Tag Archives: Saudi Society

Saudis (and Muslims who follow the Saudi version of Islam) do not believe in ghosts the way that the western world does. When it comes to the immediate worldly afterlife, it is believed that a person at death only temporarily leaves his/her body. In the grave, they come back and inhabit it waiting for judgment day. Meanwhile, after an interview with an angel a window opens in their grave either on hell or heaven, depending on that person’s deeds. The only dead people spirits that walk among us are martyrs and Muslims who die for an Islamic cause. One possible reason for this is that they might like to follow up on what they died for. This a translation from the Quran:

And say not of those who are slain in the way of Allah: “They are dead.” Nay, they are living, though ye perceive (it) not. (Chapter 2 Al Baqara, verse 154)*

But this indifference to ghosts in the western sense does not change the fact that Saudis are strong believers in the supernatural. To truly comprehend you’ll have to go back to before the beginning. In the prequel to the Adam and Eve story, there were other creatures inhabiting the Earth. The angels are made of light and humans are made of mud and these others called jinn are made of fire. They ruled the Earth much as we do now and Satan was one of them. He was either a good Jinn ruler or a Jinn prophet while the rest of his people were abusing the Earth and not worshipping God as they should. So God sent his wrath down onto them and only a very few survived by hiding high in the mountains and underground in caves. Satan was spared and raised up to heaven to live among the angels.  Then later God created Adam. That’s why in the Quran it states that the angels upon hearing about Adam reacted negatively:

Behold, thy Lord said to the angels: “I will create a vicegerent on earth.” They said: “Wilt Thou place therein one who will make mischief therein and shed blood?- whilst we do celebrate Thy praises and glorify Thy holy (name)?” He said: “I know what ye know not.” (Chapter 2 Al Baqara, verse 30) *

The angels were not predicting the future but were more like saying oh not again. They eventually submitted except for Satan who thought that it was beneath him to bow down to a creature made of mud. The rest is almost identical to the Christian and Jewish story. So Satan, Adam and Eve were sent down to Earth. It is said that God created three versions of everyone. That is that there is a Jinni that has your exact personality, mannerism and there is also an angel that way too. The jinn version is called a qareen in Arabic. And that’s how Muslims explain away those who claim to talk to the dead. They say that those so-called experts are actually talking to the dead person’s qareen.

The Jinn people that survived reproduced and so did Adam and Eve. And now it is like a two dimensional Earth. The inhabitants of both dimensions have their own civilizations, races and religions. But there are some of both dimensions that mesh them together. This meshing is where the supernatural comes from. Humans through witchcraft and such make use of Jinns’ invisibility to Human eyes to gain knowledge. And outcast Jin come into our world to wreak havoc. The belief in them is so strong that it affects real estate. One example is a prominent marble palace that some Saudi family built in Riyadh. It is near the intersection of King Abdullah street and Al Takhassisi. After the family moved they experienced something unexplainable. And it went on like this from buyer to buyer until eventually it was closed up completely for almost a decade. Now the government bought it and is using it as a guesthouse and club for officers.

The outcast Jinn are also believed to take forms and most commonly they take the form of a dog. That might be one of the reasons dogs are not seen in a positive light here. The worst thing a jin outcast could do is take up a person’s body. They do this for a number of reasons; they are bribed or ordered to by a sorcerer, they have fallen in love with the human, or a person through wrong actions invites them in. Once they are in it is difficult to get them out. A shiekh has to exorcise them by reading certain parts of the Quran. Even Shiekh Bin Baz, the most renowned Saudi shiekh in the past century, wrote about his experience with these beings. I have a booklet that was distributed free of charge at the Riyadh Military Hospital written by Shiekh Bin Baz. This is a photo of the cover:

Translation of the cover: Two letters

• 1- The issue of Jinn being in the body of a psychologically disturbed person and the Islamic law on conversing with Jin.
• 2- Treatment through the use of sorcery or witchcraft is an extreme danger to Islam and Muslims.

This whole concept is so ingrained into Saudi culture that even people who are laid-back about religion will think of Jinn when they hear a bump in the night.

This is a video I coincidently received in my Email today. It is a soccer player that supposedly got beaten up by a Jinn on the field. Watch and make up your own mind:

And here’s a website that specializes in making nonbelievers see the light (visit at your own risk) : http://www.islam-universe.com/Exorcism.html#Exorcism_Clip

*Abdullah Yusuf Ali Translation of the Quran

The Iraqi war really brought the spotlight on the Shia -Sunni struggle within  the region, when before, outside of the Middle East, there was no distinction between Muslims. Little be known to the rest of the world there are other  layers of discrimination in the region.  Two of which affect a Saudi’s marriage and job prospects. The first and most important is whether a person belongs to a tribe or not. You are 220 if you belong to a tribe and 120 if you don’t. There are many tribes in the region and tracking and documenting them is a centuries old science that is still very much alive today. I’ve also heard stories of specialists who were able to track which tribe a person belongs to just by looking at their facial features. Though I don’t believe they exist anymore. The most prestigious tribe to belong to is the Ashraff. People who are even remotely related to this tribe will drag out their family tree at every opportunity. And they are understandably the most prestigious because they are descendents of the Prophet Mohammed’s (PBUH) family. Now most claims to this tribe are bogus but the few true lines of heritance are carefully documented in books. The most famous Asharaff family today is the Jordanian royal family. But personally I think they have diluted their blood with too many British and American commoners.

Then there are Saudis who don’t belong to a tribe. The first of two main reasons why is that they go back to an ancestor who has been disowned by his tribe for committing a crime or taking up a manual job. These families are easy to identify because their last name usually means in Arabic some kind of job like blacksmith or baker. The other main reason is that the family goes back to an ancestor who immigrated here. These families usually have a last name that in Arabic means some kind of nationality like Egyptian, Morroccan…etc.  The only exception I know of to the latter reason is the Hindi family who are tribal.

Another layer of distinction is made up of Bedouin or urban. Bedouins are families who only in the past century have settled down. Before they used to roam the desert never belonging to any particular region. Urban are families who belong to tribes that have always lived in towns and cities, only occasionally moving.

Part of a Saudi’s life is to be classified as one of the following:

a) Urban and tribal: These Saudis are the most stuck-up, refined and know how to spend money.

b) Bedouin and tribal: These Saudi are not as sophisticated but are more generous and their women are given a lot more freedom and respect.

c) Urban and nontribal: These Saudis are concentrated in the Western region and they mostly come from ancestors who were originally overstayers after performing Hajj.

d) Salab: These Saudis come from gypsy ancestors.

How does this matter in day to day life? Within their circles, both Bedouins and tribal Urban consider being called the other an insult. Urban mothers tell their children not to be Bedouin when they, for instance, attempt to leave the house in their pajamas.  And Bedouin mothers tell their children not to be urban when they get scared of a spider. To urban families, being called Bedouin has connotations of being unrefined and unruly. And in Bedouin families, being called an urban essentially means sissy.

And until recently, the Saudi nationality had been withheld from many salabs. Even though they have been on Saudi land for more than a century.

When it comes to job-hunting, let me just say that if you take a close look at any Saudi establishment, you’ll find that strangely a great number of the employees belong to the same tribe as the head of the establishment.

In marriage, it doesn’t matter much if you are Bedouin or urban. What matters is whether or not you’re tribal. If a Saudi is tribal and marries someone who isn’t, the father of the tribal spouse is expected to disown them. And the whole marriage has long term negative effects. The siblings of the tribal spouse will be limited in their choice of life-partners. A famous case that originated in such a mixed marriage is that of Fatima who after having two children with her husband, was forcefully divorced by her half brothers after her father passed away. Shockingly the divorce was sanctioned by the Saudi judicial system.

Fatima Starts Hunger Strike Despite HRC’s Reunion Assurances
Ebtihal Mubarak, Arab News

JEDDAH, 25 March 2008 – A Saudi woman, who was forcibly divorced from her husband by a court in 2005 at the request of her half brothers, yesterday began the first day of a hunger strike despite officials saying that the couple would soon be reunited.

“I won’t believe it till I see it… I’ll remain stuck in this shelter like an outcaste. Everyone asks me to be patient and wait,” said the woman known as Fatima.

One of my own relatives fell in love with a person who belonged to a non-tribal family. Just when they were about to announce their engagement, my great uncle threatened the father with disowning his whole family. So everything was broken off before it got too serious. This of course is extremely un-Islamic and a great example of how our society is truly ruled by custom and culture rather than religion.

With all this gender segregation and emphasis on sex and femininity, you would think that Saudis would be very romantic and passionate. In the same vein of Latinos is the way Saudis come across when they’re trying to woo a woman, but trust me, that wears off pretty quick. Marriage here is really just the funeral of a relationship’s romance. There’s an Arab proverb that translates to the end of love is marriage. Society as a whole tends to view romance in heterosexual relationships as trivial and unimportant. Maybe that is why the Turkish soap opera Noor has become all the rage across Saudi Arabia. It’s about a husband who loves his wife madly. And it doesn’t hurt that the husband is smoking hot! The soap opera was dubbed in Arabic and all the names were changed to Arabic names. I personally have not followed the series but I have seen a few scenes. Turkey as a summer destination has seen renewed popularity thanks to the show. Even old ladies have fallen for Mohanid. Every dinner or tea party I go to, all they talk about is the series. The Arabic names of the main roles have become the most popular baby names this year and the show is even known to have sparked domestic family issues.

For a more detailed post about this topic click here.

Final exams are upon us. Most Saudi households are affected by the finals in one way or other in a country where approximately half the population is in school. This is the time to go out shopping or whatever. You’ll notice the crowds are a little smaller and the traffic is a little lighter. It will get even better starting from June 14^th and two weeks on. If you’re planning a trip to Dubai or Bahrain, try to manage it so that it falls within those two weeks so you can at least avoid the Saudi crowds.

If you are a Saudi there is a certain atmosphere about this time of year, even if you’re all grown up and out of school. A certain smell of fear and pending doom. Exams are extremely stressful in Saudi Arabia. On that one final paper, a minimum of 50% of your mark for the whole semester is hanging. And for high school seniors, the results decide what college they’ll be able to get into.  The current education system is quite theoretical, relying mostly on written explanations and pictures in books, even if you are studying physics, chemistry or biology. The best way to get by is through rote memorization. So by the time these students reach college, they’re so used to this system that it is a feat to wean them off it. A question that always comes up with my students is which pages exactly are in the exam. And no matter how many times I tell them that we are testing their ability to communicate in English not how many grammar points they memorized, they still don’t get it.

What’s funny is that in many colleges across Saudi Arabia, they still rely on memorization. I remember in college, students who couldn’t write one sentence in English pass Drama because they memorized the “handouts”. A whole culture of handouts has ruined our higher educational system. As long as the students memorize the 20 to 30 page handout, they’re good to go. The handouts even tell the student what to write when they’re asked for their opinion. And believe it or not, these handouts are written by the course instructor himself. Then the instructor would have answer sheets that are all identical. Can you imagine how easy it is to grade memorized answers?! Where I work, this was going on, but the administration banned instructors from writing and distributing handouts with the aim of raising the educational standards. I hope all institutes across the Saudi follow suit.

In 2005 the government opened an anonymous account, anonymous in that you can put money in without anyone knowing who you are.  As of April 7^th 2008, the balance of that account has grown to 152 million riyals which equals about 40 and a half million dollars. Where did this money come from? No one knows. No one is allowed to know. I don’t know the details of the story behind it but I do know that an Egyptian who had worked as a civil worker in Saudi Arabia had stolen some money from his department and got away with it. After he got back to his home country, his guilty conscience would not let it go so he decided that he wanted to give the money back but didn’t want to get prosecuted. He called someone powerful back here and told him and someone came up with the “clear your guilt account” they advertised it and in just three years, 40.5 million dollars were returned to the government from Saudis and expatriates who wanted to clear their conscience.