A most unwelcome part of the fallout of the vicious May 12 suicide bombings in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia was the firing of Jamal Khashoggi, editor-in-chief of the Saudi daily Al Watan. While it may never be known precisely why he was fired, many speculate it was due to the paper's increasingly vocal criticism of the Saudi Arabian religious establishment. The paper was especially critical of the Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, or so-called "religious police." This "religious police" has been accused by its critics of harassing Saudis for "un-Islamic" behavior. Recently, Al Watan reported that a man who was detained--with his children--for 12 hours after being caught smoking attempted to commit suicide.

In March 2002, a fire erupted in a all-girls school in Mecca, which killed 15. The March 14 2002 edition of the Saudi newspaper Arab News cited a report on the rescue effort by Mecca's Civil Defense Department which noted that religious police "intentionally obstructed the efforts to evacuate the girls. This resulted in the increased number of casualties." Why did they do this? Apparently because the girls were not properly dressed. 

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Arab News quoted Civil Defense officers as saying, "Whenever the girls got out through the main gate, [religious police] forced them to return via another." Officers also said that they saw three people beating girls who had evacuated the school without proper dress. Commenting on the incident, Hanny Megally, Executive Director of the Middle East and North Africa division of Human Rights Watch, said, "Women and girls may have died unnecessarily because of extreme interpretations of the Islamic dress code. State authorities with direct and indirect responsibility for this tragedy must be held accountable." 

I could not agree more. Where did this concept of a religious police come from, anyway? The Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) never had companions dispatched among the masses to see if they followed Islam's laws, measuring the length of men's beards or garments. No one beat anyone for laughing in Medina at the time of the Prophet. The Quran says, "There is no compulsion in religion" (2:256), and, in another verse, declares "O ye who believe! Guard your own souls: If ye follow (right) guidance, no harm can come to you from those who stray. The destination of all is to God. He will show you the truth of all that ye do" (5:105). God is not threatened when His servants sin against him, so why should we be? The Lord On High does not need a police force to make sure His servants live "Islamic" lives.