Here is a question for my Saudi readers: Have you ever been to the national museum?

One of the many problems regarding the religious police in Saudi Arabia is that they don’t know when they cross the line. I really suspect they know there is a line in the first place. They think that they can do whatsoever they want, just because they are doing it under the name of religion. What they should know is that using religion to achieve goals on their private agenda has nothing to do with religion. Actually, it is against religion.

Recently, the religious police have banned a play (Arabic) in Safwa, east of Saudi Arabia, because it has included a male actor who plays a role of a woman. As far as I know, female actors are not allowed to take part in such plays, but the law says nothing about a male actor playing the role of a woman. Moreover, this play was already permitted by the ministry of culture of information, which is the government body responsible for regulating such activities. So, how could the religious police interfere in this matter?

The religious police have justified their action saying there is a fatwa issued by the governmental Permanent Committee for Scientific Research and Fatwa, a committee that prominent Saudi scholar Abdul-Mohsen Al-Obeikan once described as the “sleeping committee,” that prohibits acting scenes which include men imitating women. Such fatwa is just another example of many fatwa’s that make no sense, and unfortunately, there are many people out there ready to defend them.

These fatwa’s, and the scholars behind them, are just making life here worse for everybody by getting their nose in every freaking side of our already messed up lives. I also got the feeling that this case, like many other previous cases where the religious police were involved, has a sectarian aspect, but I won’t comment on it, because I don’t want to get accused with sectarianism; an accusation, along with antinationalism and Americanism, that I frequently get since I started this blog less than two years ago.

Technorati tags: Saudi, Saudi Arabia, Religious Police, theatre, fatwa.

I’m back, finally. I would like to thank all of you who left comments on my posts during my absence. Also, thanks to the Blogger team for including me in their Blogs of Note list. You could see that I have made some minor design modifications. I have reorganized the sidebar and made it easier for you to add your comments. Now, let’s get some serious blogging done…

I know I’m just back from a break, but I’m afraid I have to take yet another break, because my finals have been rescheduled earlier than I expected. Anyways, I’ll be back after 2-3 weeks. Wish me luck.

Last Wednesday has witnessed a special occasion for football fans in Saudi Arabia. The Spanish team Valencia, one of Europe’s strongest sides, has visited the country to play a friendly match against the local champions Al-Hilal, in honor of Yousef Al-Thunian, the former captain of Al-Hilal and the national team, who retired two years ago.

I was so excited to go to King Fahad International Stadium in Riyadh to watch the match, and to see some of my favorite football stars closely. With names such as Santiago Canzares, Pablo Aimar, and Mesta, I was afraid that Al-Hilal would not be able to compete with Valencia. However, the Saudi team was good enough to defeat the expectations, and outplayed the Spanish side, winning 2-1.

Of course, Valencia have not played their best until the last 15 minutes, when they scored their only goal, but still, Al-Hilal’s victory was a good accomplishment, at least from a psychological and historical points of view.

The event was almost perfect, but it was disturbed by some Saudi hooligans, who disrupted the beautiful picture when they started throwing half-empty water bottles, 10 minutes before the end of the match. This was not the only annoyance at the match. I don’t know how or why, but every time I go to the stadium, I find myself surrounded by some idiots and psychos who think a football match is a good opportunity to show off their misbehaviors in public.

I hate it that we don’t have a football culture here in Saudi Arabia, and it was very embarrassing to look this way in front of our guests whom we invited to honor our own player. It is a shame that instead of giving foreigners a nice image about our country, we throw bottles at them.

I have been using the Ubuntu Linux Live CD for a couple of days now, and what I can say is that I really like it. It is easy to use, the interface is not very different from what I’m used to, and it is even more elegant and stylish than Windows. So far, almost everything works fine, except for the modem (is this a common problem?), but I think I can easily fix this when I do the full install. The first thing I will do after finishing my final exams is to wipe Windows away from my machine, and get Linux fully installed.

Earlier this week, I was driving my car in al-Takhasosi St. with a friend of mine, when a police car followed me, and the officer inside it told me to pullover. I stopped my car, and did not get off, waiting for the police officer to, and wondering what I have done wrong. He came to me, and asked for my license and registration papers. I gave them to him.

He looked at them, and then asked me, “Where do you live?” I told him I live in al-Mohammadiya. “What is your job?” he asked, and I said I’m a student at KSU. “But the address on your license says ‘Hassa, Hufouf.’ How do you say that you live in al-Mohammadiya?” Here, I started to question the mental abilities of this guy. “Yes, I originally come from Hassa, the eastern region, but I moved here recently to study at the university,” I said.

“But the address here is not al-Mohammadiya, and you said you live in al-Mohammadiya,” he told me. I did not know how to respond to this, so I just repeated my last sentence. He told me to wait, and took my papers with him to the police car. After a few minutes, he came back, gave me my papers, and told me, “You can go, Allah yester 3laiyk.” He left, and I was like WTF?! He stopped me for no obvious reasons, wasted my time, and then left without even apologizing to me? Our police forces should really consider teaching their employees some manners.