Saudi Arabia: Asian immigrant forced to clean mosques for 'skipping prayers'

by Kal El on November 20, 2008 · View Comments

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I remember when I was a kid and I skipped Sunday School, all I got was a lecture from my Pastor, and yelled at by my Dad. The Saudis are a bit different…

Riyadh, 18 Nov. (AKI) – A Saudi civil court has ordered an Asian immigrant to clean mosques next month during this year’s Hajj pilgrimage to the holy city of Mecca after religious police caught him skipping Friday prayers several times, Saudi daily al-Watan reports. The man will have to clean five mosques along the highway into Mecca twice daily for eleven days, the court ruled.

The Ministry of Islamic Affairs will be tasked with checking if the immigrant obeys the court order. If he fails to do so, the court has warned that he will be tried before a criminal court.

Instead of handing out custodial sentences, a number of Saudi judges have recently ordered minor offenders to clean buildings and cars, memorise the Koran (the Muslim holy book) or do community work.

Earlier this month, a judge ordered a young man to memorise part of the Koran and 40 sayings of the Prophet Mohammed as a punishment for appearing in public with a woman who was not a relative.

This year’s Hajj is taking place in the first half of December. Last year, two million Muslim pilgrims attended.

The Hajj is one of the five pillars of Islam. It is an obligation for all able-bodied Muslims to attend at least once during their lives, provided they can afford it.

But remember the mantra, there is no compulsion in religion. At least all this poor soul got in punishment was cleanup detail. There have been instances where punishment was far more severe…

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  • dobus

    Let hadjj get in full swing and drop a 10 ton hand banana right on their holy of holies- That’ll give that poor sucker plenty to clean up-

  • jennyjen

    So the majority of Muslims will be in Mecca during the first half of December. Hint, hint, Israel!

  • Saul Wall

    Not the majority, just a lot, like 2 in one thousand or so? 1 billion Muslims on Earth give or take and 2 million go to the Hajj in any given year (at least recently).

    And while I know the comments about attacking the Hajj were meant in jest, the goal should be to deprogram Muslims not give them free propaganda. Pissing them off with cartoons and criticisms helps expose the believe system as dysfunctional; threatening them – not so much.

    With certain clerics fighting to “protect” Muslims against evil Western vaccination programs combined with a yearly meeting of a couple million pilgrims from the jungles of Indonesia and Africa and deserts with poor sanitation, using crowded planes and buses in an area near where a lot of animal sacrifices are being performed, The Hajj might just be a ticking time bomb waiting to unleash a pandemic on the Muslim world and then the rest of the world.

    If the AIDS epidemic in Islamic nations has been underestimated as some think (the high T.B. and Hep C rates in Egypt would be consistent with an unacknowledged AIDS crisis) then there could be large numbers of immunocompromised people crowded into those planes and buses.

    On a less somber note, the use of courts to punish immigrants for missing prayer is hardly good PR for Islam. But then what is? Maybe some of those immigrants will convert or the story of their treatment will disillusion others.

  • Tonto (USA)

      Just about anything and everything seems to “threaten” is-lame.  Humor, criticism, the truth, and discussion are all seen as insulting and grounds for murder.  These wingnuts are sincerely hysterical.  Why are they so defensive?  Could it be that they KNOW their lives have been wasted?  Could it be that they are so afraid of proof of their invalidity that they react the way they do?  Something to ponder.

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