From CDHR
November 14, 2007
Admonish and Beat Wives, But Don’t Disfigure Them
By Ali Alyami
Dr. Muhammad Al-‘Arifi, a prominent Saudi cleric with substantial and mostly young followers, exerts substantial influence on his young audience. He is allowed to promote his denigrating and barbaric treatment of women on Saudi government national TV. Dr. Mohammed Al-Arifi is a young, handsome and charismatic religious preacher, which makes him all the more dangerous. He is a religious extremist who denounces non-Muslims and non-Wahhabi adherents and calls for jihad against Christians, Hindus and Jews. He reinforces the state’s imposed theocratic policies against women, religious minorities and anyone who does not adhere to his austere brand of Islam, Wahhabism.
While it would be incorrect to characterize all Saudi men as wife beaters and all Saudi women as sitting ducks, it is important to understand that Saudi women have no legal protection. Men can easily beat their wives, divorce them and prevent them from doing anything they do not accept. Saudi women are subject to the men’s and state’s unjustified subjugations, deprivations and denial of their basic rights to earn a living or own property. They cannot even rent a hotel room to spend the night if they have nowhere to go or drive their children to emergency rooms to save their lives. According to the Saudi-Wahhabi rules, this is the will of God and is in compliance with its “only pure and righteous religion,” Islam. This travesty has very little to do with religion, tradition or culture. It is an improvised Saudi-Wahhabi draconian tool to divide people and turn them against each other. This is done to eliminate social, political, economic and educational contacts between Saudi men and women.