SAUDI ARABIA: We can dance if we want to
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Rarely does a Saudi citizen publicly criticize the country’s religious fundamentalists. The kingdom is steeped in traditional Islam and restricts freedom of speech.
So when Sheik Abdul Mohsen al-Obaikan, an adviser to the Saudi Ministry of Justice and a member of the Kingdom’s Council of senior Islamic scholars, launched an attack, it raised eyebrows.
The controversy started when Obaikan was filmed taking part in a traditional Bedouin sword dance at a wedding. Not with a woman, mind you, but simply a local dance performed by men called the ardha.
The video was posted on the Internet, and, of course, his act angered the Wahhabi clerics who follow a strict version of Sunni Islam that prohibits dancing and singing.
But Obaikan is apparently not a big fan of such strict interpretations. He admitted to the daily Asharq al-Awsat newspaper that he danced at his nephew’s wedding.
“I do not care about those who seek to turn our weddings into funerals,” he told the paper.
There is nothing in the Koran forbidding Muslims to show joy and take part in entertaining folk dances at happy events. The Sheik told Asharq al-Awsat such dances are recognized in the Islamic law, the Sharia:
Demonstrating one’s skills with arrows and swords is religiously permitted and the Prophet Mohammed approved of that.
The Sheik has held relatively moderate views in the past. He supported women’s right to drive and has criticized politically motivated suicide bombings. His opponents have described him as “the cleric to the United States Marines.’
But in 2007, he accused a young Saudi woman who had been gang-raped of committing the crime of having an “illegal affair” with an unrelated man. He said that she deserved to be sentenced to 200 lashes and six months in prison.
But with the dance video (which we couldn’t find on the web, so please let us know if you do), the Obaikan finds himself starring in his own scandal.
On one web site, Crossroads Arabia, a commentator sided with Obaikan:
The poor scholar was doing a nice little traditional dance and celebrating a nice occasion called marriage. He wasn’t bumping and grinding in the local pub.
But the Obaikan’s actions have come under harsh scrutiny. Another Crossroads Arabia visitor called Obaikan’s plight just:
Is this the same guy who said the Qatif girl was doing dirty deeds while she was in the car? If so Oh Man…What goes around comes around. How does it feel being accused of being guilty when you know you are innocent?
— Davigh Karamanoukian in Beirut
Video: Saudi men perform a traditional dance.