid bin Abdul Aziz, Al-Nahda Association currently deals with girl unemployment and women empowerment as a means to help women retrieve the economic value they once enjoyed before the oil boom.
In turn, the executive officer of the National Family Safety Program (NFSP), Dr. Maha bint Abdullah al-Munif, concluded the National Experts Meeting on Domestic Violence by reading 22 recommendations reached by the male and female participants, including judges, police officers, lawyers, and psychiatrists. The first recommendation was the recognition of domestic violence cases in the Kingdom in such a magnitude that draws concern and demands immediate intervention to confront and prevent such practices.
Recognizing and speaking openly about these phenomena is in itself a matter of change. However, the recommendations demand actions and not mere recognition and admission. Efforts must be exerted to incriminate all kinds of domestic violence harmful to the victim or her family, and to impose reinforcing and deterring penalties against the perpetrator.
There is talk about compulsory reporting of assaults, protection to informants, and punishment of perpetrators. There is talk about the need to set up administrations that prevent and counter domestic violence, administrations that would promote cooperation within all concerned ministries and official institutions thanks to efficient mechanisms. Next year's plan of action will also focus on training and rehabilitating professionals engaged in domestic violence cases and on obliging workers in security entities to receive complaints. There are also recommendations to publish a Sharia'a-compliant log of personal status in the Kingdom to limit domestic violence. The recommendations also demand the activation of family courts to rule on cases of domestic violence.
This is not the first time that the issue of violence against women, children and the elderly is discussed in the Arab region. However, this is the first time that men and women speak out in Saudi Arabia about these matters. Princess Adila, King Abdullah's daughter who sponsors the program says, "We are benefiting from the Arab and western experiences because they have achieved far more progress than us." She specifically refers to Jordan, Yemen and Tunisia, where Arab expertise are of help. She adds that several steps are being taken in different areas, from public affairs to economics, to test the Saudi woman's qualification and responsibility as a new partner in national development. Half the population, about 49%, is female. Half the population, she adds, is under 15 years of age, and society cannot move forward by relying on one half.
Be it slow or fast, this process is part of the change underway in the Kingdom. Women are now part of change as a result of a serious political decision, a fact that must be acknowledged and encouraged. Incorporating the talk about human rights into religious preaching is commendable. However, the slow pace remains an enemy threatening the path of change, as it leaves it vulnerable to the forces that resisted and continues to resist this kind of change.
The best deterrent that offers protection for gradual change lies in the quick enactment of laws. It is also the best deterrent against those who mistakenly think that traditions offer them permanent immunity and impunity. Let the removal of the glass shield be gradual one step at a time, but let it be accompanied by a quicker enactment of laws and lying of institutional foundations.
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia — The dance party in Atheer Jassem al-Othman's living room was in full swing. The guests — about two dozen girls in their late teens — had arrived, and Ms. Othman and her mother were passing around cups of sweet tea and dishes of dates.
About half the girls were swaying and gyrating, without the slightest self-consciousness, among overstuffed sofas, heavy draperies, tables larded with figurines and ornately-covered tissue boxes. Their head-to-toe abayas, balled up and tossed onto chairs, looked like black cloth puddles.
Suddenly, the music stopped, and an 18-year-old named Alia tottered forward.
"Girls? I have something to tell you," Alia faltered, appearing to sway slightly on her high heels. She paused anxiously, and the next words came out in a rush. "I've gotten engaged!" There was a chorus of shrieks at the surprise announcement and Alia burst into tears, as did several of the other girls.
Ms. Othman's mother smiled knowingly and left the room, leaving the girls to their moment of emotion. The group has been friends since they were of middle-school age, and Alia would be the first of them to marry.
A girl's suitor, when he comes to ask her father for her hand in marriage, has the right to see her dressed without her abaya.
In some families, he may have a supervised conversation with her. Ideally, many Saudis say, her showfa will be the only time in a girl's life that she is seen this way by a man outside her family.
The separation between the sexes in Saudi Arabia is so extreme that it is difficult to overstate. Saudi women may not drive, and they must wear black abayas and head coverings in public at all times. They are spirited around the city in cars with tinted windows, attend girls-only schools and university departments, and eat in special "family" sections of cafes and restaurants, which are carefully partitioned from the sections used by single male diners.
Special women-only gyms, women-only boutiques and travel agencies, even a women-only shopping mall, have been established in Riyadh in recent years to serve women who did not previously have access to such places unless they were chaperoned by a male relative.
Playful as they are, girls like Ms. Othman and her friends are well aware of the limits that their conservative society places on their behavior. And, for the most part, they say that they do not seriously question those limits.
Most of the girls say their faith, in the strict interpretation of Islam espoused by the Wahhabi religious establishment here, runs very deep. They argue a bit among themselves about the details — whether it is acceptable to have men on your Facebook friend list, or whether a male first cousin should ever be able to see you without your face covered — and they peppered this reporter with questions about what the young Saudi men she had met were thinking about and talking about.
Well-brought-up unmarried young women here are so isolated from boys and men that when they talk about them, it sometimes sounds as if they are discussing a different species.
"Ask him whether he likes his work," one of her friends suggested. "Men are supposed to love talking about their work."
"Ask him what kind of cellphone he has, and what kind of car," suggested another. "That way you'll be able to find out how he spends his money, whether he's free with it or whether he's stingy."
Though it is as near to hand as the offices they pass each morning on the way to college, or the majlis, a traditional home reception room, where their fathers and brothers entertain friends, the men's world is so remote from them that some Saudi girls resort to disguise in order to venture into it.
At Prince Sultan University, where Atheer Jassem al-Othman, 18, is a first-year law student, a pair of second-year students recently spent a mid-morning break between classes showing off photographs of themselves dressed as boys.
In the pictures, the girls wore thobes, the ankle-length white garments traditionally worn by Saudi men, and had covered their hair with the male headdresses called shmaghs. One girl had used an eyeliner pencil to give herself a grayish, stubble-like mist along her jaw line. Displayed on the screens of the two girls' cellphones, the photographs evoked little exclamations of congratulation as they were passed around.
"A lot of girls do it," said an 18-year-old named Sara al-Tukhaifi who explained that a girl and her friends might cross-dress, sneaking thobes out of a brother's closet, then challenge each other to enter the Saudi male sphere in various ways, by walking nonchalantly up to the men-only counter in a McDonalds, say, or even by driving.
"It's just a game," Ms. Tukhaifi said, although detention by the religious police is always a possibility. "I haven't done it myself, but those two are really good at it. They went into a store and pretended to be looking at another girl — they even got her to turn her face away."
Grinning, Ms. Tukhaifi mimicked the gesture, pressing her face into the corner of her hijab with exaggerated pretend modesty while her classmate Shaden giggled. Saudi newspapers often lament the rise of rebellious behavior among young Saudis. There are reports of a recent spate of ugly confrontations between youths and the religious police, and of a supposed increase in same-sex love affairs among young people frustrated at the strict division between the genders.
And certainly, practices like "numbering" — where a group of young men in a car chase another car they believe to contain young women, and try to give the women their phone number via Bluetooth, or by holding a written number up to the window — have become a very visible part of Saudi urban life.
Flirting by Phone
A woman can't switch her phone's Bluetooth feature on in a public place without receiving a barrage of the love poems and photos of flowers and small children which many Saudi men keep stored on their phones for purposes of flirtation. And last year, Al Arabiya television reported that some young Saudis have started buying special "electronic belts," which use Bluetooth technology to discreetly beam the wearer's cellphone number and e-mail address at passing members of the opposite sex.
Ms. Tukhaifi and Shaden know of girls in their college who have passionate friendships, possibly even love affairs, with other girls but they say that this, like the cross-dressing, is just a "game" born of frustration, something that will inevitably end when the girls in question become engaged. And they and their friends say that they find the experience of being chased by boys in cars to be frightening, and insist that they do not know any girl who has actually spoken to a boy who contacted her via Bluetooth.
"If your family found out you were talking to a man online, that's not quite as bad as talking to him on the phone," Ms. Tukhaifi explained. "With the phone, everyone can agree that is forbidden, because Islam forbids a stranger to hear your voice. Online he only sees your writing, so that's slightly more open to interpretation.
"One test is that if you're ashamed to tell your family something, then you know for sure it's wrong," Ms. Tukhaifi continued. "For a while I had Facebook friends who were boys — I didn't e-mail with them or anything, but they asked me to "friend" them and so I did. But then I thought about my family and I took them off the list."
Ms. Tukhaifi and Shaden both spoke admiringly of the religious police, whom they see as the guardians of perfectly normal Saudi social values, and Shaden boasted lightly about an older brother who has become multazim, very strict in his faith, and who has been seeing to it that all her family members become more punctilious in their religious observance. "Praise be to God, he became multazim when he was in ninth grade," Shaden recalled, fondly. "I remember how he started to grow his beard — it was so wispy when it started — and to wear a shorter thobe." Saudi men often grow their beards long and wear their thobes cut above the ankles as signals of their religious devotion.
"I always go to him when I have problems," said Shaden who, like many of the young Saudi women interviewed for this article, spoke on the condition that her last name be omitted. "And he's not too strict — he still listens to music sometimes. I asked him once, 'You do everything right and yet you're listening to music?' He said, 'I know music is haram, and inshallah, with time I will be able to stop listening to music too.' " Haram means forbidden, and inshallah means "God willing."
She added, "I told him, 'I want a husband like you.' "
Separated From Cousins
Shaden lives in a large walled compound in a prosperous Riyadh suburb; her father's brothers live with their families in separate houses within the compound, and the families share a common garden and pool. Shaden and several of her male cousins grew up playing together constantly, tearing around the pool together during the summer, and enjoying shared vacations.
Now that, at 17, she is considered an adult Saudi woman and must confine herself to the female sphere, she sometimes misses their company.
"Until I was in 9th or 10th grade, we used to put a carpet on the lawn and we would take hot milk and sit there with my boy cousins," Shaden recalled, at home one February evening, in front of the television. She was serving a few female guests a party dip of her own invention, a concoction of yogurt, mayonnaise and thyme.
"But my mom and their mom got uncomfortable with it, and so we stopped," she said. "Now we sometimes talk on MSN, or on the phone, but they shouldn't ever see my face."
"My sister and I sometimes ask my mom, 'Why didn't you breast-feed our boy cousins, too?' " Shaden continued.
She was referring to a practice called milk kinship that predates Islam and is still common in the Persian Gulf countries. A woman does not have to veil herself in front of a man she nursed as an infant, and neither do her biological children. The woman's biological children and the children she has nursed are considered "milk siblings" and are prohibited from marrying.
"If my mom had breast-fed my cousins, we could sit with them, and it would all be much easier," Shaden said. She turned back to the stack of DVDs she had been rifling through, and held up a copy of Pride and Prejudice, the version with Keira Knightley as Elizabeth Bennet, a film she says she has seen dozens of times.
"It's a bit like our society, I think," Shaden said of late Georgian England. "It's dignified, and a bit strict. Doesn't it remind you a little bit of Saudi Arabia? It's my favorite DVD."
Shaden sighed, deeply. "When Darcy comes to Elizabeth and says 'I love you' — that's exactly the kind of love I want.
Young Saudi men shopped for mobile phones at a store in Riyadh. With so few opportunities to meet members of the opposite sex, mobile phones and Bluetooth technology allow them the ability to safely flirt at malls, restaurants and even traffic lights.
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia — Nader al-Mutairi stiffened his shoulders, clenched his fists and said, "Let's do our mission." Then the young man stepped into the cool, empty lobby of a dental clinic, intent on getting the phone number of one of the young women working as a receptionist.
Asking a woman for her number can cause a young man anxiety anywhere. But in Saudi Arabia, getting caught with an unrelated woman can mean arrest, a possible flogging and dishonor, the worst penalty of all in a society where preserving a family's reputation depends on faithful adherence to a strict code of separation between the sexes.
Above all, Nader feared that his cousin Enad al-Mutairi would find out that he was breaking the rules. Nader is engaged to Enad's 17-year-old sister, Sarah. "Please don't talk to Enad about this," he said. "He will kill me."
The sun was already low in the sky as Nader entered the clinic. Almost instantly, his resolve faded. His shoulders drooped, his hands unclenched and his voice began to quiver. "I am not lucky today; let's leave," he said.
It was a flash of rebellion, almost instantly quelled. In the West, youth is typically a time to challenge authority. But what stood out in dozens of interviews with young men and women here was how completely they have accepted the religious and cultural demands of the Muslim world's most conservative society.
They may chafe against the rules, even at times try to evade them, but they can be merciless in their condemnation of those who flout them too brazenly. And they are committed to perpetuating the rules with their own children.
That suggests that Saudi Arabia's strict interpretation of Islam, largely uncontested at home by the next generation and spread abroad by Saudi money in a time of religious revival, will increasingly shape how Muslims around the world will live their faith. Young men like Nader and Enad are taught that they are the guardians of the family's reputation, expected to shield their female relatives from shame and avoid dishonoring their families by their own behavior. It is a classic example of how the Saudis have melded their faith with their desert tribal traditions.
"One of the most important Arab traditions is honor," Enad said. "If my sister goes in the street and someone assaults her, she won't be able to protect herself. The nature of men is that men are more rational. Women are not rational. With one or two or three words, a man can get what he wants from a woman. If I call someone and a girl answers, I have to apologize. It's a huge deal. It is a violation of the house."
Enad is the alpha male, a 20-year-old police officer with an explosive temper and a fondness for teasing. Nader, 22, is soft-spoken, with a gentle smile and an inclination to follow rather than lead.
They are more than cousins; they are lifelong friends and confidants. That is often the case in Saudi Arabia, where families are frequently large and insular.
Enad and Nader are among several dozen Mutairi cousins who since childhood have spent virtually all their free time together: Boys learning to be boys, and now men, together.
They are average young Saudi men, not wealthy, not poor, not from the more liberal south or east, but residents of the nation's conservative heartland, Riyadh. It is a flat, clean city of five million people that gleams with oil wealth, two glass skyscrapers and roads clogged with oversize S.U.V.'s. It offers young men very little in the way of entertainment, with no movie theaters and few sports facilities. If they are unmarried, they cannot even enter the malls where women shop.
Guardians of Propriety
Nader sank deep into a cushioned chair in a hotel cafe, sipping fresh orange juice, fiddling with his cellphone. If there is one accessory that allows a bit of self-expression for Saudi men, it is their cellphones. Nader's is filled with pictures of pretty women taken from the Internet, tight face shots of singers and actresses. His ring tone is a love song in Arabic (one of the most popular ring tones among his cousins is the theme song to "Titanic").
"I'm very romantic," Nader said. "I don't like action movies. I like romance. 'Titanic' is No. 1. I like 'Head Over Heels.' Romance is love."
Three days later, in a nearby restaurant, Nader and Enad were concentrating on eating with utensils, feeling a bit awkward since they normally eat with their right hands.
Suddenly, the young men stopped focusing on their food. A woman had entered the restaurant, alone. She was completely draped in a black abaya, her face covered by a black veil, her hair and ears covered by a black cloth pulled tight.
"Look at the batman," Nader said derisively, snickering.
Enad pretended to toss his burning cigarette at the woman, who by now had been seated at a table. The glaring young men unnerved her, as though her parents had caught her doing something wrong.
"She is alone, without a man," Enad said, explaining why they were disgusted, not just with her, but with her male relatives, too, wherever they were.
When a man joined her at the table — someone they assumed was her husband — she removed her face veil, which fueled Enad and Nader's hostility. They continued to make mocking hand gestures and comments until the couple changed tables. Even then, the woman was so flustered she held the cloth self-consciously over her face throughout her meal.
"Thank God our women are at home," Enad said.
Nader and Enad pray five times a day, often stopping whatever they are doing to traipse off with their cousins to the nearest mosque.
Prayer is mandatory in the kingdom, and the religious police force all shops to shut during prayer times. But it is also casual, as routine for Nader and Enad as taking a coffee break.
To Nader and Enad, prayer is essential. In Enad's view, jihad is, too, not the more moderate approach that emphasizes doing good deeds, but the idea of picking up a weapon and fighting in places like Iraq and Afghanistan.
"Jihad is not a crime; it is a duty," Enad said in casual conversation.
"If someone comes into your house, will you stand there or will you fight them?" Enad said, leaning forward, his short, thick hands resting on his knees. "Arab or Muslim lands are like one house."
Would he go fight?
"I would need permission from my parents," he said.
Nader, though, said, "Don't ask me. I am afraid of the government."
The concept is such a fundamental principle, so embedded in their psyches, that they do not see any conflict between their belief in armed jihad and their work as security agents of the state. As a police officer, Enad helps conduct raids on suspected terrorist hideouts. Nader works in the military as a communications officer.
Each earns about 4,000 riyals a month, about $1,200, not nearly enough to become independent from their parents. But that is not a huge concern, because fathers are expected to provide for even their grown children, to ensure that they have a place to live and the means to get married.
To many parents, providing money is seen as more central to their duty — their honor — than ensuring that their children get an education.
Each young man has the requisite mustache and goatee, and most of the time dresses in a traditional robe. Nader prefers the white thobe, an ankle-length gown; Enad prefers beige.
But on weekends, they opt for the wild and crazy guy look, often wearing running pants, tight short-sleeved shirts, bright colors, stripes and plaids together, lots of Velcro and elastic on their shoes. In Western-style clothes, they both seem smaller, and a touch on the pudgy side. Nader says softly, "I don't exercise."
Family Life
There are eight other children in the house where Enad lives with his father, his mother and his father's second wife. The apartment has little furniture, with nothing on the walls. The men and boys gather in a living room off the main hall, sitting on soiled beige wall-to-wall carpeting, watching a television propped up on a crooked cabinet. The women have a similar living room, nearly identical, behind closed doors.
The house remains a haven for Enad and his cousins, who often spend their free time sleeping, watching Dr. Phil and Oprah with subtitles on television, drinking cardamom coffee and sweet tea — and smoking.
Enad and Nader were always close, but their relationship changed when Nader and Sarah became engaged. Enad's father agreed to let Nader marry one of his four daughters. Nader picked Sarah, though she is not the oldest, in part, he said, because he actually saw her face when she was a child and recalled that she was pretty.
They quickly signed a wedding contract, making them legally married, but by tradition they do not consider themselves so until the wedding party, set for this spring. During the intervening months, they are not allowed to see each other or spend any time together.
Nader said he expected to see his new wife for the first time after their wedding ceremony — which would also be segregated by sex — when they are photographed as husband and wife.
"If you want to know what your wife looks like, look at her brother," Nader said in defending the practice of marrying someone he had seen only once, briefly, as a child. That is the traditional Nader, who at times conflicts with the romantic Nader.
Soon his cellphone beeped, signaling a text message. Nader blushed, stuck his tongue out and turned slightly away to read the message, which came from "My Love." He sneaks secret phone calls and messages with Sarah. When she calls, or writes a message, his phone flashes "My Love" over two interlocked red hearts. "I have a connection," he said, quietly, as he read, explaining how Sarah manages to communicate with him.
His connection is Enad, who secretly slipped Sarah a cellphone that Nader had bought for her. These conversations are taboo and could cause a dispute between two families. So their talks were clandestine, like sneaking out for a date after the parents go to bed. Enad keeps the secret, but it adds to an underlying tension between the two, as Nader tries to develop his own identity as a future head of household, as a man.
Enad teases Nader, saying, "In a year you will find my sister with a mustache and him in the kitchen."
"Not true," Nader said, mustering as much defiance as he could. "I am a man."
Another flashpoint: The honeymoon. Nader is planning to take Sarah to Malaysia, and Enad wants to go. He suggests that Nader owes him. "Yes, take me," Enad says, with a touch of mischief in his voice. Nader cannot seem to tell whether he is kidding. "You know, he can be crazy," Nader said. "He's always angry. No, he is not coming. It is not a good idea."
Back in the Village
Nader grew up in Riyadh, and his parents, like Enad's, are first cousins. Enad says his way of thinking was forged in the village of Najkh, 350 miles west of Riyadh, where he lived until he was 14 with his grandfather. It is where he still feels most comfortable.
When he can, he has a cousin drive him to his grandfather's home, a one-story cement box in the desert, four miles from the nearest house. There is a walled-in yard of sand with piles of wood used to heat the house in the cold desert winters.
Inside there is no furniture, just a few cushions on the floor and a prayer rug pointing in the direction of Mecca. Enad and his cousins absentmindedly toss trash out the kitchen window, and around the yard, expecting that the "houseboy," a man named Nasreddin from India, will clean up after them — and he does.
Enad is quiet and hides his cigarettes when his grandfather comes through. He would never tell his father or grandfather that he smokes. Enad remains stone-faced when a cousin mentions that another of his cousins, a woman named Al Atti, 22, is interested in him. The topic came up because another cousin, Raed, had asked Al Atti to marry him, and she refused.
The conflict and flirtation touched on so many issues — manhood, love, family relations — that it sparked a flurry of whispering, and even Enad was drawn in.
Al Atti had let her sisters know that she liked Enad, but made it clear that she could never admit that publicly. So she asked a sister to spread the word from cousin to cousin, and ultimately to Enad. "It's forbidden to announce your love. It is impossible," she said.
Word finally reached Enad, who tried to stay cool but was clearly interested, and flattered. At that point Enad was himself whispering about Al Atti, trying to figure out a way to communicate with her without actually talking to her himself. He asked a female visitor to arrange a call, and then pass along a message of interest.
Enad said it was never his idea to pursue her, but that a man — a real man — could not reject a woman who wanted him. To get his cousin Raed out of the picture, he suggested that Al Atti's brother take Raed to hear Al Atti's refusal in person, at her house.
"From behind a wall," Enad said.
"Love is dangerous," Al Atti said as she sat with her sisters in the house. "It can ruin your reputation."
A Question of Romance
It was a short visit, two days in the village, and then Enad was back to Riyadh for work. In Riyadh he seemed to be both excited and tormented by Al Atti's interest.
That weekend, he and Nader went out to the desert, just outside of Riyadh, where young men go to drive Jeeps in the sand and to relax, free from the oversight of the religious police and neighbors. They sat beside each other on a blanket.
Nader began.
"I am a romantic person," he said. "There is no romance."
What Nader meant was that Saudi traditions do not allow for romance between young, unmarried couples. There are many stories of young men and women secretly dating, falling in love, but being unable to tell their parents because they could never explain how they knew each other in the first place. One young couple said that after two years of secret dating they hired a matchmaker to arrange a phony introduction so their parents would think that was how they had met.
Now, in the desert, Nader's candor set Enad off.
"He thinks that there is no romance. How is there no romance?" Enad said, his eyes bulging as he grew angry. "When you get married, be romantic with your wife. You want to meet a woman on the street so you can be romantic?"
Nader was intimidated, and frightened. "No, no," he said.
"Convince me then that you're right," Enad shot back.
"I am saying there is no romance," Nader said, trying to push back.
Enad did not relent, berating his cousin.
Under his breath, Nader said, "Enad knows everything."
Then he folded. "Fine, there is romance," he said, and got up and walked away, flushed and embarrassed.
King Abdullah sends a Valentine
The departure of Sheikh Saleh Luhaydan as head of the supreme judicial council, along with several other senior judges, suggests a new push to modernise the courts. Mr Luhaydan was notorious for rulings such as one that said it would be legal to kill the owners of TV channels broadcasting "immorality". During his tenure judges faced little pressure to adopt new rules meant to make the kingdom's unique and often harsh forms of sharia justice more open and consistent. Similarly, the sacking of the head of the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice will be seen as a response to a chorus of demands to curb the morality police, whose puritanical agents have often been accused of harassing law-abiding citizens. 
