No sooner do we find something to smile about, to laugh about or to discuss than some kind of watchman will appear and order: “Stop that smiling person. Detain the one who is laughing. ...”
Our watchman here is not a part of the Ministry of Interior nor is he a patrolman, policeman or private security guard. He is a writer whose livelihood should be based on freedom, rights and the encouragement of smiling and optimism.
I read an article in one of our newspapers. The writer, a political science researcher, observes that we in the Kingdom — and indeed the majority of Arabs — make excessive use of mobile phones, e-mails and the Internet. We spend large sums of money on these and the money ends up in the pockets of those who control the media. The researcher is disturbed that the so-called thinkers and intellectuals in our society don’t raise their voice against this.
He demands a national, intellectual, religious and political campaign to combat this silence and prevent contact with radio and television programs that encourage the exchange of ideas, keep minds alive with all sorts of information and move them with music.
By doing such things, he also wishes to limit one like me who does not possess the ability to go out and therefore must resort to using the mobile phone, the Internet and e-mail.
In general, I am opposed to the demand to limit any person’s freedom; we have lived long enough with too many prohibitions. Further, most changes must originate with acceptance.
Let people live their lives as they wish so long as they have not sinned and let us stop all these accusations and restrictions. Let us laugh and make merry. As the saying goes, “If you want to return to your youth, make the same mistakes.”
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A person whom I trust implicitly for his wisdom, integrity and knowledge of Islam contacted me to correct some of what I said in my article on the “Haj Mitwalli” TV series.
I was told that to charge someone with extremism for doing something permitted by Islam and Shariah is to do great injustice to both. The text of the Qur’an sanctions the marriage of a Muslim man to a second, third and fourth wife as long as he is able to fulfill the condition of fairness and justice to all wives equally.
I perhaps deviated in my article in considering Haj Mitwalli’s marriages to be a kind of extremist stretching of the text and that extremism leads to terrorism.
There is no doubt that the person who contacted me is more knowledgeable in matters of religion. What I wrote though came out of my feelings and understanding that Mitwalli’s marriages were all self-serving: To attain a certain position or wealth and not from a religious feeling or from fear of falling into vice or even simply for the pleasure of it.
I believe furthermore that a man, any man, no matter how wise, patient or just, will find it difficult, nay even impossible, to be fair and just to two wives, let alone four!