There are images of Saudi Arabia’s king everywhere here in Jeddah – on the sides of buildings, on billboards, inside businesses, etc. This huge image of the king is on a center island dividing lanes of traffic on a very busy road. While Islam discourages idol worship of any kind, images of the king apparently fall under a different category.
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Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, is KSA's 2nd largest city and is located on its west coast, right on the Red Sea. I moved here in 2007 with my Saudi hubby. This journal reflects the things that I see here, life through my eyes, my lens.
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As a Saudi, I have to tell you the street’s pictures of our king is almost entirely a choice of us (citizens, local employee [private, government]), so it’s not like the government forcing us -directly or indirectly- to post pictures in walls everywhere..
actually, many pictures serve as advertisements (look at the symbols below the picture), the company need to pay fee for posting this picture in roads.
The pictures is almost quadrupled when the king recovered from his illness couple years ago
we love our king
The picture say: May Allah protect you “Abu-Met’eb” << " Abu= father of "
I know that these huge photos of the king all over the city are not placed there by royal edict, but by businessmen who love their king and wish to win his favor (politics). However Islam forbids idol worship. Therefore placing the king’s photo everywhere contradicts this particular ideology of the religion. It’s hard for people like me to understand why this is okay while I was told when I first arrived in this country that I couldn’t even display photos of my own family in my own home. I just don’t get it.
There are actually no contradiction.
Photo was forbidden by Islam’s scholars many years ago because -for them in these times- was like an idol. so they equal “photos” to “idols” thus came the forbidden (girl’s dolls was forbidden for the same reason)
but now we all know -for sure- the idols are forbidden if worshiped, and if people not make it holy or worshiped it there is no reason for “making” true idols nor destroying existing one unless it disturbed people “for centuries, idols of old Egyptians are still there”
so scholars (except very few extremists) changed their mind and make us actually understand our religion even more
….
You can place your family photos anywhere in your home starting from your mobile phone š
photos are just a mirror! that’s all
..
There are still some people (actually most of them) believe antiques that represent animate beings like animal are forbidden but that doesn’t mean you can’t own one (I
have some in my house)
..
Thank you
Hmmmm. I guess some of us are allowed to bend the rules a little.
he looks very amiable.
The Saudi royals seem to be big in many ways!
Cheers from Minnesota
Seems like Big Brother is watching. Guess you’re not suppose to worship the King.
Interesting. I feel like I should be wave back.