Just curious. Let’s say you’re a Saudi citizen and a supposed friend you had confided in tattles to the authorities that you are privately an atheist,
Will they come after you if you don’t go to prayers, or leave you alone if you are mostly a quiet, non-advertising atheist?
I would imagine they would kill you.
The term “kaffir” has a literal translation of pagan or athiest. It has a social translation of being such a shit-sucking scumbag that god hides his face from you. The Koran specifically says you should be killed.
First up, the Saudi constitution is the Koran. The Koran (as interpreted by Wahabis) prescribes the death penalty for apostasy.
Next, I don’t think you understand Muslim society. It’s simply not possible to quietly avoid going to prayers. Everyone, without exception, attends the mosque. Everyone knows everyone (as a result of everyone going to the mosque). Everyone would know there was something up. Everyone, of course, includes the police.
I can’t really think of a similar situation in the West. Maybe if you were a militant hardcore nudist. 100% nude 100% of the time. Folks would find PDQ that there was something “different” about you.
And then there are the consequences. AFAIK, there has only been one execution carried out in Saudi for apostasy in recent times. In 1992, Abdul-Karim Malallah was beheaded. Interestingly, he wasn’t an atheist or a recent convert to Christianity, his crime was a refusal to convert from Shia to Sunni Islam. The fact that he was allegedly a human rights activist campaigning for improved rights for the Shia minority might have been the deciding factor in his case.
The other side to “will they come after you” would be the much more likely scenario of being killed by members of your own village (or even family) as an honour killing.
Are there not foreign nationals working in Saudi Arabia? If so, are any of these non-Muslims? And if so, how do they fare?
This is GQ. Your imagination is irrelevant if you can’t back it up by citing actual Saudi policy or practice.
Unless I’m badly mistaken, atheism is a neither necessary nor sufficient condition for apostasy, so I’m not really sure what this data point is intended to demonstrate.
As Gorsnak wrote, apostasy and atheism are not the same thing. Apostasy is renouncing a religion. I was raised a Catholic and I don’t follow that religion anymore, so I’m an apostate Catholic - it makes no difference whether I became an atheist or a Baptist. But I was never a Muslim so I can’t be an apostate Muslim.
I have talked with a few people who have worked in Saudi Arabia. Their employers operate autonomous compounds, within which they can do pretty much what they want. In one case at the oil company Aramco, they could not import alcohol but were permitted to operate a still. Inside the compound I don’t think your religion or lack thereof would matter. I do not know about foreign nationals who would move freely about.
With luck, **Paul in Saudi ** will drop by soon.
But he said Saudi citizen. Saudi citizens must, by law, be Muslim. So for a Saudi citizen to profess atheism IS to commit apostasy. From the US State Dept report, 2004:
I presume that you must convert to Islam to have any chance of obtaining Saudi citizenship, and natural born Saudi citizens would be Muslim at birth.
11 years with Aramco checking in here. The compounds NOW are multicultural, that is they are not totally western in their make up. We had Saudi, Sudanese, Eygptians and other Arabs on ours. Owning and operating a still is strickly forbidden and you face servere penalties for having one on the compound. I am not saying that there weren’t some on the compounds but nothing compared to the hayday, before the 1980’s.
Concerning religion, Aramco hires ‘special teachers’ that are ministers and priests, there were told to preach only on the compounds and to Aramcons. The services were held in a secure site on Fridays. It was looked down upon to invite ‘outsiders’ to the services and security wouldn’t allow them on the compound. Under NO circumstances where the "special teachers’ to convert Muslims. Things really have changes since the suicide bombing at the Abqaiq (KSA)Plants in 2006 regarding who gets on these compounds.
Speaking to some Saudi workers, there are spies in the community who would report if you didn’t go to the mosque.
I’m not familiar with actual practice in Saudi Arabia, but traditional Islamic Law allows non-Muslims to live among a Muslim community as dhimmi. It’s not the same status as a full citizen, but it confers upon the dhimmi certain rights and the protection of the Islamic state in return for the payment of taxes and obedience to the Muslim rule.
Other than the obvious benefits of employment why would any non-Saudi want to live in such a place? I don’t care if the Saudis are allies or not, living in their country sounds like a nightmare to me.
Here I am.
As stated turning away from Islam is punishable by death. On the other hand I know a guy who reverted to Islam to get married and then came back (freshly divorced) as a Christian. On the visa application and the arrival card, they ask you your religion. Atheists are not allowed in (so say the guide book). In the Good Old Days, you had to show a baptism certificate to get a visa.
In any case, no organized religion (other than Islam) is allowed here. Still we are mostly left alone to do as we wish.
Nightmare? Anywhere a man can live, a man can live well.
Does any of that help?
English teachers there typically live in compounds, too. The pay is really good, but who wants to live in a compound? And the students tend to be spoiled brats.
I wonder what would happen to someone who goes outside of their compound and prayer time occurs. Do they have to pretend to “pray.”
Nope, we pretend to window shop. Sometimes we bang on the doors and demand to be let in. Sometimes we laugh at the Filipino staff who are laughing at us from inside.
Also, in furtherance of my previous comments …
The law in Saudi Arabia is most often not written down. The law is more or less what the policeman or judge says it is.
Also you have to understand, Islam is the state religion here. When I ask my friends about this they insist if you are an apostate you lose your Saudi citizenship. I am not saying that is true, but that is what they tell me.