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Saudi Arabia

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Mecca in Saudi Arabia is Islam's holiest site
CC BY-SA 2.0 / Al Jazeera English

Saudi Arabia is home to the two holiest Muslim sites, Mecca and Medina, and the Saudi government considers itself the authoritative voice of Islam. The region once had a large Christian population, which vanished completely when Islam gained control around 630 AD. Saudi Arabia is now one of the most rigid, hardline and authoritarian states in the world, and it makes virtually no provision for religious freedom. Its official religion is Sunni Islam; its constitution is the Quran and the traditions about Muhammad, and its legal system is based on the government’s strict and puritanical interpretation of sharia. There is no separation of state and religion, and all the country’s citizens must be Muslim. School textbooks, sermons and fatwas promote hatred and violence against Christians and Jews.

In line with Muhammad’s prohibition of more than one religion in the Arabian Peninsula, the government disallows the public practice of any non-Muslim religion. There are no non-Muslim places of worship in the country, and the Grand Mufti declared in March 2012 that it was “necessary to destroy all the churches of the region”. Conversion from Islam is officially punishable by death, and the small number of Saudi Christians have to practise their faith in extreme secrecy. Because of this, their exact numbers are known only to the Lord. The mutawaah (religious police) ruthlessly enforce restrictions on behaviour. Expatriate Christians living in Saudi Arabia are permitted to worship in private, but their meetings are sometimes raided by the mutawaah and their Christian resources confiscated. In December 2011 a group of Ethiopian Christians were arrested at a private prayer meeting; the women were strip-searched and sexually abused, and officers kicked and beat the men and called them “unbelievers”. They were detained for months and eventually deported.

The 2011 uprisings in the Middle East prompted King Abdullah to announce a number of economic and political reforms, but none of them involved religious freedom. In fact, Saudi Arabia has used the opportunity provided by the “Arab Spring” to promote its Wahhabi version of Islam in the Middle East and North Africa. It has also clamped down hard on any potential dissent within its own borders.

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  • Four converts to Christianity jailed, two others given suspended sentence, amid Iranian presidential elections http://ow.ly/m6BPh Mon, Jun 2013 17:04

  • #Christian killed in Egypt church attack; Christian businesses destroyed http://bit.ly/190VjKT Thu, Jun 2013 14:49

  • India: Dad/son beaten in prayer meeting.Indones: President gets relig freedom award. Viet: 8 from unreg church jailed http://bit.ly/15OtRO9 Wed, Jun 2013 11:06

  • "Reign of terror" against #Christians, Central African Republic "raising a Bible Wed, Jun 2013 01:08

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  • In another chilling sign of Egypt’s move towards becoming an Islamic state, it was announced in March that a religious police force had been established to uphold Muslim morals. The Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice shares its name with the notorious religious police of Saudi Arabia. For some months previously, vigilante Salafist gangs had been operating as self-appointed enforcers of morals, raiding shops and harassing staff and customers. The Christian community is concerned that it may now be subjected to the demands of sharia law. Pray that this will not happen and that the Islamisation of Egyptian society will be checked and then reversed. Subscribe to the prayer points rss feed 1 hour ago

  • Christian girls in Egypt are extremely vulnerable to being kidnapped by Salafists who forcibly convert them to Islam and marry them to Muslim men against their will; over 500 have been victims of this heartless campaign since the revolution of January 2011. The Association of Victims of Abduction and Enforced Disappearance (AVAED), an Egyptian Christian organisation, says that the authorities collude with the Salafists. Give thanks for the safe return of Agape Essam Girgis (13), who was abducted from el-Ameriya on 23 December 2012. Sadly, most cases do not have a happy ending. Pray that the Lord will comfort those families whose daughters are still missing and intervene mightily to deliver the Christian girls from the hands of their captors. Subscribe to the prayer points rss feed Tue, Jun 2013 00:00

  • Pray for our brothers and sisters in North Africa living in the shadow of militant Islamism. Following the French intervention against Islamist groups who had taken over large parts of Mali, militants attacked a gas facility in Algeria in January and killed 37 people. An Algerian employee who managed to escape said, “We were told that because we were Muslim we would not be killed, and it was only the Christians they were after.” The Islamists associate Christianity with the West, so Christian targets and individuals as well as Western ones are especially vulnerable to attack. Ask that the Lord will protect Christians in the region against violence and the oppressive grip of sharia law. Subscribe to the prayer points rss feed Mon, Jun 2013 00:00

  • “I had just cooked my last meal, and there was no food in the house, nor money, nor any other way of obtaining grain. Thank the Lord for this aid, which has saved me and my children.” Bâh Kamaté, a Christian widow with six children in Mali, was “completely overwhelmed” when her pastor told her that she was going to receive corn and rice funded by Barnabas. Thousands of Christians fled the north of the country after the Islamist takeover in 2012, and their plight was worsened by food shortages resulting from drought. But praise God that Barnabas has helped to supply food for more than 5,100 Christians, as well as meeting other needs. Pray for His continuing provision for His people as Mali continues to face an uncertain future. Subscribe to the prayer points rss feed Sun, Jun 2013 00:00

  • Those who become Christians in Laos risk losing everything. A couple from Chumpoy in the Sanamsai district of Attappeu province were thrown out of their village on 23 January for converting to Christianity. Pray for Sakien and his wife Dong, who came to Christ after hearing the testimony of their son and daughter-in-law, Sanien and Pitsamai; they had become Christians after Pitsamai was healed after prayer. Sakien and Dong are currently sheltering in a partially constructed church building in another village; pray that they will either be able to return to their home or find adequate housing elsewhere, and that the Lord will sustain them in their new faith throughout this trial. Subscribe to the prayer points rss feed Sat, Jun 2013 00:00

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