King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia Calls for Interfaith Tolerance - Ironic Much?

According to Al-Watan (KW) -

His Highness the Amir Sheikh Sabah AlـAhmad AlـSabah on Wednesday called upon leaders of the world to embark on dialogue between people, religions and cultures to address numerous challenges like terrorism, drugs and discrimination."

As leaders and peoples, we must assume our historical responsibilities to carefully examine our painful reality through a serious and sincere dialogue between people, religions and cultures," Sheikh Sabah said in a speech before a highـlevel U.N. General Assembly meeting on Culture and Dialogue between Religions and Cultures here.

He called on the world leaders to focus on consolidating the true religions and moral values and the common just principles which all religions call for."

We should focus our efforts on consolidating the true religious and moral values, and on the common just principles which all religions call for, and from which all cultures advance, to become a meeting point for us which would join us together for the good and provide us with a basis and a common factor of cooperation and peace," he said.

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Asharq Al-Awsat (UK) has a copy of King Abdullah's entire speech...

I agree fully with King Abdullah...but the irony of his call for interfaith tolerance seems to overshadow his message completely in my view.

1. Saudi Arabia forbids non-Muslims to publicly worship. Saudi Arabia forbids missionary work by any religion other than Wahabi/Salafi Islam. Saudi religious police recently detained Shiite pilgrims participating in the Hajj, allegedly calling them "infidels in Mecca". I would call that a form of discrimination myself.


2. On Nov 4th 2008, blogger Roshdi Algadir by the Hisba apparatus in Saudi Arabia on the basis that his poems insulted Islam. The Arabic Network for Human Rights Information (ANHRI) reports Algadir was beaten and forced to sign an agreement to never again publish work on the Internet. Freedom of speech and the press are restricted to forbid criticism of the government or endorsement of "un-Islamic" values. Doesn't sound like "cooperation and peace" to me.

For more info here and here.

I, like the Israeli president, praise King Abdullah and his attempt at bringing religious peace and tolerance to world...but he might want to start at home.