Following Saudi Arabia’s recent threat to execute Lebanese radio personality Ali Sabat for “sorcery,” the progressive government of Bahrain now plans to make sorcery and witchcraft criminal offenses, evidently part of a new Arab Muslim attack on the psychic arts.
People found guilty of sorcery and witchcraft would face unspecified jail terms and undetermined fines or both, the paper reports.
The article is illustrated with a stock photo of Australian Witch and writer Caroline Tully, oddly enough.
Viewing with alarm, a Saudi professor of Islamic studies claims that Arabs spend $5 billion annually on magic and sorcery, so the Islamic witch-hunters have their work cut out for them.
Meanwhile, in Iran, they want to arrest women for having sun tans, which “defy Islamic values.”
Actually, what we are seeing in Bahrain is democracy at work. Ever since limited democracy was introduced in the 90’s the Sunni and the Shia political parties have been vying to out-do each other in their calls for ever increasingly “Islamic” legislation.
Ah, democracy. If Europeans had had democracy in the 16th century, perhaps we could have seen Catholics and Protestants in some German parliament vying to pass stronger anti-witch laws.
Oh, numbers! Curiously, that $5 billion estimate of how much Arabs spend on “magic and sorcery” just about matches Bahrain’s yearly budget. Making me wonder whether, if that money could be re-channeled, then there could be another Gulf State much like Bahrain.
It’s an odd understanding of democracy that makes all citizens “free” to be exactly identical in world view to each other. No deviation allowed.
Pitch, the $5 billion figure is for “the Arab world,” however the professor defined that, not just for Bahrain alone.