Shi'a Islam in Saudi Arabia - Restrictions and Persecutions

Restrictions and Persecutions

In modern day Saudi Arabia, the Sunni rulers limit Shia political participation to a game of notables. These notables benefit from their ties to power and in turn, are expected to control their community. Saudi Shias are a minority comprising only about 10-15%, about 3.5 million, of the some 25 million Saudi population. Although some live in Medina, Mecca, and even Riyadh, the majority are concentrated in the oases of al-Hasa and Qatif in the oil-rich areas of the Eastern Province. They have usually been denounced as heretics, traitors, and non-Muslims. Shias were accused of sabotage, most notably for bombing oil pipelines in 1988. A number of Shias were even executed. In response to Iran’s militancy, the Saudi government collectively punished the Shia community in Saudi Arabia by placing restrictions on their freedoms and marginalizing them economically. Wahabi ulama were given the green light to sanction violence against the Shia. What followed were fatwas passed by the country’s leading cleric, Abdul-Aziz ibn Baz which denounced the Shias as apostates. Another by Adul-Rahman al-Jibrin, a member of the Higher Council of Ulama even sanctioned the killing of Shias. This call was reiterated in Wahabi religious literature as late as 2002.

Human Rights Watch published a report condemning Saudi Arabia's policies towards its Shia citizens and called on Saudi authorities to treat the Shia minority as equal citizens. Unlike Iraq and Lebanon which have sizable Shia wealthy elites, Saudi Arabia has nothing resembling a Shia elite of any kind. There have been no Shia cabinet ministers. They are kept out of critical jobs in the armed forces and the security services. There are no Shia mayors or police chiefs, and not one of the three hundred Shia girls’ schools in the Eastern Province has a Shia principal.

The government has restricted the names that Shias can use for their children in an attempt to discourage them from showing their identity. Saudi textbooks are hostile to Shiism, often characterizing the faith as a form of heresy worse than Christianity and Judaism. Teachers frequently tell classrooms full of young Shia schoolchildren that they are heretics.

In the eastern city of Dammam, where three quarters of residents are Shia, Ashura is banned, and there is no distinctly Shia call to prayer. There is no Shia cemetery for the 450,000 Shias that live there. There is only one mosque for the city's Shias. The Saudi government has often been viewed as an active oppressor of Shias because of the funding of the Wahabi ideology which denounces the Shia faith.

Mohammad Taqi has written that "the Saudi regime is also acutely aware that, in the final analysis, the Shiite grievances are not merely doctrinal issues but stem from socioeconomic deprivation, as a result of religious repression and political marginalization bordering on apartheid." Amir Taheri quotes a Shi'ite businessman from Dhahran as saying "It is not normal that there are no Shi'ite army officers, ministers, governors, mayors and ambassadors in this kingdom. This form of religious apartheid is as intolerable as was apartheid based on race."

Testifying before the Congressional Human Rights Caucus, Ali al-Ahmed, Director of the Institute for Gulf Affairs, stated "Saudi Arabia is a glaring example of religious apartheid. The religious institutions from government clerics to judges, to religious curriculums, and all religious instructions in media are restricted to the Wahhabi understanding of Islam, adhered to by less than 40% of the population. The Saudi government communized Islam, through its monopoly of both religious thoughts and practice. Wahhabi Islam is imposed and enforced on all Saudis regardless of their religious orientations. The Wahhabi sect does not tolerate other religious or ideological beliefs, Muslim or not. Religious symbols by Muslims, Christians, Jewish and other believers are all banned. The Saudi embassy in Washington is a living example of religious apartheid. In its 50 years, there has not been a single non-Sunni Muslim diplomat in the embassy. The branch of Imam Mohamed Bin Saud University in Fairfax, Virginia instructs its students that Shia Islam is a Jewish conspiracy."