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By their fruits ye shall know them

As you might have guessed, Jen and I love animals. I think that a good dog is a real sign that God loves us and wants us to have friends. Our Dogs and Cats and more recently Sheep and Goats are, in a definite sense, members of our family. They all have individual personalities and they have good days and bad days and despite not having a spoken language, they are able to communicate volumes to anyone willing to learn to listen. Let us look at Saudi Arabia with this article at Yahoo/AP:

Saudi religious cops ban dog, cat sales
Saudi Arabia's religious police, normally tasked with chiding women to cover themselves and ensuring men attend mosque prayers, are turning to a new target: cats and dogs.

The police have issued a decree banning the sale of the pets, seen as a sign of Western influence.

The prohibition on dogs may be less of a surprise, since conservative Muslims despise dogs as unclean. But the cat ban befuddled many, since Islamic tradition holds that the Prophet Muhammad loved cats — and even let a cat drink from his ablutions water before washing himself for prayers.

The religious police, known as the Muttawa, have the role of enforcing Saudi Arabia's strict Islamic code. Its members prowl streets and malls, ensuring unmarried men and women do not mix, confronting women they feel are not properly covered or urging men to go to prayers.

But the government also gives the Muttawa wide leeway to enforce any rules they deem necessary to uphold the social order.

The decree — which applies to the Red Sea port city of Jiddah and the holy city of Mecca — bans the sale of cats and dogs because "some youths have been buying them and parading them in public," according to a memo from the Municipal Affairs Ministry to Jiddah's city government.

The memo, obtained by The Associated Press, urges city authorities to help enforce the ban.

Pet owning is not common in the Arab world, though dogs are kept for hunting and guarding. In large cities around the Middle East, stray dogs often wander the streets and are considered pests. Street cats are also plentiful, and people will often feed them or play with them — but it isn't a widespread custom to keep one in the home, and many cannot afford it.

However, in the past decades, owning dogs or cats has become a fashion statement among Saudis. Showing off a Doberman, pit bull or fancy breed of feline has became a status symbol.

Ahhhh - gotcha. The affluent Saudis are buying status animals and this scares the Theocrats (they seem to be an apartheid state the more I look into how their society functions - I thought that was an anathema to lefties...) so they unleash their Muttawa storm troopers. It's only in two cities now but I bet that if people cave there, it will be all over the democratic nation despotic kingdom of Saudia Arabia. Makes me want to go into their malls with one of these, nicely socialised and on leash: The more I know about people, the better I like my dog. ~~ Mark Twain And a big hat-tip to Charles at LGF for the Yahoo/AP link. His blog has some excellent comments regarding this. Here is one:

The police have issued a decree banning the sale of the pets, seen as a sign of Western influence.

I wish they would also get rid of other signs of Western influence, like computers, cars, television, airplanes, fighter jets, guns, explosives....the rest of the world would be safer.

So true... Posted by DaveH at September 8, 2006 9:30 PM