Category Archives: Middle East Women

Arab Politics, Arabian Peninsula, Culture, Donald Trump, Islam, Middle East Women, Saudi Arabia, Women

Donald Trump the Peacemaker: New Apostle of Wahhabi Islam and Virgin Drivers……

September 28, 2017 Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

“The imam of the grand mosque of Mecca has claimed Donald Trump, the US and Saudi Arabia are “steering the world to peace”, in comments during a visit to New York that sparked an outcry on social media. They are “steering the world and humanity to the ports of security, peace and prosperity,” he added, claiming that the two countries should unite to “combat terrorism” and to “realise security and international peace”. The conference, on ‘Civilisational communication between the United States of America and the Islamic World‘…….”

No doubt the royal princes are now throwing all their eggs into the basket of Donald Trump. George W Bush refused to do their bidding in the Persian Gulf and wage another war after Iraq. Barack Obama mocked their sectarian war demands in his Atlantic Magazine interview. They have tried to get Netanyahu to go to war on their behalf, but he is no fool: he has been all talk and no action as far as my Gulf is concerned.

During the Riyadh Summit/Circus last May, I posted here about Donald Trump as the Sixth Pillar of Wahhabi Islam. I was referring to the extremely deferential way the Saudi leaders treated Donald Trump, knowing his proclivity for praise (and money). His near-anointment as a sort of guardian of Islam (to the cheers of General Al Sisi, Steve Bannon and Sebastian Gorka). Even the top Saudi clerics in Mecca praised Trump in their speeches during the summit (as they were allegedly ordered to do so).

Now comes the “mother of all praises”. The Imam of the Holy Shrine in Mecca, no less, has opined that the world depends on the Saudi king and Donald Trump for peace. Now, you can’t kiss it lower or better than this. It is very likely that Mr. Trump will believe all this. The Saudi king, like all Arab kings, knows better. They also know his weaknesses: they are buying Trump, and not only with money….

In 2011, a Saudi scholar/cleric wrote a study for the appointed Shura Council about women and driving. In it he warned that if Saudi women were allowed to drive, that would be the end of virginity in the magic kingdom. The men were given a choice: women drivers or virginity. Possibly something in the local water made a woman go wild as soon as she got hold of a car’s steering wheel (rather suggestive, don’t you think?).
Apparently all this has changed, now the Wahhabi clerics believe that Saudi women can drive and keep their virginity….

I suspect President Donald Trump can now publicly take credit for this new driving policy that also allows women to keep their virginity even as they drive cars.
Interesting times we live in, no?

Cheers
M. Haider Ghuloum

Arab Revolutions, Arabian Peninsula, Culture, GCC, MENA, Middle East Women, Misogyny, Saudi Arabia, Uncategorized

Riyadh Summit Mystery: Two Exotic American Women at Muslim Stag Party, but What Happened to All Saudi Women?……..

May 21, 2017 Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

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Where are the Saudi women?

Here are First Lady Melania Trump and Ivanka Trump in the middle of hundreds, nay thousands, of Muslim Arab men, mostly Wahhabis. And not a single other Saudi woman. Not at the airport, not anywhere else within sight. You’d think it is a huge stag party and the two American women are the exotic performers.
One rare independent Arab media that is not Saudi-controlled headlined, no doubt jokingly from the safety of London: Ivanka praises Saudi progress in Women Rights. But nary a Saudi woman anywhere around.

Which reminds me of a shocking fact of the Riyadh Summit ignored by Western, especially American, media. Where are the Saudi women? There has been not a single Saudi woman during the whole process. None of the King’s or the princes’ wives showed up at the airport to greet Melania and Ivanka. None was present at the meetings, nor at the so-called Arab-Islamic-American summit.

What happened? Did the Saudis hide and lock up all their women in the cellars? Or did they have them all chained and handcuffed to their respective beds?

Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

Fatwa, Human Right, Middle East Women, Misogyny, Saudi Arabia, U.S. Foreign Policy, United Nations International Organizations

A Farce is Not a Joke: Saudi Arabia ‘Elected’ to UN Commission on Women…….

April 24, 2017 Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

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“Electing Saudi Arabia to protect women’s rights is like making an arsonist into the town fire chief,” Hillel Neuer said.

“Saudi Arabia was elected to the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women. The addition of the Gulf nation was first flagged by UN Watch, a nongovernmental body that monitors the United Nations. The Commission on the Status of Women’s main mission is to assess the challenges to reaching gender inequality, according to the U.N. website. The organization’s executive director slammed the election, which occurred in a secret vote during the U.N.’s Economic and Social Council. Neuer called the election “absurd,”……..”

This is a serious news item, it is not a joke. It is a farce, like everything involving Saudi Arabia and the United Nations and its Human Rights Council. But it is not a joke: done in the dark of the night, in a secret vote, no doubt a Fatwa engineered by a shameless Nikki Haley and the humorous British ambassador to the UN.
It is getting even better: the Misogynous Humorless Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, a top U.S. ally, is also on the U.N. Human Rights Council.

Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

Arabian Peninsula, Culture, Fatwas, Middle East Women, religious police, Saudi Arabia, Women

Saudi Women in a City Without Women: Making Arabia Great Again?……….

April 4, 2017 Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

Saudi women face a dilemma that nobody in the Kingdom without Magic can solve, not even the new power-to-be, the young Crown Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman. A serious problem of physical mobility:

A Saudi woman cannot drive a car anywhere in the country, she is not allowed. Illegal, verboten. Fatwas abound against it.
A Saudi woman can’t ride the country’s terrible public transport. She would have to ride a public transport bus with strange unrelated men, forbidden. Most of the riders of these public transports tend to be from among the millions of single woman-less laborers from other Third World countries.
A Saudi woman can’t ride a bicycle or a motorcycle, not allowed. Not even use a moped or roller skates.
She is not allowed to ride a horse or a mule or a donkey (or any unrelated jackass) or a camel either in the city.
A Saudi woman can’t walk to her destination, a very healthy exercise. Not really allowed: she can easily be accosted and even arrested by the Religious Police (Wahhabi Vice Squad) for ‘walking the streets’. Besides, it can be otherwise risky in a country full of hungry young woman-less men.
A Saudi woman can’t ride a taxi openly, technically. Since women are not allowed to drive, there are no women taxi drivers. She is not supposed to ride alone with an unrelated man, a strange male taxi driver (check this post on Mike Pence and dining alone with unrelated women and the Devil). She could be stopped and questioned if caught joyless riding with a strange man. Some of the cops will even look for the Devil in the back seat, literally.

One senior Wahhabi cleric warned several years ago that allowing women to drive would mean that there will be no ‘virgins’ left in the kingdom. I posted on that at the time here. That is how serious of a divide this issue is. A dilemma that exists in no other Middle East country, with all its economic and demographic implications. Can’t Make the Arabian Peninsula Great Again (MAPGA has a nice ring to it) without resolving it…….
Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

Arabian Peninsula, Culture, Middle East Women, religious police, Saudi Arabia, Sex

Sex and Starbucks in Riyadh: Wahhabi Logic ……..

February 11, 2016 Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

Some Arab media report that the Saudi Commission for the Propagation of Vice (the Religious Police/Vice Squad) has issued an order banning women from entering Starbucks cafes. Saudi women who have a hankering for a latte or mocha now have to send their drivers (usually unrelated Asian males) into the shop to purchase what they need. A sign on the window of a Stabucks would read “Please no women allowed entry. Send your driver to get your order“.

So the woman are not allowed entry because there are also men in the cafe, yet the woman is allowed to be “alone” with a driver in a dark and “very private” car or SUV. Saudi women are not allowed to drive cars or ride motorcycles or bicycles or mopeds or skates. And we all know what happens when a Saudi woman in Burqa or Niqab is alone in a dark car or SUV with a male foreign driver. Satan will not be far! According to Wahhabi logic, the Devil will make it a threesome.

Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

Libya, Middle East Women, North Africa, United Nations International Organizations

Grand Mufti of Libya Orders Women to Relax and Enjoy Violence against women………

March 12, 2013 Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

“The Grand Mufti of Libya, Sheikh Sadeq Al-Ghariani has issued a fatwa against a UN report on violence against woman, calling on Muslim women around the world to protest against it. The 32-page report from the UN’s Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) calls for greater action by governments to protect women and girls from violence as well as spread awareness of women’s rights and do more to challenge discrimination. The statement from the Grand Mufti read that it “strongly condemns the provisions of the charter….………….”

Liberated Libya is doing some things that Colonel Qaddafi would not have condoned. He would not have stood for this type of misogyny. The colonel did, reportedly, have his own form of misogyny and abuse of women. But like many Arab despots he did have pretensions of being progressive on some issues. I shall not bore you by mentioning a possible liberated Syria and what it might be like if…………..

Cheers
mhg

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Death Penalty, Middle East Women, Saudi Arabia, Slavery

Unholy Human Trafficking in a Holy Land………..

June 23, 2012 Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

Neck of the woods

“And the storybook comes to a close.
Gone are the ribbons and bows.
Things to remember, places to go,
Pretty maids all in a row………..” The Eagles

“The Kenyan government has barred its citizens from becoming domestic workers in the Middle East, notably the Gulf region, after an increasing number of reports of violence and abuse have been reported. Women from the country have returned to Kenya with horror stories of sexual violence at the hands of the employers, mainly in Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates……. Until the new rules are ready, Kenyan citizens are barred from seeking work in the Middle East as domestic workers. Earlier this year, Saudi Arabia sent a team to Kenya to discuss the issue. The Saudi government insisted their laws protect foreign workers. Maids from across the globe often complain of horrible treatment in the Gulf, singling out Saudi Arabia as the main culprit of violations, including rape and sexual abuse……….”

As I posted here at an earlier date: Indonesia stopped sending housemaids to Saudi Arabia because some of them have been beheaded over there and there are many others on death row waiting for their heads to be chopped off. There have also been cases of foreign housemaids being tortured and killed by their employees. Apparently the Saudis can’t do without foreign housemaids, even though local unemployment is in the double digits (and over 30% for young adults). Their national motto seems to be borrowed from an old American campaign slogan: “Two cars and two maids in every house“. They also can’t do without beheading people.
I have also posted on this issue this past year:
Here,
as well as Here, and Here, and other dates.

Cheers
mhg
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Culture, Middle East Women

Pictorial: MENA Dances, Middle East Kisses……….

May 14, 2012 Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

Neck of the woods

           SuperPowerMyAss                    Mother’s Day or Campaigning?

KissingAsses in Bahrain                                         Kissing in Kuwait

Prelude to a kiss: Blair & Qaddafi dancing           Its kosher: he’s anti-Zionist

Will u still love me after the fall? Close you eyes and I’ll kiss you, tomorrow I’ll miss you

Cheers
mhg

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Arab Politics, Arabian Peninsula, Egypt, Middle East Women, Saudi Arabia

Saudi Election Debates, Wild Women Drivers, the Mufti and a Catholic Riyal…….

May 11, 2012 Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

Egypt held its first ever presidential debate this week. I watched part of it on the internet. Many Arabs watched, fascinated by this very first election debate in any Arab state. The excitement was so widespread that many Saudis wished they could have their leaders debate before they take whatever office they inherit.
The so-called “liberal” wing of the al-Saud dynasty were also excited. So-called “liberal” because they think that eventually women should be able to drive cars, as soon as the king and the mufti agree that: (a) they have enough brains to handle it (I know women in the Arabian Peninsula and the Gulf region have more or better brains than men: that is why university requirements are much lower for men), and (b) that they have enough sense not to have intercourse with the first driver who blows his horn at them on the road, they all hasten to add.
Meanwhile it is possible that the princes are discussing borrowing the Egyptian experience by having them debate each other to decide who gets what job (king, first prime minister, second prime minister, minister of defense, interior, etc etc). The idea is that the princes would debate each other behind closed doors, that ordinary mortal folks will not get to watch their betters vie for the jobs they were born to get. If no one is voted to have won a debate, rival princes being rival princes, they would flip a riyal coin (head or tail) to decide the winner. The Mufti (Shaikh Al Al Shaikh) would flip the coin according to Wahhabi tradition, just to make it all legit and kosher.

(The Mufti Al probably hasn’t a clue as to the infidel origins of the Riyal. He probably doesn’t know that the “Riyal”, as well as the “Rial” come from the Spanish “Real” meaning “Royal”. He probably rather not know that the coin of the Wahhabi realm bears a Catholic name, that it refers to one or two of their Most Catholic Majesties of Spain (could even be Fernando y Ysabel).
Cheers
mhg

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Espionage, Middle East Women, religious police, Saudi Arabia

Propagation of Vice: Saudi Religious Police, the Ten Commandments, and Spying on Women…….

April 15, 2012 Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

“An official within the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice [CPVPV] acknowledged that the organization is having trouble monitoring female-only gatherings, particularly in light of reports that illicit and illegal activities are taking place at such gatherings. The source attributed the CPVPV’s failure to get to the bottom of what is happening at female-only gatherings to the absence of female CPVPV operatives. The CPVPV official, who spoke to Asharq Al-Awsat on the condition of anonymity, said that “we have received unconfirmed reports that behaviour contrary to Islamic Sharia law is taking place at closed female-only gatherings. These reports are unconfirmed due to the absence of female CPVPV operatives who can transfer credible information on this issue.” He added “in addition to this, some people may be providing the CPVPV with inaccurate or false reports.” The CPVPV official stressed that “in this regard, the CPVPV relies on other means [to uncover what is happening at female-only gatherings], including receiving reports from sources close to those taking part in such gatherings, as well as contacting the sites where such gatherings take place.”………….”

The Saudi Commission for the Propagation of Vice is worried that “behavior contrary to Islamic Sharia” may be taking place in gatherings where there are only women in the Kingdom of Segregation. Hence there are hints they might hire women to spy on gatherings of women. Now what kind of immoral behavior can there be in gatherings of women? There are no men at such gatherings, and the Saudi shaikhs probably cringe at the thought that some of them might be lesbians (some of the women not some of their shaikhs). The only “immoral” behavior possible is that they might discuss politics.
Now gatherings of Saudi men are monitored, spied upon, and if necessary banned. The one major weak spot in this police state are women and their gatherings. The hairy perverts of the religious police can’t sneak into women gatherings, not unless they shave their beards (which, by their beliefs, might send them to hell), and don an abaya and a burqa (or niqab), plus some black kohl around their spying Wahhabi eyes.
Hence the idea of looking into hiring women spies. The official media and semi-official media (like Asharq Alawsat of Prince Salman) are trying to make it seem like a “progressive” step; spying on women at their tea parties.

Speaking of “behavior contrary to Islamic Sharia”, have they tried spying on the princes and potentates? Besides the usual “immoral” behavior, there are a lot of “financial” irregularities that would have them condemned in the days of early Islam. Stealing and corruption are also against Islamic Sharia. Hell, they are even against the Ten Commandments of Moses.
Cheers
mhg

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Arabia Deserta: MENA Focus