Life and Death in Saudi Arabia

Continuing on the theme of BBC articles about death, I was interested to read this article about the funeral of King Fahd in Saudi Arabia.

The late King Fahd's funeral may have come as something of a shock to those unfamiliar with Saudi religious practices.

One of the world's wealthiest and most extravagant monarchs - who in life resided in a string of lavish palaces - was buried in an unmarked grave in a public cemetery.

After a 23-year rule, there was no mourning period in Fahd's homeland, government offices stayed open and flags remained at full mast.

The reason is that the House of Saudi practises one of the strictest codes of Islam - known as Wahhabism - in which followers try to emulate precisely the behaviour of the Prophet Muhammad and avoid anything seen as un-Islamic "innovations".

Public displays of grief are frowned upon by a religious establishment which views every aspect of life and death as a submission to God's supreme will.

That means funerals are very austere and puritanical in character, with a strong impression of egalitarianism in death.

Indeed, somewhere in Riyadh's Oud cemetery, where King Fahd was buried on Tuesday, lie the equally anonymous graves of his predecessors as head of the oil-rich kingdom carved out by their father, Abdul Aziz Bin Saud.

Those of you interested in poor proofreading among big name news organizations will, hopefully, not that in the first line of the fourth paragraph, it should read "House of Saud", not "House of Saudi".

And of course, the BBC has to get their jab in at America:

Critics of US policy in the region will decry Washington's endorsement of this process - Vice Present Dick Cheney is flying in to pay his respects - on the same day that another leader takes office under another self-styled Islamic system - one rejected by the US but which actually includes voting - in Iran.

Now, I realize that this money shot paragraph is nearly impossible to decipher, as it's a horrible run-on sentence permeated with far too many hyphens. However, the gist of it is that the BBC criticizes America's alliance with Saudi Arabia, and simultaneously endorses the show elections in Iran. Of course, expecting a BBC writer to recognize the apples vs. oranges nature of this comparison in his silly little article about Saudi funeral/succession rituals would be silly.

Bottom line, the article's poorly written, and the writer, Martin Asser, makes no attempt whatsoever to hide his loathing of both the Saudis and the Americans. Even so, the trained reader will be able to snare a few worthy nuggets out of this "article".