religion & KSA
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In the latest edition of Granta, Britain's showcase magazine, an essay by Murad Kalam, an American who converted to Islam and moved to Cairo, has this to say about Saudi Arabia "In Mecca, I found the same mixture of confusion, oppression and apathy I thought I had left behind in Egypt. But, as in Egypt, nothing worked, even at the blessed hajj, for we were visitors not to an Islamic state but to yet another cynical Arab kleptocracy which only pretended to adhere to the true ideals of Islam ...
"The dreaded Saudi religious police, who enforce the rigid observance of Wahhabi Islam, patrolled the streets, beating or arresting anyone they caught missing a prayer; it was impossible ever to know if the native Meccans prayed out of genuine piety or to avoid a whipping."