The Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice (, abbreviated CPVPV, colloquially termed ''hai’a'' (committee), and known as the ''mutawa'' () and by other similar names and translations in English-language sources) is a government religious authority in

Saudi Arabia Saudi Arabia, officially the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), is a country in West Asia. Located in the centre of the Middle East, it covers the bulk of the Arabian Peninsula and has a land area of about , making it the List of Asian countries ...

that is charged with implementing the Islamic doctrine of ''

hisbah Enjoining good and forbidding wrong () are two important duties imposed by God in Islam as revealed in the Quran and Hadith. This expression is the base of the classical Islamic institution of ''ḥisba'', the individual or collective duty (depe ...

'' in the country. Established in 1940, the body gained extensive powers in the 1980s and continued to function as a semi-independent civilian law enforcement agency for almost 35 years until 2016, when societal reforms driven by then-deputy crown prince

Mohammed bin Salman Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud (; born 31 August 1985), also known as MBS or MbS, is the ''de facto'' ruler of the Saudi Arabia, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, formally serving as Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, Crown Prince and Prime Minister of Sa ...

led to limiting some of its authority through a royal decree by King Salman bin Abdulaziz, including the rights of pursuing, questioning, detaining, and interrogating suspects. Tracing its modern origin to a revival of the pre-modern official function of ''

muhtasib A muḥtasib (, from the root ''ḥisbah'', or "accountability"Sami Zubaida (2005), Law and Power in the Islamic World, , pages 58-60) was "a holder of the office of al-hisbah in classical Islamic administrations", according to Oxford Islamic St ...

'' (market inspector) by the

first Saudi state The first Saudi state (), officially the Emirate of Diriyah (), was established in 1744, when the emir of a Najdi town called Diriyah, Muhammad I, and the religious leader Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab signed a pact to found a socio-religious r ...

(1727–1818), it was established in its best known form in 1976, with the main goal of supervising markets and public morality, and was often described as

Islamic religious police Islamic religious police (also sometimes known as morality police or sharia police) are official Islamic religious police agencies, often in Muslim-majority countries, which enforce religious observance and public morality on behalf of national ...

. By the early 2010s, the committee was estimated to have 3,500–4,000 officers on the streets, assisted by thousands of volunteers, with an additional 10,000 administrative personnel. Its head held the rank of cabinet minister and reported directly to the king. Committee officers and volunteers patrolled public places, with volunteers focusing on enforcing strict rules of

hijab Hijab (, ) refers to head coverings worn by Women in Islam, Muslim women. Similar to the mitpaḥat/tichel or Snood (headgear), snood worn by religious married Jewish women, certain Christian head covering, headcoverings worn by some Christian w ...

sex segregation Sex segregation, sex separation, sex partition, gender segregation, gender separation, or gender partition is the physical, legal, or cultural separation of people according to their gender or Sex, biological sex at any age. Sex segregation ca ...

, and daily prayer attendance; but also non-Islamic products/activities such as the sale of dogs and cats,

Barbie Barbie is a fashion doll created by American businesswoman Ruth Handler, manufactured by American toy and entertainment company Mattel and introduced on March 9, 1959. The toy was based on the German Bild Lilli doll, Bild Lilli doll which Hand ...

dolls, ''

Pokémon is a Japanese media franchise consisting of List of Pokémon video games, video games, Pokémon (TV series), animated series and List of Pokémon films, films, Pokémon Trading Card Game, a trading card game, and other related media. The fran ...

'', and

Valentine's Day Valentine's Day, also called Saint Valentine's Day or the Feast of Saint Valentine, is celebrated annually on February 14. It originated as a Christian feast day honoring a Christian martyrs, martyr named Saint Valentine, Valentine, and ...

gifts.

Names

The name of the committee has also been translated as ''Committee for the Propagation of Virtue and the Elimination of Sin'', abbreviated CAVES. They are known colloquially as ''hai’a'' (literally "committee", also transliterated as ''Haia'' or ''Haya''). In academic sources, committee officers or the volunteers have also been called by several Arabic terms derived from the root ''ṭ-w-ʿ'', including ''mutaṭawwiʿūn'' (, volunteers), ''muṭawwiʿ'' (, one who compels obedience), and ''muṭāwiʿa'' (no literal translation given). These words are etymologically related to the Quranically derived terms ''muṭṭawwiʿa'' and ''mutaṭawwiʿa'' (those who perform

supererogatory Supererogation (Late Latin: ''supererogatio'' "payment beyond what is needed or asked", from ''super'' "beyond" and ''erogare'' "to pay out, expend", itself from ''ex'' "out" and ''rogare'' "to ask") is the performance of more than is asked for; ...

deeds of piety). English-language press has used the names ''mutawa'' and ''mutaween''.

History, structure, role

The committee's rationale is based on the classical Islamic doctrine of '' hisba'', which is associated with the Quranic injunction of ''

enjoining good and forbidding wrong Enjoining good and forbidding wrong () are two important duties imposed by God in Islam as revealed in the Quran and Hadith. This expression is the base of the classical Islamic institution of ''ḥisba'', the individual or collective duty (depe ...

'', and refers to the duty of Muslims to promote moral rectitude and intervene when another Muslim is acting wrongly. In pre-modern Islamic history, its legal implementation was entrusted to a traditional Islamic public official called ''

'' (market inspector), who was charged with preventing fraud, disturbance of public order and infractions against public morality. This office disappeared in the modern era everywhere in the Muslim world, including Arabia, but it was revived by the first Saudi state (1727–1818) and continued to play a role in the second (1823–87), due to its importance within Wahhabi doctrine. ;First state 1727–1818 (

Emirate of Diriyah The first Saudi state (), officially the Emirate of Diriyah (), was established in 1744, when the emir of a Najdi town called Diriyah, Muhammad I, and the religious leader Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab signed a pact to found a socio-religious ...

) Following the conquest of the Hijaz in 1803 a chronicler records bonfires made from confiscated tobacco pipes and stringed instruments by enforcers of sharia (after a list had been made of the owners).Cook, ''Forbidding Wrong'', 2003, p.125 According to the US Library of Congress Country Studies, mutawwiin

"have been integral to the Wahhabi movement since its inception. Mutawwiin have served as missionaries, as enforcers of public morals, and as 'public ministers of the religion' who preach in the Friday mosque. Pursuing their duties in Jiddah in 1806, the mutawwiin were observed to be 'constables for the punctuality of prayers ... with an enormous staff in their hand, howere ordered to shout, to scold and to drag people by the shoulders to force them to take part in public prayers, five times a day.'"

Robert Lacey Robert Lacey (born 3 January 1944) is a British historian and biographer. He is the author of a number of best-selling biographies, including those of Henry Ford, Eileen Ford, Queen Elizabeth II and other royals, as well as several other wo ...

describes them as "vigilantes". "The righteous of every neighbourhood

hat A hat is a Headgear, head covering which is worn for various reasons, including protection against weather conditions, ceremonial reasons such as university graduation, religious reasons, safety, or as a fashion accessory. Hats which incorpor ...

banded themselves together into societies for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice." ;Second state 1823–1887 (

Emirate of Nejd The second Saudi state (), officially known as the Emirate of Najd, was a state that existed between 1824 and 1891 in the Najd region of what is now Saudi Arabia. Saudi rule was restored to central (Najd) and Eastern Arabia after the first Sau ...

) According to a study by Michael Cook, based on "Wahhabi writings and rulers' decrees" the role of commanding good and forbidding wrong developed a prominent place during the second Saudi emirate, and the first "documented instance of a formal committee to enforces the duty dates to 1926", when the official Saudi newspaper in Mecca published the news of its establishment. "One ruler orders his emirs to seek out people who gather together to smoke tobacco ... scholars and emirs should keep a check on the people of their towns with regard to prayer and religious instruction." Performance of hajj "is likewise to be monitored."Cook, ''Forbidding Wrong'', 2003, p.126 ;Third state (1902–) Under the third Saudi state, the most zealous followers of Ibn Sa'ud were appointed as ''muhtasibs''. A foreign visitor reported that in Riyāḍ in 1922-23 flogging was "commonly" administered for "smoking, non-attendance at prayer and other such offenses". This severity caused conflict with the local population and foreign pilgrims when the Hijaz was conquered and Wahhabi strictness arrived. In response, committees were established in Riyadh and Mecca in 1932 to check their excesses. After their establishment in the Hijaz, the committees "rapidly spread" to the rest of the kingdom.Cook, ''Forbidding Wrong'', 2003, p.127 Evidence that enforcement could "swing from a soft line to hard one and back again" comes from reports from Jeddah in early 1930, and summer of 1932, during a temporary move away from

Wahhabi Wahhabism is an exonym for a Salafi revivalist movement within Sunni Islam named after the 18th-century Hanbali scholar Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab. It was initially established in the central Arabian region of Najd and later spread to other ...

puritanism by King

Ibn Saud Abdulaziz bin Abdul Rahman Al Saud (; 15 January 1875Ibn Saud's birth year has been a source of debate. It is generally accepted as 1876, although a few sources give it as 1880. According to British author Robert Lacey's book ''The Kingdom'', ...

early in his reign. In 1976 the two formerly mutually independent directories in the

Hijaz Hejaz is a historical region of the Arabian Peninsula that includes the majority of the western region of Saudi Arabia, covering the cities of Mecca, Medina, Jeddah, Tabuk, Yanbu, Taif and Al-Bahah. It is thus known as the "Western Province ...

and

Najd Najd is a Historical region, historical region of the Arabian Peninsula that includes most of the central region of Saudi Arabia. It is roughly bounded by the Hejaz region to the west, the Nafud desert in Al-Jawf Province, al-Jawf to the north, ...

were united under an official of ministerial rank, acting under direct royal command, and, the Al al-Sheikh director of the committee gained a seat on the Saudi cabinet, strengthening its prestige. Its control extended to small towns as well as the cities. The unified ''Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice'' was then mainly responsible for supervising markets and public order and assisted by volunteers, who enforce attendance of daily prayers and gender segregation in public places. Following the November–December 1979 Grand Mosque Seizure, when religion became more conservative in Saudi Arabia,

"people noticed that imams and religious folk seemed to have more money to spend ... with the religious police benefiting most obviously from government injections of cash. They started to appear in imposing new GMC vans, with their once humble local committees of mutawwa ... taking on the grander, 'Big Brother' aura of their original, collective name – Al Hayah, 'the Commission'. They developed attitude to match."

They were still, however, "essentially volunteers engaged in their own variety of social work." In 2002, the deaths of 15 young girls in 2002 in Mecca after the mutaween's refused to let them leave a burning school was widely publicized and damaged the mutaween's image. ;Beginning of restrictions on power In May 2006 it was announced that the committee would no longer be allowed to interrogate those it arrests for behavior deemed un-Islamic. Prior to this, commission members enjoyed almost total power to arrest, detain, and interrogate those suspected of violating the Sharia."Virtue Squads Toning Down Shows of Power in Saudi Arabia"
Rob L. Wagner, The Media Line, 23 May 2010 In May 2006 the

Interior Ministry An interior ministry or ministry of the interior (also called ministry of home affairs or ministry of internal affairs) is a government department that is responsible for domestic policy, public security and law enforcement. In some states, the ...

issued a decree stating that "the role of the commission will end after it arrests the culprit or culprits and hands them over to police, who will then decide whether to refer them to the public prosecutor." In June 2007 the Saudi mutaween announced "the creation of a 'department of rules and regulations' to ensure the activities of commission members comply with the law, after coming under heavy pressure for the death of two people in its custody in less than two weeks". The governmental

National Society for Human Rights The National Society for Human Rights (NSHR) is a Saudi Arabian human rights organisation closely associated with and funded by the Saudi government. It was established on 10 March 2004; At the beginning of October 2012, during the

Arab Spring The Arab Spring () was a series of Nonviolent resistance, anti-government protests, Rebellion, uprisings, and Insurgency, armed rebellions that spread across much of the Arab world in the early 2010s. It began Tunisian revolution, in Tunisia ...

, Abdul Latif Abdul Aziz Al-Sheikh announced that the powers of the mutawiyin would be significantly restricted. According to Irfan Al-Alawi,

They will be barred from making arrests, conducting interrogations, or carrying out searches without a warrant from the local governor. They will no longer stand at the entrances of shopping malls to keep women out who do not adhere to the Wahhabi dress code or who are not accompanied by "approved" men—husbands, siblings, or parents.

"Community volunteers", who were the original mutaween, were forbidden from joining ''Hai’a'' men on their rounds and pursuing, chastising, and interrogating miscreants, as "a religious duty". Field officers were also ordered to "approach people with a smile," and forbidden from using their "private e-mails, cellphones, or social media accounts to receive and act on anonymous tips." In January 2012, Abdul Latif Abdul Aziz al-Sheikh was appointed head of the mutaween. He "holds the rank of cabinet minister and reports directly to the king". His agency employs more than 4,000 "field officers" and reportedly has another 10,000 administrative personnel. Its 2013 budget was the equivalent of US$390 million. ;Loss of power under MbS However, in 2016,

sharply curtailed the powers of the CPVPV (the committee). In a September 2019 article, ''

Arab News ''Arab News'' is an English-language daily newspaper published in Saudi Arabia. It is published from Riyadh. The target audiences of the paper, which is published in broadsheet format, are businesspeople, executives and diplomats. At least as ...

'' (which has been described "reflecting official position" in Saudi Arabia), portrayed the time period from about 1979 to 2016 as an era when CPVPV "strayed" from its "original intent" of advising and guiding Saudi Muslims. Starting around 1979, the ''Sahwa'' or Islamic Awakening era commenced, "extremism ideology" flourished, and the powers of the CPVPV went "unchecked". Then, in 2016 (''Arab News'' states), Mohammed bin Salman took an "unprecedented, risky yet necessary move" bringing the CPVPV to heel and returning it to its correct role as "society's spiritual guide". The newspaper describes CPVPV before and after the curtailing of its power:

They destroyed musical instruments, raided beauty salons, shaved heads, whipped people, burnt books, and continued being unchecked — until an unexpected decision came out on April 11, 2016. The Saudi Cabinet issued a royal decree that stripped the religious police of its privileges, banning its members from pursuing, questioning, asking for identification, arresting and detaining anyone suspected of a crime. They are now obliged to report back to the police and security forces if need be.

Ahmad bin Qasim Al-Ghamdi (head of the Hai'a in Mecca) describes the post-2016 policy as one where the

“... CPVPV has managed to defuse the strife in the relationship between its past self and society. It has prevented the distortion and weak confidence that the people had in the procedures that were followed in the past,
hich Ij () is a village in Golabar Rural District of the Central District in Ijrud County, Zanjan province, Iran Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI) and also known as Persia, is a country in West Asia. It borders Iraq ...
damaged the reputation of the promotion of virtue and prevention of vice as a ritual, and the reputation of the Kingdom as a state that applies the provisions of Islam.”

Enforcement

The Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice enforces traditional Islamic morality by arresting or helping to secure the arrest of people who engage in conduct that violates Islamic principles and values. They are tasked with enforcing conservative Islamic norms of behavior defined by Saudi authorities. They monitor observance of the dress code and ensure that shops are closed during prayer times. In some instances, they broke into private homes on suspicion of untoward behavior, though this attracted criticism from the public and the government. Upon being appointed head of the CPVPV, Abdul Latif Abdul Aziz al-Sheikh identified "five areas the religious police should focus on": preserving Islam, preventing blackmail, combating sorcery, fighting human trafficking, and ensuring that no one disobeys the country's rulers. Saudi mutaween are often accompanied by the regular police, but also patrol without police escort. They launched a website on which un-Islamic behavior can be reported. While on patrol, the duties of the Mutaween include, but are not restricted to: * ensuring that drugs including alcohol are not being traded. * checking that women wear the

abaya The abaya (colloquially and more commonly, ', especially in Literary Arabic: '; plural ', '), sometimes also called an aba, is a simple, loose over-garment, essentially a robe-like dress, worn by some women in the Muslim world including m ...

, a traditional cloak. * making sure that men and women who are spotted together in public are related. * formerly, enforcing the ban on camera phones. This ban was enacted out of a fear that men would use them to secretly photograph women and publish them on the Internet without the consent of the subjects. The ban was enacted in April 2004 but was overturned in December that same year. * preventing the population from engaging in "frivolous" Western customs such as

. The punishment for such offenses is severe, often involving beatings and humiliation, and foreigners are not excluded from arrest. The mutaween encourage people to inform on others they know who are suspected of acting unvirtuously, and to punish such activities. In 2010, a 27-year-old Saudi man was sentenced to five years in prison, 500 lashes of the whip, and a SR50,000 fine after appearing in an amateur gay video online allegedly taken inside a

Jeddah Jeddah ( ), alternatively transliterated as Jedda, Jiddah or Jidda ( ; , ), is a List of governorates of Saudi Arabia, governorate and the largest city in Mecca Province, Saudi Arabia, and the country's second largest city after Riyadh, located ...

prison. According to an unnamed government source, "The District Court sentenced the accused in a homosexuality case that was referred to it by the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice (the ''Hai’a'') in Jeddah before he was tried for impersonating a security man and behaving shamefully and with conduct violating the Islamic teachings." The case started when the ''Hai’as staff arrested the man under charges of practicing homosexuality. He was referred to the Bureau for Investigation and Prosecution, which referred him to the District Court. Among the Western practices suppressed by the mutaween is the celebration of Valentine's Day. Condemning the festivities as a "pagan feast", Mutaween inspect hotels, restaurants, coffeehouses, and gift shops on 14 February to prevent Muslim couples from giving each other Valentines or other presents. The sale of red roses, red stuffed animals, red greeting cards and other red gift items is banned, according to store owners. These items are confiscated, and those selling them subject to prosecution.. The children's game ''

'' was banned in 2001. The sale of the

fashion doll Fashion dolls are dolls primarily designed to be dressed to reflect fashion trends. They are manufactured both as toys for children to play with and as collectibles for adults. The dolls are usually modeled after teen girls or adult women, though ...

was banned as a consumer product for posing a moral threat to

Islam Islam is an Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the Quran, and the teachings of Muhammad. Adherents of Islam are called Muslims, who are estimated to number Islam by country, 2 billion worldwide and are the world ...

,Saudi Religious Police Say Barbie Is a Moral Threat
/ref> stating: "Jewish Barbie dolls, with their revealing clothes and shameful postures,

accessories Accessory may refer to: * Accessory (legal term), a person who assists a criminal In anatomy * Accessory bone * Accessory breast * Accessory kidney * Accessory muscle * Accessory nucleus, in anatomy, a cranial nerve nucleus * Accessory nerve ...

and tools are a symbol of decadence to the

perverted Perversion is a form of human behavior which is far from what is considered to be orthodox or normal. Although the term ''perversion'' can refer to a variety of forms of ''deviation'', it is most often used to describe sexual behaviors that are ...

West. Let us beware of her dangers and be careful." Fulla dolls were designed and approved as more acceptable. In 2006 the police issued a decree banning the sale of dogs and cats, also seen as a sign of Western influence. The decree which applies to the

Red Sea The Red Sea is a sea inlet of the Indian Ocean, lying between Africa and Asia. Its connection to the ocean is in the south, through the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait and the Gulf of Aden. To its north lie the Sinai Peninsula, the Gulf of Aqaba, and th ...

port city of Jeddah and the holy city of Mecca bans the sale of cats and dogs because "some youths have been buying them and parading them in public," according to a memo from the municipal affairs ministry to Jeddah's city government."Cats and dogs banned by Saudi religious police"
NBC News, 18 December 2006. In 2013 two Saudi men were arrested for giving "free hugs to passersby". In December 2010 it was reported by Arab News that the ''Hai'a'' had launched a massive campaign against "

sorcery Sorcery commonly refers to: * Magic (supernatural), the application of beliefs, rituals or actions employed to manipulate natural or supernatural beings and forces ** Goetia, ''Goetia'', magic involving the evocation of spirits ** Witchcraft, the ...

" or "black magic" in the kingdom. The prohibition includes "fortune tellers or faith healers". (Some people executed for sorcery following the announcement include a man from Najran province in June 2012, a Saudi woman in the province of Jawf, in December 2011, and a Sudanese man executed in September 2011. A Lebanese television presenter of a popular fortune-telling programme was arrested while on pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia and sentenced to death, though after pressure from the Lebanese government and human rights groups, he was freed by the Saudi Supreme Court.) In May 2012, the head of the mutaween, Abdul Latif Abdul Aziz al-Sheikh, stated that anyone using social media sites, such as Twitter, "has lost this world and his afterlife". According to authors Harvey Tripp and Peter North, mutaween became involved in the city planning of the Eastern Province industrial city of

Jubail Jubail (, ''Al Jubayl'') is a city in the Eastern province on the Persian Gulf coast of Saudi Arabia, with a total population of 474,679 as of 2022. It is home to one of the largest industrial cities in the world. It is also home to the Middle ...

sometime in the 1980s and 1990s. Halfway through the construction of that city the mutaween visited the engineering drawing office several times, first to insist that all planning maps included the direction of

Mecca Mecca, officially Makkah al-Mukarramah, is the capital of Mecca Province in the Hejaz region of western Saudi Arabia; it is the Holiest sites in Islam, holiest city in Islam. It is inland from Jeddah on the Red Sea, in a narrow valley above ...

. On their second visit they ordered that city sewage lines (already built) not flow in the direction of Mecca. After being convinced that the curvature of the earth prevented this, the mutaween returned to insist that the drainage pipes of toilets inside the city's buildings also not violate this principle. The mutaween's demands came despite the fact that no Saudi building code mentioned their requirement and no other Saudi cities met it. While a good deal of the planners' and engineers' time was spent responding to the mutaween's concerns, the mutaween never returned to approve the contractor's solution and no pipes ended up having to be unearthed and redirected, leaving Tripp and North to conclude that Mutaween's "point" was not to protect Mecca but to demonstrate the supremacy of religion in Saudi Arabia to foreign builders.

Exemptions

As of 2012, the offices of

Saudi Aramco Saudi Aramco ( ') or Aramco (formerly Arabian-American Oil Company), officially the Saudi Arabian Oil Company, is a majority state-owned petroleum and natural gas company that is the national oil company of Saudi Arabia. , it is the fourth- l ...

King Abdullah University of Science and Technology The King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST; ') is a Private university, private research university located in Thuwal, Saudi Arabia. Founded in 2009, the university provides research and graduate training programs in English ...

, and foreign embassies are off limits to mutaween. Not off limits are personnel of Saudi government agencies. ''Hai’a'' have been known to detain government officials, (A male government employee minder of American journalist

Karen Elliott House Karen Elliott House (born December 7, 1947) is an American journalist and former managing editor at ''The Wall Street Journal'' and its parent company Dow Jones. She served as President of Dow Jones International and then publisher of the Wall Str ...

was detained for mixing of the sexes, causing her to wonder that "a government employee following the instructions of his ministry runs afoul of that same government's religious police.")

2016 restriction of powers

On 11 April 2016, the Saudi Council of Ministers issued a new regulation that limits the jurisdiction of the Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice. They were ordered to work only during office hours, be "gentle and humane", to report violations of Islamic law to the civil police, and forbidden from pursuing, arresting or detaining members of the public. The new regulation has 12 clauses; most notable of them are:

"The Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice is expected to uphold its duties with ''kindness and gentleness'' as decreed by the examples of Prophet Mohammed." "The Committee has the responsibility of reporting, while on patrol, to official authorities (depending on the suspected activity) any suspected crimes witnessed. Subsequent actions from pursuit of suspect, capture, interrogation and detainment will be left to the relevant official authorities." "Neither the heads nor members of The Committee are to stop or arrest or chase people or ask for their IDs or follow them – that is considered the jurisdiction of the police or the drug unit."

Controversy

Alleged abuses

One of the most widely criticized examples of mutaween enforcement of Sharia law came in March 2002, when 15 young girls died of burns or smoke asphyxiation by an accidental fire that engulfed their public school in Mecca. According to two newspapers, the religious police forcibly prevented girls from escaping the burning school by locking the doors of the school from the outside, and barring firemen from entering the school to save the girls, beating some of the girls and civil defense personnel in the process. Mutaween would not allow the girls to escape or to be saved because they were 'not properly covered', and the mutaween did not want physical contact to take place between the girls and the civil defense forces for fear of sexual enticement. The CPVPV denied the charges of beating or locking the gates, but the incident and the accounts of witnesses were reported in Saudi newspapers such as the ''

Saudi Gazette ''Saudi Gazette'' is an English-language daily newspaper launched in 1976 and published in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. It is only available online, as the print version was discontinued in 2019. It is the second English-language daily newspaper in Saud ...

'' and ''Al-Iqtisaddiyya''. The result was a very rare public criticism of the group. In May 2003, '' Al-Watan'', a Saudi reform newspaper published several reports of people being mistreated by the police force, including the story of one woman from a remote southern town who had been beaten and held in solitary confinement for riding alone in the back of a taxi. In May 2007, a man alleged to have alcohol in his home (Salman Al-Huraisi) was reported by ''Arab News'' to have been arrested and beaten to death in his own home by CPVPV members in the Al Oraija district of

Riyadh Riyadh is the capital and largest city of Saudi Arabia. It is also the capital of the Riyadh Province and the centre of the Riyadh Governorate. Located on the eastern bank of Wadi Hanifa, the current form of the metropolis largely emerged in th ...

. "The father of the deceased said that commission members continued to beat his handcuffed son, even though he was already covered in blood, until he died" at the Oraija CPVPV center in Riyadh. Another man who died while in custody of the CPVPV was Ahmed Al-Bulawi. He was a driver for a woman with whom he was accused of being in a state of seclusion (when a man and an unrelated woman are together) and died after being taken to a CPVPV center in Tabuk in June 2007. According to Irfan Al-Alawi, "in both cases, the families of the victims took the mutawiyin to court, and in both instances (as in others) charges against the mutawiyin were postponed indefinitely or dropped." A case of "sorcery" that led to a sentence of death which was overturned was that of

Ali Hussain Sibat Ali Hussain Sibat is a Lebanese national and former host of the popular call-in show that aired on satellite TV across the Middle East. On the show - described as "a Middle Eastern psychic hot line" by one source - he made predictions and gave advi ...

, the Lebanese host of the popular TV psychic call-in show aired on satellite TV across the Middle East. Sibat was arrested in

Medina Medina, officially al-Madinah al-Munawwarah (, ), also known as Taybah () and known in pre-Islamic times as Yathrib (), is the capital of Medina Province (Saudi Arabia), Medina Province in the Hejaz region of western Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, ...

by the CPVPV in May 2008, while visiting Saudi Arabia to perform the Umrah pilgrimage. Sibat was charged with "sorcery" for making predictions and giving advice to the audience on his show. On 9 November 2009, after court hearings not open to the public or a defense lawyer Sibat was sentenced to death. The case was upheld on appeal but after an international outcry was overturned by the Supreme Court on 11 November 2010. The case was controversial in part because neither the defendant or "victims" were Saudis, and the "crime" was not committed in Saudi Arabia. Mutaween suppression of religious activity by non-Muslims in Saudi Arabia is also controversial. ''Asia News'' alleges that "at least one million" Roman Catholics in the kingdom are being "denied pastoral care ... none of them can participate in mass while they are in Saudi Arabia ... Catechism for their children – nearly 100,000 – is banned." It reports the arrest of a Catholic priest for saying mass. On 5 April 2006 a Catholic priest, "Fr. George oshuahad just celebrated mass in a private house when seven religious policemen (muttawa) broke into the house together with two ordinary policemen. The police arrested the priest and another person." In August 2008, a young Saudi woman who had converted to Christianity was reportedly burnt to death after having her tongue cut out by her father, a member of the committee, though it was not an officially sanctioned act of punishment. In January 2013, the CPVPV marched into an educational exhibit of dinosaurs at a shopping center, "turned off the lights and ordered everyone out, frightening children and alarming their parents". It was not clear why the exhibit—which had been "featured at shopping centres across the Gulf for decades"—was closed, and Saudis speculated irreverently as to the reason on Twitter. In September 2013 the entrance of a Saudi religious police building "was intentionally set on fire by assailants", according to the ''Hai'a''. No one was hurt and no further information was provided by the police. In early 2014, the head of ''Hai'a'', Sheikh Abdul Latif al-Sheikh was quoted in the ''Okaz'' daily newspaper as saying that "there are advocates of sedition within the Commission" for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, and promised to remove them.

Internal dispute

In 2009, the head of the ''Hai'a'' in Mecca, Sheikh Ahmad Qasim al Ghamdi, stated that there was nothing wrong with men and women mixing in public places, and instructed his mutawa'a to not interfere with mixing. However religious conservatives pressured the national head of the ''Hai'a'' to fire him. Hours after the firing of the Sheikh Al Ghamdi, the ''Hai'a'' issued an embarrassing retraction: "The information sent out today concerning administrative changes at some ''Hai'a'' offices, particularly those concerning Mecca and Hail, was inaccurate and the administration has requested editors not to publish it." However the firing and the retraction of the firing became "major news". "Outraged conservatives went to Sheiksh Al Ghamdi's home, demanding to 'mix' with his females ... still other outraged opponents scrawled graffiti on his home," according to journalist

Involvement in politics

Other accusations leveled at the CPVPV include that some of its members have been involved in political subversion, and/or are ex-convicts/prisoners who became Hafiz (i.e. memorized the

Quran The Quran, also Romanization, romanized Qur'an or Koran, is the central religious text of Islam, believed by Muslims to be a Waḥy, revelation directly from God in Islam, God (''Allah, Allāh''). It is organized in 114 chapters (, ) which ...

) to reduce their prison sentences. Author

Lawrence Wright Lawrence Wright (born August 2, 1947) is an American writer and journalist, who is a staff writer for ''The New Yorker'' magazine, and fellow at the Center for Law and Security at the New York University School of Law. Wright is best known as ...

has written of a conflict between the Mutaween and at least one allied imam and

Turki bin Faisal Al Saud Turki bin Faisal Al Saud (; born 15 February 1945), commonly known as Turki Al-Faisal, is a Saudi prince and former government official who served as the head of Saudi Arabia's General Intelligence Presidency from 1979 to 2001. He is a grandso ...

, the head of the Presidency of General Intelligence (

Al Mukhabarat Al A'amah The General Intelligence Presidency (GIP) ( ) is the primary intelligence agency of Saudi Arabia. Structure The highest authority for GIP is the King of Saudi Arabia, King Salman. In accordance with Article 60 of the Basic Law, he has the aut ...

) between 1977 and 2001. After an imam denounced a female charitable organizations run by some of Turki's sisters and accused them of being whores during a Friday sermon, Turki demanded and received an apology. He then "secretly began monitoring members of the muttawa. He learned that many of them were ex-convicts whose only job qualification was that they had memorized the Quran to reduce their sentences." But Turki believed they had become "so powerful" they "threatened to overthrow the government." (Another description of the social background of CPVPV members—by Ali Shihabi, "a Saudi financier and pro-Muhammed bin Salman commentator"—is that their ranks are drawn from "the losers in school" who having been ignored by "cute girls" and not invited to parties "no one wanted them at" during their time as students, then sought jobs where they could take revenge on the socially successful by harassing attractive women and breaking into parties and shutting them down.) Another instance when the CPVPV has opposed the Saudi government came in 2005 when the Minister of Labor announced a policy of staffing lingerie shops with women. The policy was intended to give employment to some of the millions of adult Saudi women at home (14.6% of Saudi women work in the public and private sectors in the kingdom), and to prevent mixing of the sexes in public ('' ikhtilat''), between male clerks and women customers. Conservative Saudis opposed the policy maintaining that for a woman to work outside the house was against her

fitrah or (; ALA-LC: ) is an Arabic word that means 'original disposition', 'natural constitution' or 'innate nature'. The concept somewhat resembles natural order in philosophy, although there are considerable differences as well. In Islam, is the ...

(natural state). The few shops that employed women were "quickly closed" by the ''Hai'i'' who supported the conservative position. However, in 2011, during the

, King Abdullah issued another decree giving lingerie shops—and then shops and shop departments specializing in other products for women, such as cosmetics, ''abayas'' and wedding dresses—one year to replace men workers with women. Further clashes followed between conservatives and ''Hai'a'' men on the one hand, and the ministry, women customers and employees at female-staffed stores on the other. In 2013, the Ministry and the ''Hai'a'' leadership met to negotiate new terms. In November 2013, 200 religious police signed a letter stating that female employment was causing such a drastic increase in instances of ''ikhtilat'', that "their job was becoming impossible."

Political use

According to one journalist with many years of experience in Saudi Arabia, Karen Elliott House, the ''Hai’a'' are sometimes used to balance the policies of the government; specifically a loose rein on the ''Hai'a'' acts to calm the displeasure of the strong religious conservative forces in Saudi society. When the king dismissed a member of the Council of Senior Religious Scholars in 2009 for condemning gender mixing at

, he compensated for it by doing "nothing to curb the country's religious police from roaming the kingdom's streets and harassing ordinary Saudis mixing with anyone of the opposite genders".

Other similar groups

Outside Saudi Arabia, in

Iran Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI) and also known as Persia, is a country in West Asia. It borders Iraq to the west, Turkey, Azerbaijan, and Armenia to the northwest, the Caspian Sea to the north, Turkmenistan to the nort ...

, the

Guidance Patrol The Guidance Patrol () or morality police is an Islamic religious police force and vice squad in the Law Enforcement Command of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Its role is to enforce Sharia law as defined by Iranian legislation, with a particula ...

functions as the country's main public religious police, imposing Islamic dress codes and norms in most public places. The

Taliban , leader1_title = Supreme Leader of Afghanistan, Supreme leaders , leader1_name = {{indented plainlist, * Mullah Omar{{Natural Causes{{nbsp(1994–2013) * Akhtar Mansour{{Assassinated (2015–2016) * Hibatullah Akhundzada (2016–present) ...

regime, or

Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central Asia and South Asia. It is bordered by Pakistan to the Durand Line, east and south, Iran to the Afghanistan–Iran borde ...

, also has a " Ministry for the Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice" with very similar religious policing functions. The Taliban are thought to have borrowed the Saudi policing policy not only because they also had a strict

Sharia Sharia, Sharī'ah, Shari'a, or Shariah () is a body of religious law that forms a part of the Islamic tradition based on Islamic holy books, scriptures of Islam, particularly the Quran, Qur'an and hadith. In Islamic terminology ''sharīʿah'' ...

law policy, but because of alleged financial and diplomatic support from Saudi Arabia. According to a Pakistani journalist who spent much time among the Taliban, the Taliban who had been to Saudi Arabia before taking power in Afghanistan "were terribly impressed by the religious police and tried to copy that system to the letter". The second Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan re-established the ministry in 2021. There is a type of police in Indonesia called the religious police; they enforce Islamic laws in the Islamic majority

Aceh Aceh ( , ; , Jawi script, Jawoë: ; Van Ophuijsen Spelling System, Old Spelling: ''Atjeh'') is the westernmost Provinces of Indonesia, province of Indonesia. It is located on the northern end of Sumatra island, with Banda Aceh being its capit ...

province. They are known for being very strict.

References

Bibliography

*< *

External links

Official site of Province of Medina's branch

Amnesty International Report 2002 – Middle East and North AfricaWashington Embassy's statement on the tragic fire at a Makkah school
2 April 2002. {{DEFAULTSORT:Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice (Saudi Arabia) 1940 establishments in Saudi Arabia Government agencies established in 1940 Government agencies of Saudi Arabia Islamic organisations based in Saudi Arabia Law enforcement in Saudi Arabia Society of Saudi Arabia Sexism in Saudi Arabia Islamic religious police Censorship in Saudi Arabia