Israellycool

CNN reports on Saudi Arabia’s measures to prevent terrorists from entering their territory.

In a sign of regional concern over terrorism, Saudi Arabia is pushing ahead with plans to build a fence along its entire 560-mile (900-kilometer) border with Iraq to prevent terrorists from entering the kingdom from the chaotic north.

 

The barrier, which likely will take five to six years to complete, is part of a $12 billion package of measures, including electronic sensors, bases and physical barriers, to protect the oil-rich kingdom from external threats, said Nawaf Obaid, head of the Saudi National Security Assessment Project, an independent research institute that provides security advice to the Saudi government.

At approximately 01:00 on Friday, 26 May 2006, unknown gunmen fired shots at the Palestinian Stock Exchange located in the Qasr Hotel building, in the Rafedia Quarter of western Nablus.  The attack caused material damage to the exchange.  Sources from the stock exchange indicated that the attack was motivated by losses incurred by some individuals, due to the decline in stocks of some companies.

Saudis hit by a recent stock market crash are resorting to car stickers to vent their anger at the wealthy speculators who have been blamed for the decline.

 

The English-language stickers reading “Big Thieves!” show a stock market ticker and the names of some popular listed firms. The bourse has fallen by almost 50 percent since the end of February and up to 9 million out of the 17 million Saudis are thought to have owned shares.

Under their modest flowing robes, two-thirds of Saudi women are too fat. They can try dieting, but you won’t find many in aerobics classes or power-walking along this city’s walking trails. And very few of their daughters attend schools that have physical education classes.

 

There are no laws against women exercising outside their homes, but in this conservative society many are influenced by scholars and clerics who argue against it.

 

In Riyadh, hotel gyms and pools are off limits to women. Along the city’s walking trails, where the women walk covered in the mandatory black cloaks, they are sometimes harassed by the muttawa.

 

Rana al-Abdullah said one such official ordered her to go back to her car when she was out walking one day and wouldn’t leave her alone until she did. She now walks in malls.

Many Saudis say they are baffled by the religious arguments.

 

At a clinic that treats obesity-related diseases, a booklet left by a writer named Muhammad al-Habdan, warned that if girls’ schools began P.E., Saudi girls would have to change into workout gear ‚Äî and good girls should not disrobe outside their homes. Changing in a locker room might cause them to lose the shyness that is the hallmark of good morals, the booklet warned.

 

It went on to say that the girls might become attracted to each other after seeing their classmates in tight leotards and tops.

The legal opinions proclaimed by Islamic scholars, known as fatwas, have proliferated in the Muslim world since the 1980s. The growth in fatwas - some of them contradictory - has led to debate over who can legitimately issue them. As part of a government drive to eliminate frivolous fatwas, the Saudi newspaper Al Watan recently published one such edict setting out new rules for football. We publish an edited translation below.

 

—————————————————-

 

In the name of God the merciful and benevolent:
1. International terminology that heretics use, such as “foul,” “penalty”, “corner,” “goal”, “out” and others, should be abandoned and not said. Whoever says them should be punished and ejected from the game.

 

2. Do not call “foul” and stop the game if someone falls and sprains a hand or foot or the ball touches his hand, and do not give a yellow or red card to whoever was responsible for the injury or tackle. Instead, it should be adjudicated according to Sharia rulings concerning broken bones and injuries.

 

3. Do not follow the heretics, the Jews, the Christians and especially evil America regarding the number of players. Do not play with 11 people. Add to this number or decrease it.

 

4. Play in your regular clothes or your pyjamas or something like that, but not coloured shorts and numbered T-shirts, because shorts and T-shirts are not Muslim clothing. Rather, they are heretical and western clothing, so beware of imitating their fashion.

 

5. If you have fulfilled these conditions and intend to play soccer, play to strengthen the body in order better to struggle in the way of God on high and to prepare the body for when it is called to jihad. Soccer is not for passing time or the thrill of so-called victory.

 

6. Do not play in two halves. Rather, play in one half or three halves in order to completely differentiate yourselves from the heretics, the corrupted and the disobedient.

 

7. If neither of you beats the other, or “wins”, as it is called, and neither puts the leather between the posts, do not add extra time or penalties. Instead leave the field, because winning with extra time and penalty kicks is the pinnacle of imitating heretics and international rules.

 

8. Young crowds should not gather to watch when you play because if you are there for the sake of sports and strengthening your bodies as you claimed, why would people watch you? You should make them join your physical fitness and jihad preparation, or you should say: “Go proselytise and seek out morally reprehensible acts in the markets and the press and leave us to our physical fitness.”

 

9. You should spit in the face of whoever puts the ball between the posts or uprights and then runs in order to get his friends to follow him and hug him like players in America or France do, and you should punish him, for what is the relationship between celebrating, hugging and kissing and the sports that you are practising?

 

10. You should use two posts instead of three pieces of wood or steel that you erect in order to put the ball between them, meaning that you should remove the crossbar in order not to imitate the heretics and in order to be entirely distinct from the soccer system’s despotic international rules.

 

11. Do not do what is called “substitution,” that is, taking the place of someone who has fallen, because this is a practice of the heretics in America and elsewhere.

President Jacques Chirac praised the “ambitious programme of transformations” in Saudi Arabia and promised France would be “at the side of the Saudis” in the fight against terrorism.

Chirac: “I love your goatee..it looks a bit like France“

Crown Prince: “I try my best. Now would you kindly loosen your grip on my hand?”

Speaking at a meeting of Saudi leaders in preparation for the kingdom’s international conference on counterterrorism, Defense Minister Prince Sultan referred to Osama bin Laden as being “sent by the Jews.”

 

The prince was quoting a poet who said, “Long live security - may its men hold their heads high on every corner. [Bin Laden], whose ideology is sick, who was sent by the Jews, who is the architect of theft, was treacherous and sent us the criminals. This traitor of the nation tried to harm us, but his efforts boomeranged back upon him.”

Here’s a story guaranteed to make your blood boil.

In 50 years, he says, he has married 58 women and has forgotten the names of most of them. He knows he has had 10 sons, but ask about daughters and he counts on his fingers: 22. No, no, 28. No, that’s too many. He settles on 25.

Saleh al-Sayeri, a 64-year-old shepherd-turned-businessman, says his marital adventures have cost him more than $1.6 million in wedding expenses and settlements for divorced wives. But the man who remembers being forced into his first marriage at age 14 says he’d do it a million times over.

“Marriage doesn’t bore me,” he said, relaxing on cushions at a carpeted, open-air reception area in his 22-horse stable in Usfan, in the desert 500 miles west of Riyadh. “I’m the happiest man in the world.”

Al-Sayeri’s story might seem a bizarre curiosity, but it touches a nerve in Saudi Arabia, the status of whose women is a matter of international controversy.

When it surfaced in Saudi media in March, some readers reacted angrily.

A woman who identified herself as Maryam, a convert to Islam, wrote to the Arab News, an English-language daily, that al-Sayeri’s story “really sent me over the edge.”

“What kind of a family structure is this? What is divorce doing to the psychologies of the ex-wives and children? How can this man devote any quality time to his children — teaching them about Islam and being a constant role model?” She wrote.

Sayyidaty magazine, which interviewed al-Sayeri, also spoke to psychiatrist Mona al-Sawwaf who said al-Sayeri does not treat a wife as a human being “but as a piece of clothing he can change whenever he pleases or an object.”

“The biggest blame lies with the parents” who let their daughters enter such marriages, she said.

Al-Sayeri dismisses such critics as “crazy,” insisting he is not breaching Islamic laws, which permit a man to have four wives at a time.

“I have a clear conscience,” he said.

None of Al-Sayeri’s ex-wives could be reached. He said many have remarried, but to reveal their identity would be a gross violation of Saudi custom. One of his sons said his mother has remarried, but refused to give details.

Divorce has become quite common in the kingdom, with press reports saying half of all marriages break up. But the fate of a divorced woman depends on her parents’ frame of mind. If they oppose the divorce, they likely will confine her to the house and monitor her movements. She will be barred from dating or working without family permission.

The notion of a single career woman barely exists here. Women cannot even drive. They cannot get an education, travel or check into a hotel without a male guardian’s permission.

Some parents, on the other hand, are modern-minded enough to let their daughters finish their schooling or go out to work. And although Islamic laws permit a man to have four wives at a time, most Muslim men today take one wife, because it has become the cultural norm and polygamy is costly.

Money is not an issue for al-Sayeri, who says he has made a fortune trading in cars and property. He is a dark, medium-built man with black mustache and goatee who heads the Sayer, a southern Bedouin tribe. He also raises camels and horses.

He has had 10 sons, one of whom died. Two sons who were at the stable while their father was being interviewed rolled their eyes whenever the subject of marriages came up. They said they had come to accept that their dad is “mizwaj,” a man who likes to marry often.

Fahd al-Sayeri, who inherited his father’s passion for horses, recalled a desert hunting trip some 15 years ago in the remote Empty Quarter. He and his friends had gone in search of gasoline when they heard celebratory gunshots coming from a tent. They had come across a wedding.

“Out of politeness, we asked who’s wedding it was,” Fahd said.

“The guests responded with my father’s name. I was shocked,” he added.

It’s not that the elder al-Sayeri hides his marriages. He just doesn’t always bother to spread the word. He said two of his daughters learned they were sisters and two sons they were brothers at school.

Some wives even attend his weddings and bring the bride gifts. But he said he keeps each wife in a separate villa and sometimes even in a different town to keep the peace, and assures each that she’s his favorite.

Son Fahd, a 32-year-old bachelor, is adamant he won’t follow in his father’s footsteps. “No, no, no,” he said. “One will be enough for me.”

Al-Sayeri said he has married first cousins and women from about 30 tribes all over the kingdom. “As a leader of a tribe, I can’t marry just anybody,” he said.

He said three of his four current wives have been with him 18 to 40 years. The fourth seems to be the one who usually gets replaced.

“It’s the one for renewal,” said al-Sayeri, sipping cardamom-flavored coffee after a dinner of spicy lamb and rice. “I like to change my fourth wife every year.”

His latest marriage — and at 10,000 guests his most sumptuous — was to a 14-year-old girl nine months ago. She was the perfect age, he said.

When he heard about her, he sent his niece to check her out. She came back with a favorable report.

Then he visited her family. When the girl came into the living room to offer him refreshments — an excuse for him to see her face — he asked her if she would marry him.

“She was shy at first and didn’t answer but then she said yes,” al-Sayeri recalled. “Now, we’re such good friends it feels we’ve known each other 40 years.”

A Saudi woman will usually marry whomever her family chooses, and marriage is considered acceptable from the onset of puberty.

Al-Sayeri claims he has never forced a woman to marry him, and has never been turned down. His ex-wives get a divorce settlement set out in a prenuptial agreement and he supports the children, he said. He said all his divorces are documented with court-issued papers that usually follow this declaration to his wife: “You are divorced.”

He said today’s women are “more pleasant to have around.”

“They take better care of themselves, use makeup and do not run away every time I want to touch them,” he said.

Al-Sayeri said he will keep on marrying until the number of wives he has acquired equals the number of years he has lived.

I don’t know about you, but seeing this picture just makes me want to wipe the smile off his face.

Is this man happy..or constipated?

An enraged Saudi bride badly beat up a female wedding guest who had photographed her with a camera-equipped mobile phone, a newspaper reported.

 

After spotting the woman taking the picture in the all-female section of the party in the western city of Taif, the bride “beat her severely, destroyed her mobile phone and pulled her by her hair in front of all the guests,” the Al-Jazirah daily said.

 

The bride then ripped off the woman’s veil and announced through a microphone the woman’s motives, before receiving a round of applause “for being vigilant”. She then tidied up her appearance and proceeded with the celebration.

Saudi Arabia warned foreign residents Wednesday they must respect a prohibition on eating, drinking and smoking* in public during daylight hours in the Islamic holy month of Ramadan.