Last week I wrote an article about an incident I had with the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice. The article provoked a storm of controversy, with most opinions condemning the commission’s action.
I would like to make perfectly clear that I do not in any way believe in the abolition of the commission because I believe in its value and the important role it plays in Saudi society. The reason I made the incident public was the need I felt to make the leaders of the commission realize the urgent need for reform within their organization so it will not descend to becoming an object of ridicule.
This leads me to a serious problem with the commission, which is the sanctity and holiness which some of its members ascribe to themselves and would like the rest of us to ascribe to them.
The commission in my opinion serves a valuable function in that it is an organization dedicated to the fulfilling of the religious duty of all Muslims to enjoin virtue and prevent vice. It was formed in order to prevent the abuse of that duty and to put it in the hands of people who are highly trained in Islamic law and in the techniques of dealing with people in a gentle and civilized manner.
The problem now is that the commission members have started to believe that they are somehow holier than other people and that they have a special relationship with God which renders them immune to criticism and makes anyone questioning their methods a heretic or apostate. This is highly dangerous. Not only does this distort the true function of the commission but leads to a situation where any failure on the commission’s part will automatically be seen as a failure of Islam and its social structures.
The commission, being an organization that consists of fallible human beings, will always be vulnerable to the normal human failures such as greed, avarice, lust for power, and so forth. This has absolutely nothing to do with Islam, but the way the commission uses Islam as a shield to avoid any criticism results in people believing that the commission and faithfulness to religion are one and the same thing.
Let me give you an example: Say a police officer was caught stealing from the police fund. He would be arrested, tried and punished. There would be calls for the police to improve their methods of recruitment and in the control and audit of their financial system. No one would even think to make this into a failure of Islam or its laws. However, a similar incident in the commission or a similar organization would lead to huge criticism of Islam, its laws and social systems.
Why?
Exactly.
Why can we not look at the men and women of the commission as ordinary people just like the police, doctors, schoolteachers and others who perform vital functions in our society? Why do we regard them as somehow holier than everyone else when they are manifestly not?
We must evaluate them according to their professionalism in fulfilling their role just as we evaluate civil engineers, lawyers and airline pilots. We must be able to criticize and demand reforms and improvements in their methods and in the people they hire and in the way they are trained, just as we would with any public organization and without having to fear being accused of moral corruption and heresy and to have our faith questioned.
