Does Islam allow Muttaween style policing?

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"Muttaween" or the Committee for the Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice patrol the streets of Saudi Arabia "enforcing dress codes, strict separation of men and women, salah prayer by Muslims during prayer times, and other behavior it believes to be commanded by Islam" wikipedia.

Is it Islamic to have a Police to check on people; to see whether they pray? or conduct other religious duties?
 
Unless individual's of this board can provide articles from scholars I don't think we have anyone of the calibre to provide an answer to that question.
 
:salamext:

I don't see what the problem with that is, to be honest.
 
But is it Islamic to have a police to enforce, religious duties on it's believers?

I believe (even though it's irrelevant, let me state it here): If I want to Fast, which I very much do, then it should be up to my willingness to do so, not because of the fear of government endorsed religious police. More over, I believe a religious police undermines The followers faith in God.
 
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Yea but for example, some maybe too lazy to pray, but if they are encouraged they do and due to that their faith increases.
 
Al Habeshi said:
Yea but for example, some maybe too lazy to pray, but if they are encouraged they do and due to that their faith increases.
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this is true. But there is a difference between some doing their duties as muslims out of fear of Allah subhana wa ta'ala, and some doing their duties out of fear of fellow men placing you in prison or worse.
 
:salamext:

I dont even know why people are complaining to be honest. I think its kool
 
- Brok3n - said:
:salamext:

I dont even know why people are complaining to be honest. I think its kool
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It's not a matter of this concept being "Kool" or not, the question is whether it is Islamic to have a religious police to enforce religious duties on its followers.
 
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:salamext:

There are no scholars on this forum, so I doubt u'll get ur answer.
 
Personally, I do see a big problem with this.
1. First of all, if we look at the example of the prophet (peace be upon him); if Islam had decreed something and some people did not follow that, in many cases he did not act upon it. (did not enforce those rules)

2. We are not prophets, so even in the cases where the prophet did enforce something, we have to question whether we have the same authority. having authority does not simply mean being on a pay check by the government. Having authority here means that there is an ayaah in the Qur'an or a hadeeth that tells us that we should enforce this or that specific rule in our country, and punish those who don't follow it. Again in many rules these police enforce, this is missing. We have to understand that there are two types of rules. There are rules which each person should be free to follow or not by his own will, and which people will be judged upon by God. And there are rules which Allah (subhana wa ta'ala) told us in the Qur'an or trough the prophet (peace be upon him) to enforce. Now, I'm not saying that Islamic judges in an Islamic juridical system don't have any liberty at all to punish smaller crimes which don't have a prescribed punishment for in religion. However one needs to be careful not to limit individual and personal freedom unless there is just cause. For example it's justifiable to limit personal freedom in drinking alcohol, because a person who drinks not only damages his own body, but can also becomes a hazard for society. If on the other hand a person wants to have a pet cat, I don't see justification to make that the police's business to prevent that.

3. Some of the rules they enforce don't even have any Islamic ground. so not only are they enforcing something that needn't be enforced and that they don't have the authority for, on top of that they spread wrong Islamic rules.

All this being said, I'd like to stress that I don't oppose the concept of a police enforcing rules. And I don't have a problem with police forces enforcing both strictly juridical as well as religious rules (on the condition of course that this is made legal by law of that country). However I do object to the specific rules that they force right now, because I find that many of those specific rules are completely unjustifiable.
 
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:salamext:

I don't have a problem with the idea in general. After all, if one can change an evil with his hand, he should do it - as the well-known hadeeth states.
 
its in saudi, im sure the sheikhs would have raised concerns if this wasnt allright?
 
IbnAbdulHakim said:
its in saudi, im sure the sheikhs would have raised concerns if this wasnt allright?
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No offence brother, but it's such an attitude that allows bidah into religion. We shouldn't just rely on a judgment "just because it's a sheik". People are fallible, they make mistakes all the time. It doesn't necessarily mean they are bad people, it does mean though that we have to be more skeptic. I'm really disgusted by this double standard where salafi on one hand criticize other divisions or sects for accepting what their scholars say without proof but at the same time (some of) those scholars present things without proof to.
 
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^ lol :)

i understand what your saying bro but lol, what i meant is if theres a whole council of people far more knowledgable then us it makes me a feel a bit silly that we talk about it here. I mean its public knowledge, its a "force" after all. I guess the common laymen can raise concerns if it passes by the sheikhs which is possible but i really didnt think such an open and wide spread issue can pass them.

Also i thought the sheikhs consult the best of the best in matters such as this? which is what gives me comfort in placing my trust in them.


no double standard here bro, a bit o reliance and trust is all :)
 
IbnAbdulHakim said:
^ lol :)

i understand what your saying bro but lol, what i meant is if theres a whole council of people far more knowledgable then us it makes me a feel a bit silly that we talk about it here. I mean its public knowledge, its a "force" after all. I guess the common laymen can raise concerns if it passes by the sheikhs which is possible but i really didnt think such an open and wide spread issue can pass them.
Also i thought the sheikhs consult the best of the best in matters such as this? which is what gives me comfort in placing my trust in them.
no double standard here bro, a bit o reliance and trust is all :)
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selam aleykum
I disagree, if this council really has this much more knowledge then us, it should be able to present not only it's ruling, but also present us their source for ruling! and I do think this trust and reliance is misplaced, and I do think it's a double standard! My stand is very clear: A scholar has no authority other then his knowledge. So we should only accept his ruling if he can present his sources. In fact many scholars of the past specifically warned their students and followers not to accept anything they said except when they provided proof for it. I don't see why the Saudian council of sheiks should be any different.
 
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Abdul Fattah said:
No offence brother, but it's such an attitude that allows bidah into religion. We shouldn't just rely on a judgment "just because it's a sheik". People are fallible, they make mistakes all the time. It doesn't necessarily mean they are bad people, it does mean though that we have to be more skeptic.
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Perhaps if you knew there was a difference of opinion akhee, or if you asked another scholar and they said otherwise. Otherwise, it's the opinion of a scholar versus that of a layman.
 
@ abdul fattah i understand what your saying, and i also think proof is required for actions in islaam.

if an architect doesnt notice the flaws of his blueprints its ok for his students to point it out to him :)

but are we even qualified to be called students...
 
IbnAbdulHakim said:
@ abdul fattah i understand what your saying, and i also think proof is required for actions in islaam.
if an architect doesnt notice the flaws of his blueprints its ok for his students to point it out to him :)
but are we even qualified to be called students...
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Selam aleykum
Again, no offense brother, I'm not trying to attack you personally; but I resent the cultural status that sheiks have nowadays (whether they want that status or that status is given to them without their consent) where only a certain type of "student" is qualified to question. Again if we look at history we see examples of great leaders like Abu bakr being questioned during their khutbah by a layman woman and Abu bakr admitting his mistake. If you ask me, it's not a matter of us being qualified students to question, but rather the other way around. If a sheikh cannot defend his claims even to the questions of a layman, can you still call him a sheik?
 
:sl:

I believe Sister Crayon mentioned the way these religious police act, and I assume we can fairly agree that since she lives in Riyadh, she has better experience in the way the masses are treated by them:

http://www.islamicboard.com/929033-post11.html
http://www.islamicboard.com/929205-post18.html

I have no problem with them, but I think they ought to do their job with the Prophetic methodology of correcting people because that would produce the most benefit. Does anyone know, are they given a class by the scholars on how to correct people?
 
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