JEDDAH, Saudi Arabia — In this country known as the cradle of Islam, where religion gives legitimacy to the government and state-appointed clerics set rules for social behavior, a growing number of Saudis are privately declaring themselves atheists.

The evidence is anecdotal, but persistent.

“I know at least six atheists who confirmed that to me,” said Fahad AlFahad, 31, a marketing consultant and human rights activist. “Six or seven years ago, I wouldn’t even have heard one person say that. Not even a best friend would confess that to me.”

A Saudi journalist in Riyadh has observed the same trend.

“The idea of being irreligious and even atheist is spreading because of the contradiction between what Islamists say and what they do,” he said.

The perception that atheism is no longer a taboo subject — at least two Gulf-produced television talk shows recently discussed it — may explain why the government has made talk of atheism a terrorist offense. The March 7 decree from the Ministry of Interior prohibited, among other things, “calling for atheist thought in any form, or calling into question the fundamentals of the Islamic religion on which this country is based.”

The number of people willing to admit to friends to being atheist or to declare themselves atheist online, usually under aliases, is certainly not big enough to be a movement or threaten the government. A 2012 poll by WIN-Gallup International of about 500 Saudis found that 5 percent described themselves as “convinced atheist.” This was well below the global average of 13 percent.

But the greater willingness to privately admit to being atheist reflects a general disillusionment with religion and what one Saudi called “a growing notion” that religion is being misused by authorities to control the population. This disillusionment is seen in a number of ways, ranging from ignoring clerical pronouncements to challenging and even mocking religious leaders on social media.

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“Because people are becoming more disillusioned with the government, they started looking at the government and its support groups as being in bed together and conspiring together against the good of the people,” said Bassim Alim, a lawyer in Jeddah.

“When they see the ulema [religious scholars] appeasing the government,” he added, “people become dismayed because they thought they were pious and straightforward and just. “

“I believe people started being fed up with how religion is really controlling their life and how only one interpretation of religion should be followed,” said activist Fahad AlFahad.

Together, the appearance of atheists, a growing wariness of religious controls on society, as well as the continuing lure of jihad and ultraconservatism signal a breakdown in the conformity and consensus that has marked the Saudi religious field in the recent past. It is becoming a more heterogenous and polarized faith scene.

“The mosques are full but society is losing its values. It’s more like a mechanical practice, like going church, you have to go on Sunday,” said a former employee of state media. “We no longer understand our religion, not because we don’t want to. But because our vision of it, our understanding of it, has been polluted by the monarchy…[and]…by the official religious establishment that only measures religion by what the monarchy wants and what pleases the monarchy.”

The growing skepticism about religion and clerics is more visible nowadays because of social media outlets, including tweets, blogs and Facebook pages.

Here are three illustrative tweets from Saudis:

— Prince Abdul Aziz bin Fahad has been tweeting nonstop abt God. I pity his disconnectedness from today’s public. It’s not the 1980′s. Pathetic

— Because our illusion that our version of Islam is the only correct one needs to be washed away

— Could the ulema issue a fatwa against domestic violence? I mean the fatwa committee has prohibited playing Resident Evil

At the same time, however, there is a countervailing trend in that some young Saudis are joining radical Islamist and jihadi movements, a trend reinforced by the war in Syria.

“When the Arab Spring started, young religious people were asking about Islam and democracy,” said Saud Al Sarhan, director of research at the King Faisal Center for Research and Islamic Studies in Riyadh. “But now they are just asking about Islam and jihad, after what is going on in Syria.”

This attraction towards militant ultraconservatism is also apparent in the activities of unregulated religious vigilantes. Even as the government’s own religious police have come under stricter controls, these bands of young religious “volunteers” attack social gatherings to stop what they deem as prohibited activities, including music, dancing and gender mixing. In one famous incident in 2012, these “volunteers” raided the annual government-sponsored cultural festival known as Janadriya, where they clashed with security forces.

It is still dangerous to publicly admit one is an atheist because of the dire punishment one can face from a court system based on sharia, which regards disbelief in God as a capital offense.

In addition, conservative clerics who have considerable sway among Saudis, use the label ‘atheist’ to discredit those who question their strict interpretations of Islamic scriptures or express doubts about the dominant version of Islam known as Wahhabism.

That is what happened with 25-year-old Hamza Kashgari who in 2012 tweeted some unconventional thoughts about Prophet Muhammad, none of which indicated he did not believe in God. Still, he was called ‘atheist’ and to appease the religious establishment, the government jailed him for 20 months.

Also, Raef Badawi, in his early 30s, was accused of being atheist because he called for freedom to discuss other versions of Islam besides Wahhabism on the website “Free Saudi Liberals.” Badawi was sentenced to seven years in prison and 600 lashes in July 2013. His lawyer, Waleed Abu Alkhair, a human rights activist who also has been jailed, said Badawi told the court that he was a Muslim but added that “everyone has a choice to believe or not believe,” the BBC reported.

A Riyadh resident who has extensive contacts with young Saudis because of his job in higher education said that he “tries to warn young people that they are living according to an Islam constructed by the government, and not according to the Islam given us by God.”

Increasingly, he said, some youths “are going to ignore religion and become atheist, while others are going to understand the game.”

Apatheist: Slowly but surely....
The revolution shall be televised

cococandy: I've had some muslim sisters mail me in private to express their fears about what they might have to go through if they confess their crisis of faith.

So this news is not really surprising.

Weah96: Praying 5X a day is a piece of work. Just imagine, there's absolutely no vacation. Even in a Muslim works in the middle of Times Square, he must still find somewhere to pray around that area. How can Allah be so inconsiderate? I don't think that atheism will succeed in Saudi Arabia though. The level of brainwashing is too profound. They have succeeded in making Islam inseparable from racial identity, like the Jews have with Judaism. There are Jewish atheists who are also rabbis and they consider their rabbinical duties to be a fulfillment of ethnic and racial responsibilities.

TheBigUrban2:
time will tell.....


atheism is growing slowly

Redoil: Most muslims just believe what they are told without kwestion so being atheis will not be easy. Unlike we xtian that ask kwestions and if proper answer is not given then wellcome to atheism

Rilwayne001:

how market?

EvilBrain1: The internet is killing religion everywhere and Saudi Arabia is not an exception. There's less poverty, disease and more personal security so people don't feel the need to call for supernatural help anymore. Knowledge is now freely available and everyone can clearly see how successful secular science has been and how little religion has achieved in comparison. And most of all, religious people have lost control of the conversation. They can no longer monologue endlessly without anyone challenging them. The internet has made it possible to call them out on their bullshît and expose just how weak all their arguments are.

And this is just the beginning. Within the next 20 years, virtually everyone everywhere is going to have cheap internet access on cheap and powerful mobile devices. The generation that grows up in that environment is going to look at the mullahs and the pastors like they are crazy. We're already seeing young people in Europe and America abandoning religion in droves. As the older generation start to die off, the percentage of religious people is going to fall like a stone.

The next few decades are going to be fun to watch.

TheBigUrban2:
lol....but many muslim youths are seeing the bullsheit that their sharia is doing to them.
They watch American youths dancing in the streets in movies and yet the Arabian youth cant
They watch Naruto....a japanese cartoon character that eats pork and is still a good guy
They love watching models show off their dresses on the catwalk and yet the Arab youth cant dress like their fave models
Some Arabian girls love football but are demotivated when they arent allowed to wear shorts and sports shirts to play. they have to wear burkhas

TheBigUrban2:


Source; http://www.salon.com/2014/06/12/atheism_explodes_in_saudi_arabia_where_just_talking_about_atheism_is_illegal_partner/

tbaba1234, usba, maclatunji, deols, lagosshia shialagos, albaqir, vedaxcool

TheBigUrban2:

ifeness: Every organized religion will be a thing of the past at some point.

The numbers of people who consider themselves to be religious,continues to drop around the world.

The numbers of Christians in the UK have dropped by 30%

Even the Buddist monks are struggling to keep followers.

It is hard for to find new converts to any organized religious movements these days

For Islam to attract young followers they would have to resort to things like rap music.

Truth must be said; All Religions are false and their ends are near.

TheBigUrban2:


Islamic rap is gaddem awful.


Although, one guy manages to try-

http://www.youKtube.com/watch?v=o68VZzTada8 (remove the "K" from YouKtube to go to the link)

ifeness:

Lol. Imma check it out! I will have to listen on low volume so I'm not linked with ISIS.

TheBigUrban2: .

AlBaqir:

I don't have problem with the news. Such a thing and more is expected in such an environment. I simply don't buy the title given to the thread. Its not fair.

First, note that Saudi government is definitely not Islamic likewise most of the Arabian peninsula. They only use Islam as cover up.

An Islamic government is one where Ulama (scholars) are the rulers and legislators under the banner of a supreme leader (Imam or khalifa).

Monarchy is practice in saudi-arabia where a single family ruled for ages and the country was even named after the family, al-Saud . Scholars dare not say anything against the king or his kingdom.

Besides the kind of "Islam" being practiced in Saudi is too protective of the kingdom's interest than freedom of thought, dialogue with wisdom and equality with justice that should be enjoyed by the people.

"Islam" has been re-established there to be "traditional" rather than being a freedom way of life where people practice with understanding. Many arabs doesn't know the beauty and mercy of Islam.

There is too much politics being hypocritically displayed as Islam - corruption among the nobles, brutal punishments for the poor; misinterpretation of "destiny and predestination" by the scholars to suit and cover up the corruption of the leaders (kings and nobles) . LagosShia posted a thread earlier with the thought of Emir Sanusi Lamido:
www.nairaland.com/1801789/emir-sanusi-lamido-sanusi-shia#1801789.9

vedaxcool: mynd44 why are you hiding my post?

AlBaqir:

I don't have problem with the news. Such a thing and more is expected in such an environment. I simply don't buy the title given to the thread. Its not fair.

First, note that Saudi government is definitely not Islamic likewise most of the Arabian peninsula. They only use Islam as cover up.

An Islamic government is one where Ulama (scholars) are the rulers and legislators under the banner of a supreme leader (Imam or khalifa).

Monarchy is practice in saudi-arabia where a single family ruled for ages and the country was even named after the family, al-Saud . Scholars dare not say anything against the king or his kingdom.

Besides the kind of "Islam" being practiced in Saudi is too protective of the kingdom's interest than freedom of thought, dialogue with wisdom and equality with justice that should be enjoyed by the people.

"Islam" has been re-established there to be "traditional" rather than being a freedom way of life where people practice with understanding. Many arabs doesn't know the beauty and mercy of Islam.

There is too much politics being hypocritically displayed as Islam - corruption among the nobles, brutal punishments for the poor; misinterpretation of "destiny and predestination" by the scholars to suit and cover up the corruption of the leaders (kings and nobles) . LagosShia posted a thread earlier with the thought of Emir Sanusi Lamido:
www.nairaland.com/1801789/emir-sanusi-lamido-sanusi-shia#1801789.9

ifeness:

Based on the link you posted,I have a feeling that the new Emir of Kano is too intelligent
/ learned to be a muslim. He is most likely an Atheist privately.

Atheism became a threat to the Saudis the moment they declared it an act of terrorism . That obviously tells the Imams are witnessing a change in beliefs of their blind followers.