In my last visit to Saudi Arabia, I was saddened to see that the Kingdom’s morality police, officially known as the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, has become the target of the advocates enlightenment and reason, who now attack it openly in the press in an unprecedented way.
I was there to attend the Jenadriyah Heritage and Cultural Festival, in which women were allowed to participate for the first time. But had the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice still been basking in its former glory, it would never have allowed such moral corruption. It would have been unthinkable to involve women in cultural festivals, to join seminars and attend poetry evenings.
But it seems that Saudi Arabia, the holy land of Islam, has lost its grip on the true teachings of the religion.I mean the teachings of the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice.
For years, their morality police, known as Mutwaas, used to strike citizens in the street to make them pray on time, and poke women with a stick if her veil happened to slip a few centimeters, ordering them to obey with a gruff: “Cover your head, woman.
I’d imagined that these days were long gone until a Saudi businessman friend of mine, finally set my heart to rest. One Ramadan night, he assured me that the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice is alive and well, and that it continues to uphold its mission of defending Islam at a time when people have abandoned its core values for the sake of superficial features.
My friend told me about how a relative of his had been trying to register a product he wished to import with the Saudi Trade Ministry. A whole year later, the ministry informed him that it had refused to register the product on account of an objection from the Commission.
It turned out that they took issue with the name of the product, a computer application called “Explorer . The learned scholars at the Commission didn’t like the letter “X , in that name which clearly resembles a cross, albeit lopsided. The shape of the forbidden letter was deemed too offensive for their Muslim sensibilities and so they ordered the ministry to reject the registration of this infidel product.
At that I became certain, in this holy month of Ramadan, that the scholars behind the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice continued to defend Islam, which, God Forbid, may be wiped entirely off the face of the earth if we promoted that malicious letter “X in our Muslim countries.
But alas, Islam has many enemies. I came across an article in a Saudi newspaper which dared to criticize the Commission, something that was hitherto forbidden.
The writer ironically pointed to the necessity of following the Commission’s teachings, noting the danger inherent in the fact that we often use the malicious “X without being aware of it, especially with mathematical sums, where we use the plus and multiplication signs, completely unaware of their obvious religious implications.
And hence he came up with the ingenious idea of replacing the “X with a little Islamic crescent whenever it appeared in a math sum or in a foreign name.
Had the Saudi businessman thought of that, and asked his foreign agent to replace all the “Xs with little crescents, he would have at least guaranteed the approval of the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, even if it meant that people couldn’t read the product’s name.
The ministries of information in Muslim countries should likewise prohibit foreign newspapers and magazines – surely not all of them, only the ones which print the malicious letter “X in their articles. They could, in that way, force these publications to follow the teachings of the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice and, perhaps, replace all the “Xs with crescents in their stories.
And just as the Sheikhs and scholars of the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice continue to serve the Muslim cause in Saudi Arabia (despite the unprecedented attacks levied against them), here in Egypt our scholars are no less resilient and piecing in their vision than the Commission’s honorable scholars.
So, in this Holy month, I call upon the Sheikhs of the entire Muslim world who believe that Islam – not the devil – is in the details, to unite against the preachers of reason and enlightenment in each country, who are seeking to efface Islam and fill our lands with “Xs to spread corruption, moral depravity and infidelity.
