Mutaween

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For the "religious police" of Saudi Arabia, see Committee for the Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice.

The Mutaween (Arabic: مطوعين‎ muṭawiʿiyn; variant English spellings: mutawwain, muttawa, mutawallees, mutawa’ah, mutawi’, mutawwa') means "volunteer" in Arabic is commonly used as a casual term for the government-authorized or -recognized religious police (or clerical police) of Saudi Arabia. More recently the term has gained use as an umbrella term outside the Arab-speaking world to indicate religious-policing organizations in Islamic countries with at least some government recognition or deference, who enforce varied interpretations of Sharia Law.

1 Etymology
- 1.1 Other uses and confusion
- 1.2 Change in use
2 Mutaween in Saudi Arabia
3 Other groups
4 See also
5 References and notes
6 External links

[edit] Etymology

"Mutawwa'în" (plural; sing. mutawwa') originally was a casual synonum for the religious police of Saudi Arabia. In Saudi Arabia, the proper term for the Saudi religious police is "hayaa" which is Arabic for "commission" and is a shortened version of "the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vices" which serves as the infrastructure of proselytization and enforcement of Wahhabist tenets, but it was "Mutawwa'în" that caught on outside Saudi Arabia.

[edit] Other uses and confusion

In the Muslim Arab world more generally traditional meaning of mutawwa is "pious man" and generally refers to any Muslim that "volunteers" to adopt all the orthodoxies of Islam, including the non-compulsory ones such as growing long beards (for men), or (for women) wearing the Niqab (the full face veil). Consequently many native Arab speakers will use "mutawwa" simply to refer to any orthodox Muslim, and interpret the disparaging use of the "mutawwa" by non-Arab Westerners to indicate contempt not for religious police, but for orthodox Islam in general.

[edit] Change in use

The phonetic romanization "mutaween" has gained increasing use as a generic term outside the Arab-speaking world for any religious-policing organization in a Muslim nation. This may range from official state bureaucracies to unabashed militant enforcers aligned to powerful local clerics (e.g.Basij in Iran).

Recently (2005), "mutaween" has appeared to describe the enforcement of Sharia by autonomous groups within Muslim enclaves located inside secular nations.^[1]

[edit] Mutaween in Saudi Arabia

Main article: Committee for the Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice

The Mutaween in Saudi Arabia are tasked with enforcing Sharia as defined by the government, specifically by the Committee for the Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice (CPVPV). The Mutaween of the CPVPV consists of "more than 3,500 officers in addition to thousands of volunteers...often accompanied by a police escort." They have the power to arrest unrelated males and females caught socializing, any one engaged in homosexual behavior or prostitution; to enforce Islamic dress-codes, and store closures during the prayer time. They enforce Muslim dietary laws, prohibiting the consumption or sale of alcoholic beverages and pork, and seize banned consumer products and media regarded as un-Islamic (such as CDs/DVDs of various Western musical groups, television shows and film). Additionally, they actively prevent the practice or proselytizing of other religions within Saudi Arabia, where such a thing is banned.^[2]^[3]

Among the things the Mutaween have been criticized or ridiculed for include, use of flogging to punish violators,^[4]^[5] banning Valentines Day gifts,^[6]^[7] arresting priests for saying Mass,^[8] and being staffed by "ex-convicts whose only job qualification was that they had memorized the Quran in order to reduce their sentences."^[9]

Perhaps the most serious and widely criticized incident attributed to them occurred on March 11, 2002, when they prevented schoolgirls from escaping a burning school in Mecca, because the girls were not wearing headscarves and abayas (black robes). Fifteen girls died and 50 were injured as a result. Widespread public criticism followed, both internationally and within Saudi Arabia.^[10]

[edit] Other groups

Religious police were very active and powerful in Afghanistan during the 1996-2001 reign of the Taliban, which also established a Committee for the Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice. Although commonly referred to as "munkrat" not "mutaween", the Afghan Committee for the Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice was based at least in part on the Saudi mutaween - because Saudi Arabia was a major funder of the Taliban. Its police enforcement of Sharia was one of the main activities of the Taliban regime during this time and was even stricter than that of the Saudi Mutaween.^[11]

[edit] See also

[edit] References and notes

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