Just when you thought things would be easier for you as a married person in Saudi Arabia, something happens and you begin to wonder.
It’s Ramadan and you want to go out with your wife and her parents to somewhere nice and cozy in Riyadh. It’s not time for sahoor yet and you had iftar only a few hours ago. You’re fed up with going to restaurants and having decorative barriers put around you “or else mutawwas will make trouble”, making you feel that you’re in a cell. You just want to enjoy your time with a few drinks and maybe a little sheesha on the side in an open space — if there are such places left in the capital.
What pops into your mind instantly is a Ramadan Tent. A place where families can sit down and enjoy being outside in an open space under a huge tent set up by five-star hotels for family gatherings in Ramadan. Not any more though. This year goes down in books as the year the un-married in Saudi Arabia had their victory over families!
This Ramadan, The Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice got it into its mind that such places and such gatherings are somehow — well, let me put it as “inappropriate”. Could it be because women in Ramadan Tents were allowed to smoke sheesha? Could be. Or was it because the families were in an open space where one family can see another without the barriers to block the view? Possibly. Whatever the reason, the idea that they banned these gatherings sickens me to the stomach.
How happy I was at last to be a married man in Saudi Arabia! A dream come true for any bachelor. You breeze through police checkpoints as long as your wife is with you. You are allowed to enter family sections in amusement parks, restaurants, and anywhere else your heart desires — and those sections usually provide better service than the singles sections get. And let’s not forget that you can window shop in any mall without security guards or members of the committee suspecting you are there to flirt with girls. Not to mention of course, the respect you receive from the public and relatives and even from government offices.
All that prestige was shattered like glass in a matter of seconds in my mind.
My wife, her parents and I had just gotten out of the elevator in the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Riyadh. As we arrived at the entrance on the fourth floor, we stopped and asked a waiter to seat us. I could see through the windows, singles smiling and chatting away near a fountain next to a beautiful large tent. I was waiting eagerly for the waiter to take us to the family section. That is when I couldn’t believe what I heard, that my mind would not process the waiter’s words, “Sorry, families are not allowed. Singles only!” I was incredulous. “What are you talking about? We’re a family why can’t we go in?” The waiter explained, “mutwaas’ orders. I’m sorry. The family section had to be shut down.”
Dragging our bags of defeat and humiliation, we had little hope of finding some other suitable place. Not too far away was the Manhil Holiday Inn. When I asked the front desk if there were any Ramadan Tents, he nodded affirmatively. That is when I called my wife and in-laws from the car to come in. We walked near the area next to the pool where we saw singles sitting. Again no families were to be seen. When I asked one of the hotel employees what was going on, he apologized and said that Ramadan Tents for families had been shut down some days ago by the committee. Evidently when the man at the front desk spoke to me, he thought I was single. “I’m sorry. There’s nothing we can do.” At that point, my mother-in-law said, “Let’s just go back home.”
So much for family entertainment and going out in Riyadh!
Determined to get some answers, I gathered the phone numbers of the five-star hotels that had had their Ramadan Tents shut down. Manhil Holiday Inn. Hyatt Regency. The Sheraton. Interestingly, I learnt that other five-star hotels in Riyadh such as the Faisaliah Towers still had the tents. Interesting. Very interesting indeed.
I was determined to find out the reasons — if there were any — for not allowing the Ramadan Tents in those hotels. What had the hotels themselves been told? Amazingly, another Holiday Inn in Riyadh had a tent. A staff member there denied that the tents had been closed — except during sahoor because of the cold weather. But wait, are singles immune to the cold? His comment only made me curious to learn more.
I talked to one of the front desk managers at the Sheraton Hotel in Riyadh. He told me that the Sheraton had closed down its Ramadan Tents last year. When I asked him for a specific reason, he said that they were banned from offering sheesha as one of the services. “And we simply cannot have a Ramadan Tent without sheeshas.” His comment only supported my theory that they might have been shut down because they were offering sheeshas to families — meaning women would have access to them! I then called the operator and asked for the number for the main office in Riyadh of the Committee for Promoting Virtue and Preventing Vice. I tried to reach them for two days but never got an answer. If I had got an answer, these are the points I would have raised with them.
First of all, when the Ministry of Commerce allowed cigarettes, sheeshas, and their accessories to be sold in the Kingdom, they did not say to the public that those things would be limited to men only!
Second, if indeed there were a government order that sheeshas or cigarettes should not be smoked by women in public, then the public has a right to know, a right to be told.
Third, closing places where families were able to enjoy pleasant gatherings will only make the public more skeptical of the committee and its role as a protector of the public and family values, not the other way around.
And finally, if there were a government order banning women from smoking in public, why not leave the places open? Families could meet, have tea or other drinks and enjoy an evening outside the house. Or is that too inappropriate?
Certainly I do not know if those places that have been closed will ever reopen. What I do know, however, is that the capital of Saudi Arabia, the symbol of pride in our country, should leave new visitors with the impression that it is a welcoming place, not a closed environment.
