Buddhism Banned in Kuwait - 'not sanctioned in the Qur'an'

From Assyrian International News Agency        

"Religious Intolerance is on the Rise in Kuwait
KUWAIT CITY -- Many of America's biggest security threats emanate from its nominal allies, such as Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. Without them neither the Taliban nor al Qaeda would have been nearly so strong.

These countries also are hostile to religious minorities. Other malefactors include Iraq, where the government is a creation of U.S. invasion, and Afghanistan, where the government survives only with allied military support.

Religious intolerance is on the rise even in Kuwait, perhaps America's best friend in the Arab world.

Buddha - not sanctioned in the Qur'an

Until now Christians have worshipped freely in the Persian Gulf state. However, growing threats to religious minorities reflect public attitudes which could undermine the heretofore close U.S.-Kuwait relationship.

Saudi Arabia long has promoted the worst forms of religious intolerance. Spiritual liberty simply doesn't exist. The country is essentially a totalitarian state. The government claims the right to decide the most fundamental questions involving every individual's conscience.

The State Department's latest report on religious freedom observed: "The laws and policies restrict religious freedom, and in practice, the government generally enforced these restrictions. Freedom of religion is neither recognized nor protected under the law and is severely restricted in practice." At best non-Sunni Muslims can hope to be left alone when they worship privately. The group Open Doors placed Saudi Arabia on its "World Watch List," noting simply that "religious freedom does not exist in this heartland of Islam where citizens are only allowed to adhere to one religion."

Dharma - not sanctioned in the Qur'an

Earlier this year the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom tagged the kingdom as a "country of particular concern." The Commission found that "systematic, ongoing, and egregious violations of religious freedom continued despite improvements." A decade after 9/11, "the Saudi government has failed to implement a number of promised reforms related to promoting freedom of thought, conscience, and religion or belief. The Saudi government persists in banning all forms of public religious expression other than that of the government's own interpretation of one school of Sunni Islam."

Although Saudi Arabia is the most important Gulf State, it is uniquely intolerant. Most of its neighbors, like Kuwait, allow greater diversity of thought and action. That relative liberality does not go down well in Saudi Arabia.

The Wahhabist Grand Mufti Sheikh Abdul Aziz bin Abdullah Al-Asheikh oversees every Sunni Muslim cleric in Saudi Arabia. He recently stated that it is "necessary to destroy all the churches of the region."

Sangha - not sanctioned in the Qur'an

This judgment came in response to a question from a Kuwaiti delegation of the Wahhabist "Revival of Islamic Heritage Society." Al-Asheikh cited the Hadith, an oral commentary on Mohammad's life, which includes the Prophet's injunction that "There are not to be two religions in the [Arabian] Peninsula." Al-Asheikh's opinion has not been publicized in Saudi Arabia, but his pronouncement already is law there. No Christian churches exist to be torn down.

Sanctioned in the Qur'an

This is not the case in the rest of the Persian Gulf. "Christian churches, Hindu temples and Buddhist shrines are found in Kuwait, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Oman, and Yemen," noted Irfan al-Alawi of the Gatestone Institute. In Kuwait there were three churches -- Catholic, Coptic, and Evangelical -- within two blocks of the hotel at which stayed. A few years back I interviewed ministers at all three.

Sanctioned in the Qur'an

In general their relations with the government were very good. The late Jerry Zandstra, then the senior minister at the National Evangelical Church, told me, "We've never had any serious interference at all." The government recently granted a permit to the Catholic Church to construct a new facility. Bishop Camillo Ballin, head of the Apostolic Vicariate of Northern Arabia, noted that he had "never experienced enmity" while acting in Kuwait.

Sanctioned in the Qur'an

Of course, not all is perfect. The State Department reported occasional problems and explained: "The constitution protects freedom of belief, although other laws and policies restrict the free practice of religion." Most important, religions "not sanctioned in the Qur'an," such as Buddhism and Hinduism, "could not build places of worship or other religious facilities," reported State, though worship in private homes was allowed..."

...Well that's really liberal and tolerant of them. At least they don't send the religious thought-police round to your house to stick electrodes  on your head to check whether you've been meditating...

Thought Police checking for Qur'anically unsanctioned meditation?

...yet.


See also:  There will be no future for Buddhism in an Islamized World