If romance isn’t quite dead in the country where 8 year-old girls can marry 80 year-old men, it’s certainly on its last legs:

If you can’t stand shops filled with roses, heart-shaped boxes of chocolates, teddy bears, cards and novelty gifts, Saudi Arabia is the place to be this Valentine’s Day.

The country’s feared muttawa — religious police — have launched a campaign to banish from the shelves anything that could be construed as a romantic gift. As Sunday approaches, they have been patrolling the shops and posting warnings in local newspapers to remind traders that anyone caught violating the ban will be punished.

Saudi Arabia adheres to a strict interpretation of Sunni Islam and bans the celebration of Western holidays — and Valentine’s Day is a particular target because of its nominal connection to the life of a Christian saint. The kingdom, the birthplace of Islam, also bans birthday celebrations and Mother’s Day, and even several Muslim holidays, because it considers them “religious innovations” that Islam does not sanction.

But roses and romantic gifts are legal for the rest of the year — so amorous Saudis and expatriates have been buying their gifts well in advance of the Valentine’s Day crackdown.

More liberal Arab countries in the region have no such reservations. In Cairo, the Egyptian capital, and Dubai, for example, shops and restaurants mark Valentine’s Day with an abundance of red ribbon and heart decorations, in a manner as garish as any Western capital.

In Riyadh, dating in the Western sense is not socially acceptable, though unmarried couples do meet in restaurants and cafés that have partitions to hide them. However, the arrival of mobile phones, e-mail and internet chatrooms has radically altered the dating scene, allowing couples to communicate in private.

Despite slow but steady efforts by King Abdullah to modernise attitudes, the religious establishment keeps a brake on the process of change — but tensions surface frequently. On Monday, students at a girls’ school in Mecca rioted when the head teacher confiscated their mobile phones, make-up and perfume. Female wardens from a nearby prison were called to the school after the children attacked the head and barricaded her in her office, before breaking tables and chairs and letting off fire extinguishers.

“Our aim is to enlighten people so that they will not take part in such un-Islamic activities.” - Turki al-Shelail, spokesman for the Haia (Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice)

An it’s not just in 7th-century timewarp Saudi Arabia. In Pakistan, the Lashkar -e-Islam Taliban group also warned:

“Through you we send this message to all Peshawar -people should refrain from celebrating Valentine’s Day otherwise they’ll be responsible for the consequences,” – Haji Zar Khan – Lashkar -e-Islam leader

When people shake their heads in bewilderment, wondering why this doctrine of Islam appears so full of hatred, anger and violence; perhaps these backward, killjoy attitudes towards the frivolous, yet life and love-affirming V-Day celebrations provide a clue.

For a society without love is nothing. Granted, Valentine’s day is certainly somewhat schamltzy and over-commercialised – but it’s none the more harmful for it. When the leaders of Islamic societies start to rail against the very forces and emotions that help keep a society together in the first place, they are surely sealing their fate in the long term.

Islam – where’s the love?

[Sources: The TImes, AFP]

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