Forbidden marriages in the Arab world

I thought I had seen everything in this life, but just when I was about to believe it, suddenly I saw another piece of news from Saudi Arabia, my new obsession.

Fooling around and trying to find some information about Muslim religion I found something that really makes me think that impossible things are still happening in this world, an unbelievable behavior. Saudi citizens are forbidden to marry foreigners.

As many people know the prime religion in Saudi is Islam. In fact the 100% of the Saudi citizens are Muslim and in Saudi every time a male wants to get married there´s a long way to run.

 

As far as I know, the process starts like this:

If the Saudi groom has already known the girl of his dreams, he and the family of the girl in question make some arrangements in order to set the different details of the wedding.  But the arrangements are not as the ones we are accustomed to. If you are interested in a girl you have to pass through a great deal of procedures so as to ensure that he´s the perfect candidate for the future bride. Some of these arrangements include medical examinations, to make sure both the groom and the bride are in perfect health condition to assure their children will be healthy as well as the marriage. Of course it also has hidden implications; They really want to know if both of them (specially for the groom) have any sexual transmission diseases.

If the bride or her parents are agree to accept the candidate as the future husband, they start setting the amount of money the groom must pay in order to marry the bride and here is when the problem begins.

The amount of money a male must pay to have marriage (mehr) is in my point of view enormous. It could vary from 500.000 Riyals (USD $134.000 approximately) until exorbitant quantities being huge sums of money the common trend since there´s absolute no limit for the amount the bride is to ask. This is without including the wedding expenses, which must be paid by the groom as well. This increasing tendency of making the mehr more and more unreachable is just the result of the economic bonanza Saudi Arabia has been experiencing since 1944 when the oil production in the kingdom rose.

However, there´re still young men who want to get married but without enough financial recourses to do it. In those cases, most of them must rely on their parents help or they must spend pretty long years saving money to reach their personal satisfaction which is the marriage.

All this explanation about the marriage customs is only to understand why the tendency of Saudis marrying foreign women is getting bigger and bigger.

It seems that the high values of money they have to pay are causing that men think twice and find other alternatives. A big number of young Saudis are going abroad so as to receive education in different levels (languages, masters, bachelor degrees and so on) making their view broaden, nevertheless, for the majority of them the marriage is still their main goal.  

In this abroad experiences some of them fall in love and finally they take the decision to marry a foreign woman (Muslim allowed to marry Christians and jewish), and some others get married temporarily with the only purpose to have sexual pleasure. Leaving their new families behind once their reach what they want.

وَلاَ تَنكِحُواْ الْمُشْرِكَاتِ حَتَّى يُؤْمِنَّ وَلأَمَةٌ مُّؤْمِنَةٌ خَيْرٌ مِّن مُّشْرِكَةٍ وَلَوْ أَعْجَبَتْكُمْ وَلاَ تُنكِحُواْ الْمُشِرِكِينَ حَتَّى يُؤْمِنُواْ وَلَعَبْدٌ مُّؤْمِنٌ خَيْرٌ مِّن مُّشْرِكٍ وَلَوْ أَعْجَبَكُمْ أُوْلَـئِكَ يَدْعُونَ إِلَى النَّارِ وَاللّهُ يَدْعُوَ إِلَى الْجَنَّةِ وَالْمَغْفِرَةِ بِإِذْنِهِ وَيُبَيِّنُ آيَاتِهِ لِلنَّاسِ لَعَلَّهُمْ يَتَذَكَّرُونَ {221 

“And do not marry the idolatresses until they believe, and certainly a believing maid is better than an idolatress woman, even though she should please you; and do not give (believing women) in marriage to idolaters until they believe, and certainly a believing servant is better than an idolater, even though he should please you; these invite to the fire, and Allah invites to the garden and to forgiveness by His will, and makes clear His communications to men, that they may be mindful”.

As a result of this frequent behavior, the government of the kingdom of Saudi Arabia has established a law which doesn´t looked upon well among its citizens. They have decided to ban marriages abroad with foreign women. This with the façade of protecting their nationals from getting deadly diseases such as AIDS and hepatitis, they have also dared to declare that children of those marriages are affected by different illnesses like autism and paralysis.

They are also trying to advocate the family values as according to them the westerner woman are immoral, promiscuous and disrespectful.

It would appear that the main reason, the hidden reason of it, is that the age at marriage for both men and women is generally rising, and more Arab women are staying single longer or not marrying at all. That is to say, maybe there´s a single men shortage.
I think is a matter of concern that a nation is perceiving the rest of the world as a threat to their religious values and consequently, they are taking decisions such as the one I have just exposed. It appears that they have a really biased prespective about what the rest of the world could bring to their culture and that fear is been reflected on this senseless legislations stepping over their citizens rights.

This incredible regulation has its exceptions, to do so, a permit from the government is needed and the marriage must be approved, otherwise the husband is due to face an expensive punishment or his family can be condemned to life in the exile forever.

Certainly, the bad news has created a lot of controversy, because many Saudi men have found themselves in a very delicate situation not been able to marry whoever they want and waiting for an approval. It would seem that love has boundaries and  has become in something forbidden outside the Arab world.   

Thank you all

Today and since a couple of months I feel craving for learning. I just want to feed my brain more with every possible thing. In this moment of my life everything seems to be appealing for me, since needle work till Islam culture; now my mind seems to be open to all mysterious matters the world has to offer. I feel like in a knowledge mall where it is there to be chosen for me.

It is incredible how many things you can learn when you open your eyes and look towards a different perspective.

I’m grateful with all people I’ve known throughout this trip, experiences, friends, everybody have left a print in my memory and life.

Thanks to all who made my imagination fly to other places in the world; to other cultures, traditions and religions. The world is so big, wide and assorted to not exploring it and despite of its greatness, which sometimes could make you feel insignificant, I feel I want to get to know it as much as I can.   

I’d like to thank specially a Maria Mitenkova, who showed to me she’s a really intelligent and inspiring woman who has a lot of knowledge to offer as well as a great potential to do what she wants.  Thank you for letting me know I can be good at writing and for being my confident in this land in which I never felt attached.

To Path, My English teacher, whose classes were always challenging for me by her strict way of teaching but with whom a learned a lot, also exemplifying what a woman can be. She's unleashed a kind of admiration in me.

To Nicolle, because with her teaching methods made me feel learning is not as hard as I thought it was, and because she showed me the way to develop love for writing and for expressing my thoughts by writing them and for helping me to build up my speaking skills.

And to Sam, whose kindness welcomed me to his country in where I didn’t know anybody showing me the friendly face of the New Zealanders. he also guided me to the best places to visit, and provided me with useful information that made my life in Auckland easier. Thank you so much for everything Sam.

Finally and as my time in New Zealand is getting to its end, I just want to say this experience has broaden my mind. Now I can get back to my country feeling myself proud because although I’ve learn a lot, I know there’re a bunch of thing left to learn. Sometimes that’s the hardest lesson to get.  

Omar’s way

After writing about the woman who was sentenced to be lashed in Saudi and having brought the name of my friend Omar to the story several times, I thought the fairest thing is to introduce him to everyone who have read the previous post and felt some kind of curiosity about him.

Omar is a 27 year old man originally from Saudi Arabia, Muslim, stubborn, and yet extremely kind who I met in Auckland the first week I got here.  He obtained his manager degree from the King Abdul Aziz University in Jeddah Saudi Arabia in year 2009. He has a vast experience in the working world of whom he feel very proud since he says he’s worked even in jobs any Saudi Arabic would ever do, such as sales man (that sort of jobs are assigned for foreigners. Usually Saudi citizens hold important positions in companies).

The companies list he’s worked for goes from Body Shop until SISCO, in which he worked as Coordinator of Support Services.

As I’ve already written before, he is a very rooted Muslim brought up in a particular environment. His parents got divorced when he was only eight months, which is very oddly in a Muslim culture. Family is the core hub for Muslim religion because it is fundamental for the security and peace it’s granted to the members of it; family is a great valued unit which is thought to be the responsible of the social order.

Owing to the events that any Muslim divorce brought with it, Omar was forced to live with his grandparents but very close to his father, who got married two years after his divorce.  The fact of being far away of his mother, made Omar have a very irregular childhood and I think sometimes a bit traumatic.

In our used conversations sometimes he makes very obvious the print and pain all those events have left on his life. He also tell me very amusing stories about how when he was 17 years he ran away from his father, due to his parent strictness and prohibitions of seeing his mother  and started living with his others grandparents.  Omar has been living with them since then. But a year and a half ago he decided to come to Auckland, New Zealand to study English so as to have the necessary level to access to university. If he reaches 6.5 IELTS score needed for it, he will soon start studying what makes him feel a great passion besides football: A master in management.

He describes himself as the perfect blend between the rigorous religious people and modern people’s thoughts.

Omar is sick about planning and he doesn’t move one of his hairs without planning it before, he’s also very smart and as incredible as it could be he is to some extend open minded compared with some people of his same nationality and strong convictions.

He has a characteristic I like the most on him, he reach what he wants; maybe that’s the reason why in spite of our differences, we have got very well with each other. I think it’s an admirable attribute in a person and whose holders deserve great attention.

He also speaks out. I don’t know how he does it but he can speak for hours and hours without stopping. This especial feature of his personality has made Omar a very sociable person, because people find it nice the fact that he’s always smiling and trying to make you laugh.

We have spent hours and days talking about as many different subjects as you can imagine, from cultural differences until political or economical issues, it’s Omar’s fault I’m in love of middle east culture and that I’ve broaden my view to a world unknown for me in the past.

I could say I’m to some extend a better person due to his teaching and long hours of nagging. And I’ll remember forever his Muslim way.

Checkmate

Today I saw a heading in someone’s facebook wall that caught my attention “Saudi woman driver's lashing revoked” for me it was almost instinctively the reaction of click on the link to read what it was all about and basically the news were about a woman who was condemned to 10 lashes for driving in Saudi Arabia where driving is banned for women, and whose sentence was finally forgiven.

At first, it was very difficult for me to try to understand the situation, not because of the fact that women may not drive in Saudi (they were not even allowed to do it in ancient times when camels were the only way of transportation), but for the sentence itself. When I finished reading the article I was really baffled, even though I’d been getting to know the Saudi culture along my stay in Auckland.

I realized women are not allowed neither to drive nor to walk on their own in Saudi when I start having a friendship with a Saudi. We spent hours and hours arguing about a lot of other things about Muslim culture and its differences with mine. However, today it was hard for me to recognize that all those things my friend have told to me are, in fact, more than just stories; those are real life and the real life of thousands or millions of women who live in Saudi.

Thinking that although people in Muslim religion is banned to do almost everything (drink, smoke, bet, having sex before marriage, men are not allowed to talk to women and in the other way around, and so on), might not be easy for most people of the western world, where, compared with middle east and even other cultures we have more freedom that we figure out.

In spite of it, Muslim people seem to be certainly happy. That’s how they’ve been brought up, that’s their way of life and what they are used to living day by day. Then, those kinds of prohibitions mustn’t be as hard to cope for them as it would be for me for example.

For me has been a rollercoaster getting to know about Saudi culture, mostly because even though Colombian and Saudis we have many things in common, it’s also true that we have tremendous cultural gaps and  the piece of news I read today is one of the long list of them.

Of course, I couldn’t help to open my mouth to complain about it in front of Omar, my friend, whose answer was like a pail of cold water threw towards me.

Me- How come it might be possible to sentence a woman to be lashed just for merely drive a car?

To what Omar answered like this

O - She deserves it?

Me- Sorry? What do you mean?

O- Yes, sure, she deserves it, I can’t see anything wrong about women driving, but those are the rules of my country and therefore you must respect them. If you want to do something about it, you can do the right thing writing a letter signed by the ones who are in disagreement with the established law. But fooling around about things that mustn’t be done is insane.

Me- You might be right, but why do they have to use punishment methods such as primitives as that?

O- Simple, people in Saudi are rich and if they sentence other types of punishment such as jail or fines it would be easy for them to pay. So, government chooses that kind of punishment to show that not everything can be bought and if you behave wrongly not even the money will repair the things you have done.

After that explanation I think there’s nothing left to say. I had to remain in silence trying to figure out some way to beat his point but I couldn’t, I just keep on saying that it was excessive for me, and finally Omar made his last intervention to our argument.

O- Look, people in my country are really focused in their work, they are being paid for it and they do it well, everything has been written in the Qur’an, even the smallest things and the Qur’an show us the guidelines for our existence.

What I should have said to him? For me it was checkmate, although I keep on thinking that kind of sentence is barbarous, I couldn't fight against his arguments because they are really well-founded and in some way valid.

Sometimes, and after that discussion I wonder myself if that kind of barbarism is what this world needs to run well.

Getting closer to real life

Today is 9^th of October de 2011 and I decided writing a diary as an advice from my English teacher Nicolle so as not to forget the writing skills I’ve learn during this trip.

Starting, is always hard but not impossible and I must look for strategies to keep on studying on my own since I’m no t going to be in Auckland anymore to practice English anytime I want.

I think I’ve thought in a vast range of strategies such as read books, magazines, watching movies, write a lot, joining to English conversation groups through couch surfing so on and so for. However I know is going to be hard for me because I know myself very well and I know I’m kind of lazy, I’m not the type of woman who wants to spend a day studying on her own.

Nevertheless, it may sound a little bit modest but I also know I’m extremely intelligent, therefore, I know  when it comes to focusing on something, I can find the way to reach it successfully. I have the capabilities to do it; then it’s more a matter of interest.

Besides, being so close to my departure date from Auckland I have got a bunch of feelings in my mind and stomach, all of them fighting among each others, which is leaving me exhausted whatsoever.  I can’t stop thinking about how my life will be when I get back to Colombia, I’ve been thinking whether my life will change or not, will I keep on living the same dull life I used to live when I left? This is the core question which has been keeping me thinking during the last month or so, and of course it’s something I will only realize once I get there, not before or after. But looking back and almost giving a step backwards but in the same time moving towards my real life, I recognize I’m in the same point of my life when I was before coming here.

Probably, I have got a great deal of new information in my head, filed by people, things and circumstances I’ve passed through. Ones good others not so much, and it makes me happy; All in all we learn of everything as my grandparents used to say, Although they were absolutely right, there’s still a bittersweet taste in my mouth, like if the last six months I’ve spent abroad and far away of my loved ones would be in vain, like if it wasn’t worth living it.

So, what’s next? I’ll be waiting for the next events on my life.

Every change is good some people say, but I’m wondering what if changes mean to get back to your previous life? Are those changes still good?