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Racism in Saudi Arabia extends to allegations of imprisonment, physical abuse, rape, murder, [1] overwork, and wage theft, especially of foreign workers who are given little protections under the law.
The most prominent religious discrimination in Saudi Arabia is against the Shia sect of Islam minority in the Eastern and southern regions of Saudi.
According to a 2009 Human Rights Watch report, Shiite citizens in Saudi Arabia "face systematic discrimination in religion, education, justice, and employment". [2]
Though the majority of Saudis are Sunni, they still include many non-Wahhabis. These subgroups include different schools of thoughts and jurisprudence such as Hanafi, Maliki and Shafi’i with some also subscribing to Sufism.
Members of non-Wahhabi Sunni subgroups face varying levels of scrutiny and discrimination, including restricted religious freedoms due to the Wahhabi's definition of Sunni Islam along strict lines. Celebration of religious ceremonies such as Mawlid , [3] which is forbidden in Saudi Arabia, is a prime example of that.
Although there is discrimination against non-Muslims (usually Western foreigners, Jews, Christians, etc) in general this goes unnoticed as these cases are relatively uncommon compared to those of other minorities.
In Saudi Arabia, antisemitism is commonplace. Saudi Arabian media often denounces Jews in books, news articles and with what some describe as antisemitic satire. Saudi Arabian government officials and state religious leaders often promote the idea that Jews are conspiring to take over the entire world; as proof of their claims they publish and frequently cite the fictional work, The Protocols of the Elders of Zion as factual. [4] [5] [6] [ needs update ]
Human Rights Watch (HRW) describes the working conditions of foreign workers, most of whom come from developing countries in South Asia, as "near-slavery" and attributes them to "deeply rooted gender, religious, and racial discrimination". Workers are often unwilling to report their employers for fear of losing their jobs or further abuse. [7]
Saudi Arabia has more than 10.24 million foreign workers, who are engaged in manual, accounting, service and domestic work, accounting for one-third of the Kingdom's population and more than half of its workforce. [8]
In 2019, Saudi Arabia reportedly asked the WWE to remove Sami Zayn from the super showdown event that is taking place in Saudi Arabia due to his Syrian ethnicity. [9]
In the Arabian peninsula generally the tribe (qabila) refers not only to a blood relation but also to a social status. Tribal (qabili or asil) people assign themselves into inferior and superior tribes that assume purity in blood and root (asl). [10]
This form of discrimination has roots in the vicious tribal wars and conflicts which predated Saudi Arabia.
Matrimony between individuals of qabila and khadiri stock, and between individuals of superior and inferior tribes, is frowned upon. This is because qabili status itself depends on purity of paternal lineage. Children of mixed marriages would carry mixed blood which would reflect on the position of the tribe as a whole. [11]
Favoritism of one's own tribe to others in many matters, including those in which it is prohibited to do so such as in governmental affairs, is common.
In Najd region, all freeborn citizens who cannot claim tribal descent are unofficially called non-asil orKhadiri. [12] This group included many of the urban tradesmen, artisans, merchants, and scholars of pre-oil Arabia.
Historically, rule in Najd villages towns, and larger politics was regularly held by the tribal (asil) groups while Khadiri people generally were held to an inferior social status. [10]
Intermarrying with Khadiri can lead to an asil and resulting progeny losing their designation. [10]
Descendants of slaves (abid) are often considered Khadiri even if some have the name of tribes. This is because slaves used to take the name of the people they were serving. Use of the term abid is considered an insult.
Hejazi Hadar are Saudi citizens of non-tribal, non-Bedouin origins in the urban areas of Hejaz region, colloquially called Hadar (city-dwellers). These include multi-ethnic citizens from Medina and Taif in the Hejaz area, and from Jeddah, Mecca, and Yanbu in the Hejazi part of the Tihamah. The Hadar in these places are known by their distinctive dialect yet contrasting physical features. [13] Their diversity is largely due to their ancestors migration to Hejaz, cradle of Islam, from all over the world prior or in the early days of the Saudi reign. [14]
Saudi Bedouins call Saudis of non-Bedouin origins "Sea Refuse" (Tarsh Bahar), [15] a derogatory term largely used for Hejazi Hadar that dates back to the fall of the kingdom of Hejaz. "Pilgrims’ remains" (bagaya hujjaj) is another phrase used unflatteringly.
Hejazi Hadar, on the other hand, consider themselves more sophisticated and civilized, while the Bedouin population see themselves as racially pure. [12] Hejazi Hadar sometimes answer back by calling Bedouins Soroob, meaning backward or savage people. However, the term Badawi, singular form of Bedouin, is sometimes used on its own to disparagingly mean a provincial, naive, and unsophisticated person.
Hejazi Hadar, as a minority, face many forms of formal and informal discrimination. Employment discrimination is one of those where they are underrepresented in leadership and government positions and are not usually allowed into the military services, with exceptions. Social discrimination in marriages also exist on both sides.
Religious discrimination also exists. Though the majority of Hejazi Hadar are Sunni, they, unlike the majority of Bedouin, belong to a variety of Islamic schools of jurisprudence like Sufism. All those who don't consider themselves Wahhabis face discrimination for that as well.
Saudi Arabia has long been against Iranians and Shias. It supported Iraq during the Iran-Iraq war. [16]
Following Hamza Kashgari's controversial messages, racist comments in reference to his Turkmen family background were made against him on Twitter as "[not being] enough of a 'pure' Saudi". [17]
In 2013, Saudi Arabia deported Omar Borkan Al Gala and two other men for no reasons, other than the fact that they looked good. [18]
Jamal Khashoggi was a prominent Hejazi Hadar of Turkish origin, who was later murdered in 2018.
Racism or Tribalism of any kind is prohibited in Saudi media. Violators are punished and may be banned from media platforms. Recently King Salman's nephew was banned from media after referring to an individual as "tarsh bahar" during a call to a sports program. [19]
The history of Saudi Arabia as a nation state began with the emergence of the Al Saud dynasty in central Arabia in 1727 and the subsequent establishment of the Emirate of Diriyah. Pre-Islamic Arabia, the territory that constitutes modern Saudi Arabia, was the site of several ancient cultures and civilizations; the prehistory of Saudi Arabia shows some of the earliest traces of human activity in the world.
The Hejaz is a region that includes the majority of the west coast of Saudi Arabia, covering the cities of Mecca, Medina, Jeddah, Tabuk, Yanbu, Taif and Baljurashi. It is thus known as the "Western Province", and it is bordered in the west by the Red Sea, in the north by Jordan, in the east by the Najd, and in the south by the Region of 'Asir. Its largest city is Jeddah, which is the second-largest city in Saudi Arabia, with Mecca and Medina, respectively, being the fourth- and fifth-largest cities in the country.
The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is an Islamic absolute monarchy in which Sunni Islam is the official state religion based on firm Sharia law. Non-Muslims must practice their religion in private and are vulnerable to discrimination and arrest. While no law requires all citizens to be Muslim, non-Muslim foreigners attempting to acquire Saudi Arabian nationality must convert to Islam. Children born to Muslim fathers are by law deemed Muslim.
The Wahhabi war, also known as the Ottoman-Saudi War, (1811–1818) was fought from early 1811 to 1818, between the Ottoman Empire, their vassal and ally the Eyalet of Egypt, and the Emirate of Diriyah, the First Saudi State, resulting in the destruction of the latter.
The Emirate of Diriyah, also known as the First Saudi State, was established in February 1727. In 1744, the emir of a Najdi town called Diriyah, Muhammad bin Saud, and the religious leader Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab signed a pact to found a socio-religious reform movement to unify the many states of the Arabian Peninsula.
Sunni Islam is the state religion of Saudi Arabia. The kingdom is called the "home of Islam"; it was the birthplace of the Islamic prophet Muhammad, who united and ruled the Arabian Peninsula. It is the location of the cities of Mecca and Medina, where Prophet Muhammad lived and died, and are now the two holiest cities of Islam. The kingdom attracts millions of Muslim Hajj pilgrims annually, and thousands of clerics and students who come from across the Muslim world to study. The official title of the King of Saudi Arabia is "Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques"—the two being Al-Masjid al-Haram in Mecca and Al-Masjid al-Nabawi in Medina—which are considered the holiest in Islam.
The Ikhwan, commonly known as Ikhwan man ata'a Allah, was a Wahhabi religious militia made up of traditionally nomadic tribesmen which formed a significant military force of the ruler Ibn Saud and played an important role in establishing him as ruler of most of the Arabian Peninsula in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
The Banu Bakr bin Wa'il, or simply Banu Bakr, today known as Bani Bakr an Arabian tribe belonging to the large Rabi'ah, a branch of Adnanite tribe. The tribe is reputed to have engaged in a 40-year war before Islam with its cousins from Taghlib, known as the War of Basous. The pre-Islamic poet, Tarafah was a Bakry.
Harb is an Arab tribe in the Arabian peninsula. It is originally a Qahtanite tribe. Some sources on Arab tribes' genealogy state that the great-grandfather of the Harb tribe is Harb ibn Saad ibn Saad ibn Khawlan ibn Amr ibn Qadha'ah ibn Himyar ibn Qahtan. Harb tribal lands extend from the Red Sea coast in Tihamah to the heart of Najd in the central region of Saudi Arabia, and from North the Harbi lands extend from Madinah to Al Qunfudhah in the south. The tribe's reach extends to other Arab countries like Kuwait, Iraq, Bahrain and UAE.
The article describes the state of race relations and racism in the Middle East. Racism is widely condemned throughout the world, with 174 states parties to the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination by April 8, 2011. In different countries, the forms that racism takes may be different for historic, cultural, religious, economic or demographic reasons.
The Unification of Saudi Arabia was a military and political campaign in which the various tribes, sheikhdoms, city-states, emirates, and kingdoms of most of the central Arabian Peninsula were conquered by the House of Saud, or Al Saud. Unification started in 1902 and continued until 1932, when the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia was proclaimed under the leadership of Abdulaziz, known in the West as Ibn Saud, creating what is sometimes referred to as the Third Saudi State, to differentiate it from the Emirate of Diriyah, the First Saudi State and the Emirate of Nejd, the Second Saudi State, also House of Saud states.
The destruction of heritage sites associated with early Islam is an ongoing phenomenon that has occurred mainly in the Hejaz region of western Saudi Arabia, particularly around the two holiest cities of Islam, Mecca and Medina. The demolition has focused on mosques, burial sites, homes and historical locations associated with the Islamic prophet Muhammad, his companions, and many of the founding personalities of early Islamic history by the Saudi government. In Saudi Arabia, many of the demolitions have officially been part of the continued expansion of the Masjid al-Haram at Mecca and the Prophet's Mosque in Medina and their auxiliary service facilities in order to accommodate the ever-increasing number of Muslims performing the pilgrimage (hajj).
The Saudi government does not conduct a census on religion or ethnicity, but some sources estimate the Shia population in Saudi Arabia to make up around 20% of the approximately 34 million natives of Saudi Arabia.
Islam is the state religion of Saudi Arabia.
The Vilayet of the Hejaz refers to the Hejaz region of Arabia when it was administered as a first-level province (vilayet) of the Ottoman Empire. At the beginning of the 20th century, it reportedly had an area of 96,500 square miles (250,000 km2). The Hejaz included all land from the southern border of the Vilayet of Syria, south of the city of Ma‛an, to the northern border of the Vilayet of Yemen, north of the city of Al Lith.
The Saudi conquest of Hejaz or the Second Saudi-Hashemite War, also known as the Hejaz-Nejd War, was a campaign engaged by Saudi Sultan Abdulaziz to take over the Hashemite Kingdom of Hejaz in 1924–25, ending with conquest and incorporation of Hejaz into the Saudi domain.
Saudis or Saudi Arabians are an ethnic group and nation native to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, who speak the Arabic language, a Central Semitic language, and share a common ancestry, history, and culture. They are mainly composed of Arabs and live in the five historical Regions: Najd, Hejaz, Asir, Tihamah and Al-Ahsa; the regions which the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia was founded on or what was formerly known as the Kingdom of Hejaz and Nejd in the Arabian Peninsula. Saudis speak one of the dialects of Peninsular Arabic, including the Hejazi, Najdi, Gulf and Southern Arabic dialects, as a mother tongue.
The Qatif and Dammam mosque bombings occurred on 22 and 29 May 2015. On Friday May 22, a suicide bomber attacked the Shia "Imam Ali ibn Abi Talib Mosque" situated in Qudeih village of Qatif city in Eastern Province, Saudi Arabia. The Islamic State claimed responsibility for the blast, which killed at least 21 people. The event is the second deadly attack against Shia in six months.
Al-Baqi cemetery, the oldest and one of the two most important Islamic graveyards located in Medina, in current-day Saudi Arabia, was demolished in 1806 and, following reconstruction in the mid-19th century, was destroyed again in 1925 or 1926. An alliance of the House of Saud and the followers of the Wahhabi movement known as the Emirate of Diriyah carried out the first demolition. The Sultanate of Nejd, also ruled by the House of Saud and followers of Wahhabism, carried out the second. In both cases, the actors were motivated by the Wahhabi interpretation of Islam, which prohibits the building of monuments on graves.
The Wahhabi movement started as a revivalist and reform movement in the Arabian Peninsula during the early 18th century, whose adherents described themselves as "Muwahhidun" (Unitarians). A young Hanbali cleric named Muhammad ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhab, the leader of the Muwahhidun and eponym of the Wahhabi movement, called upon his disciples to denounce certain beliefs and practices associated with cult of saints as idolatrous impurities and innovations in Islam (bid'ah). His movement emphasized adherence to the Quran and hadith, and advocated the use of ijtihad. Eventually, Ibn 'Abd al-Wahhab formed a pact with a local leader, Muhammad bin Saud, offering political obedience and promising that protection and propagation of the Wahhabi movement meant "power and glory" and rule of "lands and men".
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