The story is that the Brit, Peter Haworth, and his Saudi wife were out shopping in a supermarket, and after collecting the goods they wanted, proceeded to a checkout that was reserved for women and families. When the religious police spotted this, they went over and challenged him by demanding to know why he was using a checkout that had a female cashier. He explained that he was with his wife.
After paying and then proceeding outside, Mr Haworth and his wife were then followed by these religious nuts who had taken it upon themselves to decide that they wanted “evidence” of some supposed wrong doing, and proceeded to take pictures of Mr Haworth and also his car. In response, Mr Haworth took pictures of them and their car, and this greatly upset them, so they demanded he hand over his camera, but he refused.
Things then quickly escalated and one of the bearded religious police pounced on Mr Haworth knocking him to the ground while he shouted that he was with his wife.
Here is a clip of that moment …
Freeing themselves from the physical assault, the couple jumped into their car and locked the doors, prompting Commission members to pound on the windows and to ask them to get out.
The couple refused and called the police to rescue them. However, when the policemen arrived and saw that members of the Commission were involved, they drove off
In the end it was resolved by the British Embassy being called. They dispatched a mission car that picked the couple up and took them home.
Was this an unusual event?
No, not at all, such behaviour by the religious police is quite common in Saudi Arabia. What is however highly unusual is that it has been reported in the media.
Islam
This is how fundamental conservative Islam behaves when given free reign. It forces itself upon everybody, and any who dare to fall out of line will be rapidly and sometimes brutally dealt with.
Hatred For Islam
The last time I blogged some criticism of Islam and then posted a link on Facebook a couple of days ago, up popped some Muslims from the Ahmadi community to declare that I obviously hated Islam, and demanded that I should not “defame Islam”.
Hey guys, if you are reading this, then I have some points for you to consider …
- If you feel I am, to borrow your words, “defaming Islam” again, them pause and consider the observation that I am simply commenting on a very small sample of some of the truly abhorrent behaviour that is continuously being manifested by those that profess to be deeply religious and “true” followers of Mohammed and his teachings. There truly is far worse out there.
- This is one small isolated example that is all too sadly common, and while you might wish that I restricted myself to other beliefs such as Christianity, it is generally the Islamic community that takes on the guise of violent thugs, so they get the criticism.
- If you truly do not wish to see such criticism, then don’t read my blog, it’s not mandatory, you can simply just not read it.
Why The Intolerance?
What is true for almost ever variation of belief is an intolerance for every other variation of belief or non-belief. For some, this will simply consist of open discrimination against others with different beliefs or for simply being different. However, when it comes to many variations of Islam, this intolerance gets taken to an entirely different level and will even inspire and motivate violence, intimidation, and even murder.
All this is also usually justified as the directives of the specific god of choice because the bible, quran, etc… says that such behaviour is just fine. When you embrace ideas at a deep emotional level, then tolerance for any competing ideas tends to get kicked to the curb.
Ask Yourself Questions
If you truly are religious, then here are a couple of questions to ask yourself. There is no right or wrong answer here, this is simply for you to ponder over.
- Why do I believe what I believe?
- How confident am I that it is really true, and why do I hold that degree of confidence?
- Others hold different beliefs with the same degree of confidence and for very similar reasons. I dismiss them and false, so in what way is my specific belief different from their “wrong” belief?
- If I discovered that my belief was not really true, would I be able to come to terms with that and let go, would I be capable of doing so? If not, then why not?
- Is there anything that would actually change my mind?
- Why do other people reject my belief as false?