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----- Original Message -----
From: "Charles Scott" <crscott@...>
To: <faithandlife@...>
Sent: Thursday, November 21, 2002 7:39 AM
Subject: [FaithandLife] How to Confront a Theocracy


> Brothers:
>
> I hesitated to send along article because of its length.  While cleaning
out
> old computer files, it surfaced and I reread it.
>
> Its worth at least a quick skim for insight it provides into the Byzantine
> politics of Saudi Arabia.
>
> Charles
>
> --------------------------------
> How to Confront a Theocracy
> The most effective way to address the human rights disaster in Saudi
Arabia
> may be to let Muhammad do the talking.
> By Jeff M. Sellers | posted 07/03/2002
>
>
> I was sent to these Arabs as a stranger, unable to think their thoughts or
> subscribe to their beliefs, but charged by duty to lead them forward and
to
> develop to the highest any movement of theirs profitable to England in her
> war. If I could not assume their character, I could at least conceal my
own,
> and pass among them without evident friction, neither a discord nor a
critic
> but an unnoticed influence.
> -T. E. Lawrence, Seven Pillars of Wisdom, 1926
>
> Every year Saudi Arabia lands on or near the top of lists of violators of
> religious freedom, and every year the royal family that rules the kingdom
> could not care less. The United States has formed an alliance with this
> intransigent opponent of human rights for reasons that parallel the charge
> given to Lawrence of Arabia. Leading Saudi Arabia forward into
unfathomable
> wealth by developing its oil industry, the United States has found the
> partnership profitable for both economic and geopolitical interests.
>
> U.S. oil companies arrived in Saudi Arabia a generation after Lawrence
> helped lead Arabs in their revolt against World War I-era Turks. Like the
> Christians who often work for these and other companies, Lawrence had no
> illusions about the limits of his ability to assume Arab character. But he
> did defer to his host culture, accepting its ways as a point of departure,
> and his example in war may yet have something to teach us about spiritual
> battles for human dignity.
>
> Beheadings Every Friday
> In 1992, December 25 fell on a Friday, the Muslim day of rest, when pastor
> Oswaldo "Wally" Magdangal was to be hanged in the Saudi capital of Riyadh
> for blaspheming Islam. Shari'ah law requires beheading for
"apostates"-those
> who renounce Islam-as well as for murderers, and no Friday passes without
at
> least one such execution in the public square following the noon prayers,
> rights organizations say. Hangings are reserved for "blasphemers" like
> Magdangal. Foreigners of non-Islamic faiths can worship legally in private
> in Saudi Arabia, but the 42-year-old Filipino pastor was arrested after
his
> growing house church had become too noticeable. On December 23, Magdangal
> wrote out his last will and testament for his wife and young daughter.
>
> Religious police had tortured every part of his body in trying to force
him
> to renounce his faith in Christ. Embracing Islam would have won his
> immediate release. Initially the religious police, or muttawa'in-a
vigilante
> force with a hierarchy and membership extending into government and other
> sectors-beat him throughout 210 minutes of mocking interrogation. They
> handed him a pencil and paper and demanded names of other Christians he
> knew. He refused.
>
> "Eventually I was so weak, they placed the pad of paper in my lap, and
they
> forced the pencil into my hand," Magdangal told CT. "I was weeping, and I
> said, 'Lord, you've got to help me here,' and I began to write the names
of
> Billy Graham, Charles Spurgeon, and others. After a few days, they were so
> mad, because they'd been all over Saudi Arabia looking for those people."
>
> During interrogations-which included flogging of his back, his palms, and
> the soles of his feet-the muttawa'in did not state charges against him.
Only
> when he answered that he agreed with an article predicting the ultimate
fall
> of Islam in Christ for the Nations magazine (which the muttawa'in found in
> his home) was the basis for the eventual blasphemy charge established.
>
> Magdangal was not allowed to speak during his high court trial, which
Muslim
> clerics held in secret.
>
> "I was shaking with pain; I was trembling with fear," Magdangal says. "I
> kept asking them to get my wife, but that led them to tell me in strong
> words to stand silent-not to say a word or I would suffer the consequence
of
> every word I spoke. That's when I just broke down, and I just wept and
> wept."
>
> By then the lower court had read some charges-preaching a message
different
> from the Qur'an, "building" a church-but only hinted at the blasphemy
> charge. Magdangal would learn of the blasphemy verdict before he knew the
> charge itself: a muttawa'in officer interrogating him, Lt. Bader Alyaya,
> said his case had become "very serious" and that he was going to be
hanged.
>
> "He motioned around his neck like a noose, and then he pulled the noose
> above his head in a motion with his hand," he recalls. "I knew that people
> guilty of blasphemy are hanged to death for three days, to send a strong
> warning to the Muslims not to turn to another religion, and for Christians
> to not try to reach the Muslims."
>
> Magdangal describes a sensation of fire or lightning striking him in the
> chest. "It felt like there was something within me that was getting ready
to
> explode, and as I opened my mouth, the words came out: 'I shall not die
but
> live and declare the works of my Lord, for no weapon formed against me
shall
> prosper, for greater is he who is in me than he who is in the world,' "
> Magdangal says. "That's all I said. And then I bent over, and I wept, and
I
> wept, and I wept."
>
> Normally Saudi authorities do not tell the condemned of their sentence
until
> the day of their execution, so as to forestall appeals and protests,
> Magdangal says. Sometimes the authorities go the extra step of leading
> prisoners to believe they are being released just before executing them.
>
> Magdangal knew only that the Philippine embassy had filed protests of his
> detention, which went unheeded, though soon Amnesty International also was
> monitoring his case. As executive secretary to the Saudi director of
Defense
> and Civil Aviation, Magdangal had close friends high in the Saudi
> government, including members of the royal family-and even in the
> muttawa'in-who only gradually had become aware of his arrest. Muttawa'in
> officers warned each of Magdangal's high-level friends to stop advocating
> for him.
>
> The threats worked. But a general secretly told Magdangal's wife to inform
> Fidel Ramos, then-president of the Philippines, that the case had become
> "very serious."
>
> "The reality is that in Saudi Arabia the majority of the people, even
those
> in the government, are not aware that the Muslim clerics are persecuting
> Christians," Magdangal says. "Even among the Muslim clerics, not all of
them
> are aware that some of their colleagues are persecuting Christians."
>
> Fresh off victory from Saudi soil in the Gulf War, the U.S. Congress and
the
> White House joined with human-rights organizations to appeal for
Magdangal's
> life-unbeknownst to him. By December 23 he had settled in his heart that
he
> was going to be executed.
>
> "I was heavily burdened for my wife and my daughter," he says. "I pictured
> myself hanging between heaven and earth, and I said to the Lord, 'I would
> ask you to order the Devil himself to deliver my spirit to the gates of
> heaven. And when I take my first step inside the gates, before you
separate
> me from the evil, give me the privilege to strike the Devil right in his
> face.' "
>
> Magdangal then prayed that if he were spared, he would be a voice for the
> persecuted. Shortly before midnight, the prison commander arrived with
> orders to deport Magdangal. "Even at that point, from the prison to the
> airport, I was very terrified because the two officers with me were
> interrupted on their radio by Muslim clerics who were yelling, fighting my
> release, and telling them to divert the car and bring it somewhere else to
> kill me," he says.
>
> Now president of Christians in Crisis, an advocacy group based in
> Sacramento, California, Magdangal later learned from a friend high in the
> muttawa'in that military advisers were vying with clerics for the ear of
> King Fahd bin Abdul al-Aziz Al Saud-whose mandate in Saudi Arabia, the
> clerics reminded him, was to uphold Shari'ah.
>
> "The war was still very fresh, and Saddam Hussein was still a major
threat,"
> Magdangal recalls. "The military advisers were saying, in essence, 'King,
we
> are under such pressure from the friendly nations-what is one person
> compared to what we are facing from Saddam Hussein, and all the benefits
> that might be diminished as a result of executing this person?' "
>
> King Fahd ordered Magdangal to be expelled within 24 hours. According to
> Magdangal's muttawa'in contact, 500 Muslim clerics resigned their state
> posts in protest.
>
> September 11
> Magdangal believes the advent of U.S. sorties against Iraq in the Gulf War
> triggered a wavelet of Saudi persecution of Christians that led to his
> arrest. Islamic leaders, fearing closer ties with the United States would
> tighten the rein on them, decided to attack Christians while they could.
> They would not arrest him until months later, but muttawa'in raided
> Magdangal's house hours before U.S. bombing began.
>
> A decade later, the U.S.-Saudi relationship is much more contentious as
> America pressures its key regional ally, largely in vain, for cooperation
in
> the "war on terrorism"-and this as the two countries hold opposite
> allegiances in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict raging in the foreground
of
> the Saudi conscience. It is virtually impossible to know what effect the
> convoluted and secretive U.S.-Saudi relationship might have on persecution
> levels in Saudi Arabia, but kingdom observers see signs that the royal
> family is steadily corralling the religious police.
>
> Charles W. Freeman Jr., president of the Washington-based Middle East
Policy
> Council, was U.S. Ambassador to Saudi Arabia during the Gulf War. He
> believes the uprightness of Crown Prince Abdullah bin Abd al-Aziz Al Saud,
> half-brother of the stroke-impaired King Fahd and to some extent the de
> facto ruler, will favorably influence the muttawa'in.
>
> "Particularly under Crown Prince Abdullah, the muttawa'in are very much
> subdued and on the defensive," Freeman says. "And one of the reasons he's
> able to rein in some of the more fanatical elements of the Saudi populace
is
> that he himself has a well-justified reputation for being a pious and
godly
> man."
>
> The government recently struck a blow to the clerics following a March 11
> fire at a girls' public intermediate school in Mecca. As 835 students and
55
> women teachers fled the building, several members of the muttawa'in beat
> them back because they were not wearing their long black cloaks and head
> coverings. They also beat civil defense workers trying to rescue the
girls.
>
> This interference reportedly caused some of the 14 casualties. The
> government not only fired the head of the General Presidency for Girls'
> Education-a powerful institution controlled by the clerics-but also
> abolished it in function. The regime folded it into the Ministry of
> Education, according to Virginia Sherry, associate director of the Middle
> East Division of Human Rights Watch.
>
> "This is an incredibly radical move, and this full-scale critique in the
> Saudi press of the religious police is a new development," Sherry told CT.
> "There's been no indication that the government is going to publicly
rebuke
> the religious police, but I was completely surprised that heads rolled and
> that with one pen stroke the entire agency was abolished."
>
> In addition, since September 11 the Saudi government has instructed
clerics
> to preach a more tolerant version of Islam, Sherry notes. "There's
> speculation as to whether or not that's posturing for a Western audience,
> but it's also clearly intended to rein in the clerics," she says.
>
> Freeman, who has also been assistant secretary of defense for
international
> security affairs, says Abdullah is trying to find ways to open the kingdom
> and make it more tolerant, even in the area of religion.
>
> "Certainly the discovery that Osama bin Laden was able to recruit Saudis
to
> his cause-his cause being to overthrow the Saudi monarchy, with the attack
> on the United States being merely a means to that end-actually set off
quite
> a bit of soul-searching in the kingdom," Freeman says.
>
> A slight easing of religious intolerance could emerge from such
reflection,
> both Freeman and Sherry say. Freeman notes that Abdullah has considered
> allowing Christian organizations with medical programs to help attend to
the
> thousands of wounded Palestinians who are treated in Saudi Arabia. And he
> calls a speech that Abdullah gave to the Gulf Cooperation Council last
> December "very remarkable, because it reflects a spirit of soul-searching
> and self-criticism that is not too often seen among leaders anywhere, much
> less in the Arab world."
>
> Whether such setbacks for the muttawa'in make them more dangerous or less
to
> underground churches in Saudi Arabia is a murky matter. Traditionally,
such
> cornering of the religious animal can cause the muttawa'in to strike with
> more ferocity.
>
> "The religious authorities and their police force are putting constant
> pressure on the civil authorities to be more Islamic-including to act
> stronger against Christian activity," says one rights advocate based in
the
> United Kingdom. "At the moment, and as a result of September 11, the
> government is more vulnerable to pressure from the religious elements."
>
> 'morally Depraved' Critics
> The clerics' power-including the leverage to topple the government-cannot
be
> discounted. In the royal family's precarious position between the forces
of
> modernity and traditional clerics, Saudi rulers generally have tried to
> appease religious dissidents rather than clamp down too severely, says
> Dudley Woodberry, a pastor in Riyadh in 1976-79 and dean emeritus and
> professor of Islamic Studies at Fuller Theological Seminary.
>
> Indeed, The New Yorker reported in its October 22, 2001, edition that
> electronic intercepts of conversations in the royal family show the regime
> is so insecure that it has funneled hundreds of millions of dollars in
> "protection money" to fundamentalist groups that would otherwise overthrow
> it. Some of the Saudi funds went to Osama bin Laden's Al Qaeda group,
> according to the report.
>
> "The dilemma one faces," Ambassador Freeman told CT, "is that those who
are
> most opposed to the royal family are either themselves murderers, that is,
> morally depraved people, or they resemble the followers of the late
> Ayatollah Khomeini in their vision of a future that is even less tolerant
> than the prevailing one. That is, the dissidents who are sitting in London
> are not arguing for a more open and tolerant society; they're arguing the
> opposite, as Khomeini turned out to do for Iran."
>
> With restive, unemployed youth stuck in a cracked economy increasingly
> filling their ranks, Saudi extremist groups could lash out at the 870,000
> Christians among the country's 7 million foreign workers (nearly a third
of
> the country's population). If the response of a Saudi underground church
to
> queries by Christianity Today is any indication, fear still weighs heavily
> in the atmosphere-all members felt answering questions could jeopardize
> their safety. One Western man daring to reply anyway said that since 1998,
> the Christian community has been through several periods of arrest,
> detention, and deportation of leaders.
>
> "Most of those began with Christians being 'too visible,' " he told CT.
> "These have been almost entirely Asians, and they pay the greatest price
in
> terms of lost leadership, loss of income, and harassment from employers
and
> religious authorities. Quite honestly, I do not want to answer your
> questions. Am I being overly cautious or gun-shy? I don't know."
>
> Concerned that descriptions of his life in Saudi Arabia would provoke a
> crackdown, the Westerner nevertheless said he hoped this article would
> "inform Christians about the intolerant, close-minded attitude of Saudi
> Arabia and much of the Muslim world. Christians need to know this."
>
> The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom knew this well,
> recommending-unsuccessfully, given obvious diplomatic sensitivities-that
the
> State Department designate Saudi Arabia as one of nine "countries of
> particular concern." The commission dismissed the Saudi claim that
> non-Muslims are permitted private worship. The Saudi definition of
"private
> worship" is vague, and underground worshipers have been "arrested,
> imprisoned, deported and harassed by the authorities," according to the
> commission.
>
> Appealing to Muslim Roots
> Saudi Arabia tops the lists of religious freedom violators for the same
> reason its rulers don't care about such lists: In a theocracy entrusted
with
> preserving a narrow Islamic "purity" and the shrines in Mecca and Medina,
> denial of religious freedom is integral to the country's cultural
identity.
> As Crown Prince Abdullah has said, the two holy shrines are the "primary
> restrictions" on change. "Our faith and our culture are what drive the
> country," he once said. Somehow, though, other Islamic countries have
> cultures far more tolerant than Saudi Arabia's.
>
> Saudi Arabia is a charter member of the United Nations, and yet it
brazenly
> disregards the U.N. Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which asserts
the
> right to profess, propagate, and change faith. But U.N. ideals may not be
> the best starting point for transforming a medieval theocracy.
>
> Saudi Arabia was founded on the Muslim equivalent of the
> Reformation-Wahhabism, which in the 1700s rejected the religious
accretions
> of previous centuries to return to the authority of the Qur'an. Shari'ah
is
> its constitution. Whereas the Christian Reformation eventually encouraged
> the separation of church and state, Saudi Arabia grew out of an alliance
in
> 1744 between the political emir, Muhammad ibn Saud, and the Islamic
> reformer, Muhammad ibn Abd al Wahhab.
>
> With religion and the state thus wedded, the U.N. Universal Declaration of
> Human Rights carries about as much weight in Saudi Arabia as a treatise on
> secular humanism would for conservative televangelists, Middle East
> observers say. Rather than start with institutions and documents that are
> Western in essence, better to address Saudis on their own terms-Islam's
> historical writings. Letters attributed to Muhammad in the Tabaqat of
> 9th-century historian Ibn Sa'd, for example, allowed Christians in Najran
> (in today's southwestern Saudi Arabia) to have churches and priests.
Fuller
> Seminary's Woodberry used to distribute copies of these letters while
pastor
> of a house church in Riyadh.
>
> "We circulated these letters basically to let the government know that at
> least Muhammad had allowed the Christians that were in the area to
continue
> to worship and have priests as long as they were loyal citizens,"
Woodberry
> says.
>
> Avoiding the unenviable position of trying to interpret Islam for Saudis,
> church members limited themselves to passing out copies of the letters.
>
> "We did it first in English, and then I gave them Arabic copies as well,"
> Woodberry says. "It uses the sources that are considered important to
them."
>
> Likewise, the Qur'an says Jews and Christians belong to a category of
people
> protected from aggression. Some references in the Qur'an also suggest that
> the Sabeans, probably a gnostic group in south Arabia, were also protected
> people, Woodberry says. That extra category has enabled the government of
> Indonesia, for example, to protect the religious freedom of Hindus and
> Buddhists. And there is a plethora of history in which Islam peacefully
> coexists with other faiths.
>
> How do such Islamic documents go over with those of the strict Wahhabi
> faith? "Wahhabism emphasizes going back to the original sources of the
> faith, the Qur'an and Muhammad, so it's very impressive to them if you can
> point out that Muhammad allowed the Christians the freedom to raise their
> children as Christians, and to have churches and priests," Woodberry says.
>
> He does not dismiss appeals to the U.N. charter. But any international
> pressure, Middle East observers say, must be applied gently in light of
the
> Muslim clerics' fury at the generally corrupt regime seen as too friendly
to
> the United States. "We never felt that the royal leadership was that much
> against us, but their position was tenuous enough that they didn't want
the
> same thing to happen to them that had happened to Iran when the Shah was
> overthrown," Woodberry says.
>
> Ambassador Freeman also suggests appeals to the human rights inherent in
> Islam. He notes that the Qur'anic injunction to submit to Allah
presupposes
> choice and liberty of conscience, and that "Islam is very clear that there
> can be no compulsion in religion."
>
> Most Saudis, with the notable exception of some in the royal family, would
> counter that according to the hadith (teachings attributed to Muhammad)
> "there can be no two religions" in Arabia, but Freeman says this probably
> applied only to Mecca.
>
> "There are so many other things said in the Qur'an about respect that I
> suppose the correct interpretation might be that there can be no
> proselytizing of the native population in Arabia," he says. "But I don't
see
> why that should be interpreted as expatriates or temporary residents of
> Saudi Arabia being denied the right to worship as they consider right."
>
> Freeman holds out hope that, with some loosening of religious controls,
> Christians could earn the right through social service ministries to be
> heard about human rights. "It might be that an offer by a Christian church
> not to proselytize in Saudi Arabia, but to inspire by example, to minister
> to those who are maimed in the intifada by the Israeli occupation, might
be
> timely," Freeman says.
>
> This indirect route, compared with direct protest, is a quieter, more
> concealed, less conspicuous influence. Supporting Abdullah's efforts to
gain
> entry into the World Trade Organization, thereby opening Saudi Arabia to
> more outside influences, would be another way of indirectly promoting
> human-rights issues, Freeman adds.
>
> There is, however, a place for overt protest. Though the effects of
> agitating for human rights are disputed-sometimes they result in more
severe
> persecution-in the long term, it is usually helpful that rogue regimes
know
> the international community is watching.
>
> The Saudi Arabian ambassador to the United States, Prince Bandar bin
Sultan,
> declined to answer questions posed by Christianity Today via e-mail-such
as
> how he would advise Americans to address Saudi human-rights issues-but
> keeping such concerns before Saudi officials plays its part in the overall
> strategy. Polite, respectful inquiries about human rights can be sent to
> Prince Bandar at, believe it or not, topgun@.... (Top Gun is one of
the
> ambassador's favorite movies, an assistant says. It also should be noted
> that since 1979, U.S. military sales to Saudi Arabia, including a state of
> the art command and control system for the Royal Saudi Air Force, total
more
> than $50 billion.)
>
> The Human Rights Game
> To be sure, Saudi Arabia is "playing the human rights game," according to
> Sherry of Human Rights Watch. It has signed U.N. women's rights and
> anti-torture conventions, for example. And, last October 1, Saudi Arabia
> adopted its first written penal code.
>
> Saudi officials have not made the new penal code available to rights
> organizations, but agency workers suppose it will give force of law to the
> Qur'an-based "administrative regulations."
>
> These include the 23-year-old "regulation" against torturing prisoners.
> Amnesty International documented a 1996 case in which a Sudanese man
signed
> a murder confession-by Saudi authorities forcing his thumbprint onto a
> declaration of guilt-after police suspended him by thrusting steel poles
> through his knee and elbow joints. He was later executed.
>
> "The Saudis have a slew of administrative regulations on, for example,
> detention procedures, prison conditions, and access to prisoners," Sherry
> says. "The penal code might very well take all those regulations and
codify
> them into something that is a law. Whether they're adhered to is a
different
> matter."
>
> Any such progress will come slowly, and criticism of the proud Saudis will
> not be the primary agent for change, says David E. Long, a retired foreign
> service officer who worked in the region.
>
> By appealing to Saudi sources of authority and offering to serve in their
> social causes, Western Christians might, like Lawrence of Arabia, make the
> Saudis' struggle our struggle. That would entail finding a spiritual basis
> of mutual interest as powerful as the mundane one of oil for security. It
> also may mean identifying a common enemy-the Devil, as Magdangal prayed
> before he was to be hanged-rather than labeling each other as Satan. It's
a
> lofty undertaking, but Long, a former counter-terrorism official and
author
> of The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, notes that jihad has to do mainly with
> spiritual struggle.
>
> "Jihad is the suppression of vice, maybe by force, and the encouragement
of
> virtue, maybe by the sword, but nevertheless it's a broader concept," he
> says. "There's enough in Islam that is parallel and compatible with human
> rights that we could say, okay, fine, if you look at everything by Islamic
> law, but we encourage you to look at the human rights elements in
> Islam-after all, this is 'God's word.'"
>
> Jeff M. Sellers is an associate editor at Christianity Today.
>
> Copyright © 2002 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.
> July 8, 2002, Vol. 46, No. 8, Page 34
>
>
>
>
>
>
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