I hope you don’t mind my posting something here, selvaraj.
Saudi Arabia is bound by an obligation based on a religious principle that is not subject to change based on human whims. A demand to abandon that religious principle by allowing non-Muslim religious ceremonies to be publicly performed there sets a dangerous precedent of demanding that constitutional principles of sovereign nations be violated. For KSA, it would mean violation of a basic principle of the Shari’ah, which is divine legislation, and
not secular civil law amenable to change or abrogation. No authority, no matter how powerful, has the right to change or amend divine law. For this reason, the Permanent Council of Scholarly Research and Religious Decrees in Saudi Arabia issued Fatwa 12,413 on July 3, 2000 which affirms the inadminissibility of building public places of worship for non-Muslims or permitting them to
publicly perform their worship services in the Arabian peninsula.
The World Islamic Council for Da’wah (Islamic propagation) and Relief issued the following statement in its session chaired by the leading scholars of Al-Azhar in Cairo, on Oct. 12, 2000 concerning the statements of Cardinal Bevi, bishop of Poland, and other officials of the Catholic Church in Italy and the Vatican against Muslims demanding that churches be built in Saudi Arabia:
“It is our determined affirmation that the Arabian peninsula and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, its heart, are the geographic citadel of the creed of Islam. Religious law does not permit any circumstance for any religion other than Islam to be proclaimed there. The chair of this committee denounces any further demand for churches to built in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, especially since this matter was decisively stated in a lengthy dialogue with the Vatican via the World Islamic Council for Dialogue, where it was agreed to close this topic, and not reopen any further discussion concerning it.”
Any non-Muslims there (and many Muslims, too) are transients who have traveled there
in their own free will, according to work contracts
that stipulate their adherence to the regulations of the country they are working in.
So I reckon, no matter how nice and kind manx’s saudi friends are, lifting the ban on building other places of worship in their country is not in their hands.
Maryam V.