In article <benali.737307554@alcor> benali@alcor.concordia.ca ( ILYESS B. BDIRA ) writes: >It looks like Ben Baz's mind and heart are also blind, not only his eyes. >I used to respect him, today I lost the minimal amount of respect that >I struggled to keep for him. >To All Muslim netters: This is the same guy who gave a "Fatwah" that >Saudi Arabia can be used by the United Ststes to attack Iraq .   They were attacking the Iraqis to drive them out of Kuwait, a country whose citizens have close blood and business ties to Saudi citizens.  And me thinks if the US had not helped out the Iraqis would have swallowed Saudi Arabia, too (or at  least the eastern oilfields).  And no Muslim country was doing much of anything to help liberate Kuwait and protect Saudi Arabia; indeed, in some masses of citizens were demonstrating in favor of that butcher Saddam (who killed lotsa Muslims), just because he was killing, raping, and looting relatively rich Muslims and also thumbing his nose at the West.  So how would have *you* defended Saudi Arabia and rolled back the Iraqi invasion, were you in charge of Saudi Arabia???  >Fatwah is as legitimate as this one. With that kind of "Clergy", it might >be an Islamic duty to separate religion and politics, if religion >means "official Clergy".  I think that it is a very good idea to not have governments have an official religion (de facto or de jure), because with human nature like it is, the ambitious and not the pious will always be the ones who rise to power.  There are just too many people in this world (or any country) for the citizens to really know if a  leader is really devout or if he is just a slick operator.  > >  	CAIRO, Egypt (UPI) -- The Cairo-based Arab Organization for Human >  Rights (AOHR) Thursday welcomed the establishement last week of the >  Committee for Defense of Legal Rights in Saudi Arabia and said it was >  necessary to have such groups operating in all Arab countries.  You make it sound like these guys are angels, Ilyess.  (In your clarinet posting you edited out some stuff; was it the following???) Friday's New York Times reported that this group definitely is more conservative than even Sheikh Baz and his followers (who think that the House of Saud does not rule the country conservatively enough).  The NYT reported that, besides complaining that the government was not conservative enough, they have:  	- asserted that the (approx. 500,000) Shiites in the Kingdom 	  are apostates, a charge that under Saudi (and Islamic) law 	  brings the death penalty.    	  Diplomatic guy (Sheikh bin Jibrin), isn't he Ilyess?  	- called for severe punishment of the 40 or so women who 	  drove in public a while back to protest the ban on 	  women driving.  The guy from the group who said this, 	  Abdelhamoud al-Toweijri, said that these women should 	  be fired from their jobs, jailed, and branded as 	  prostitutes.  	  Is this what you want to see happen, Ilyess?  I've 	  heard many Muslims say that the ban on women driving 	  has no basis in the Qur'an, the ahadith, etc. 	  Yet these folks not only like the ban, they want 	  these women falsely called prostitutes?    	  If I were you, I'd choose my heroes wisely, 	  Ilyess, not just reflexively rally behind 	  anyone who hates anyone you hate.  	- say that women should not be allowed to work.  	- say that TV and radio are too immoral in the Kingdom.  Now, the House of Saud is neither my least nor my most favorite government on earth; I think they restrict religious and political reedom a lot, among other things.  I just think that the most likely replacements for them are going to be a lot worse for the citizens of the country. But I think the House of Saud is feeling the heat lately.  In the last six months or so I've read there have been stepped up harassing by the muttawain (religious police---*not* government) of Western women not fully veiled (something stupid for women to do, IMO, because it sends the wrong signals about your morality).  And I've read that they've cracked down on the few, home-based expartiate religious gatherings, and even posted rewards in (government-owned) newspapers offering money for anyone who turns in a group of expartiates who dare worship in their homes or any other secret place. So the government has grown even more intolerant to try to take some of the wind out of the sails of the more-conservative opposition. As unislamic as some of these things are, they're just a small taste of what would happen if these guys overthrow the House of Saud, like they're trying to in the long run.  Is this really what you (and Rached and others in the general west-is-evil-zionists-rule-hate-west-or-you-are-a-puppet crowd) want, Ilyess?