Irreligion in Saudi Arabia is difficult to measure as it is illegal to leave the Islamic faith in the country. Most

atheists Atheism, in the broadest sense, is an absence of belief in the existence of deities. Less broadly, atheism is a rejection of the belief that any deities exist. In an even narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there no d ...

Saudi Arabia Saudi Arabia, officially the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), is a country in Western Asia. It covers the bulk of the Arabian Peninsula, and has a land area of about , making it the fifth-largest country in Asia, the second-largest in the A ...

communicate with each other via the internet. According to a 2012 poll by WIN-Gallup International, 19% of 502 Saudi Arabians surveyed stated they were "not religious", and 5% that they were "convinced atheists". In March 2014, the Saudi interior ministry issued a royal decree branding all atheists as terrorists, which defines

terrorism Terrorism, in its broadest sense, is the use of criminal violence to provoke a state of terror or fear, mostly with the intention to achieve political or religious aims. The term is used in this regard primarily to refer to intentional violen ...

as "calling for atheist thought in any form, or calling into question the fundamentals of the Islamic religion on which this country is based." Apostasy is punishable by death in Saudi Arabia.

Notable irreligious Saudis

Abdullah al-Qasemi Abdullah al-Qasemi (1907 – 9 January 1996) ( ar, عبدالله القصيمي) was a Saudi Arabian 20th-century writer and intellectual. He is one of the most controversial intellectuals in the Arab world because of his radical change from d ...

– Saudi Arabian 20th-century writer and intellectual. Former

Salafist The Salafi movement or Salafism () is a reform branch movement within Sunni Islam that originated during the nineteenth century. The name refers to advocacy of a return to the traditions of the "pious predecessors" (), the first three generati ...

who became atheist and rejected organized religion. * Rana Ahmad – Saudi Arabian refugee in Germany, author, women's rights activist and founder of the Atheist Refugee Relief * Rahaf Mohammed – Saudi Arabian refugee in Canada whose January 2019 flight attracted international attention and involved diplomatic intervention. *

Hamza Kashgari Hamza Kashgari Mohamad Najeeb (often Hamza Kashgari, ar, حمزة كاشغري; born 1989) is a Saudi poet and a former columnist for the Saudi daily newspaper '' Al-Bilad''. In 2011, he was on a Mabahith watchlist of pro-democracy activists ...

– Saudi poet and a former columnist for the Saudi daily newspaper '' Al-Bilad''.

Notable irreligious Saudis

See also

References

Further reading