I am an American, and therefore with my American passport I can travel to most countries in the world, but does that mean I should?  I really don�t understand how or why Mr. Sibat, who is known in the Middle East from his television program, would fill out a visa application to visit Saudi, knowing full well, or should have known, the risks involved.  In Islam one can not claim faith and practice sorcery.  Mr. Sibat�s case could be contrasted to an open homosexual, who professes faith in Islam, and has a satellite program where millions have seen his face.  It would be insane for this individual to enter Saudi, and likewise for Mr. Sibat.   I don�t think he put his profession on the visa application, which he later confessed to, and seeing that Saudi doesn�t have an open judiciary, we really have no idea what evidence the government has against Mr. Sibat concerning his activities at his hotel.  It is possible he sought financial gain using his profession during pilgrimage season when very large numbers gather.  Mr. Sibat may have fraudulently obtained a visa, and given his profession, should not have even been inside the precincts of Mecca, which is forbidden to non-Muslims.  Saudi now feels it must make an example of such soothsayers entering its boarders and flaunting Saudi laws.  Let us now hope the King of Saudi Arabia accepts Mr. Sibat�s repentance and pray his penitence is sincere.

Tasneem, personally I have spent a great deal of time in Saudi, but my point was; why travel, just because you can, to a land where, knowingly, your safety may be jeopardized?

Did he practice �sorcery� in Saudi Arabia?  One can only speculate, and as I mentioned Saudi does not have an open court system where anyone can view evidence, however should we make excuses for an avowed soothsayer or those religious individuals who enjoin the good and forbid evil (Saudi Wutaween)?

With respect to his visa application � I only assume the Saudi police checked this, and this is why they compelled him to later state his profession.  I make no judgment about his faith, but it is clear in our religion sorcery is heresy. 

Arrests in the United States happen all the time, however its practitioners are charged with fraud or "con artist", legal euphemisms.  Anyway, most religions forbid this practice and at least a few progressive societies have as well:

abuayisha wrote: Arrests in the United States happen all the time, however its practitioners are charged with fraud or "con artist", legal euphemisms.  Anyway, most religions forbid this practice and at least a few progressive societies have as well: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2003800298_fortune22.html - http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2003800298_fortune22.html   http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=940CE6DF1E3FE432A25751C2A9669D946095D6CF - http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=940CE6DF1E3FE432A25751C2A9669D946095D6CF   http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/australasia/masons-jailed-over-fiji-sorcery-claims-1747967.html - http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/australasia/masons-jailed-over-fiji-sorcery-claims-1747967.html

Firstly, your internet scouring yielded a link to a NY Times article that was dated October 22, 1921.

Secondly, the remaining two links you posted had nothing to do with arrests which, as you describe, �happen all the time�, in the United States.

Did you even read the link you supplied to the article in the Independent? That article describes �A New Zealand man spent a "wretched" night in a Fiji prison cell�. Last I heard, Fiji is not the United States.

Yeah Boomer, with respect to the death penalty, I agree with you, however since you were commenting on comical medieval superstitions in 710, I sought to establish modern day relevance and illegality.  So, was my internet scouring all in vain?

Yeah, Boomer, you're right.  I won't further derail Tasneem's post regarding the death penalty. 

Boomer wrote: I think you need to understand that employing conspiracy theories to defend the inadequacies and ineptitudes of islamist totalitarian fear societies does not fall at the feet of �men in white hall & house!

Enough of your broken record...enough of your ignorance of the oil producing Arabs..you seem as ignorant but with less dough!

So with all these millions of Moslems (you among them whining about invented enemies), and the hugeness of wealth of 21-22 moslem dominated countries, a few self-serving dictatorsare keeping all these right-minded people(?) from incorporating the wondrous islamist utopias? That's hard to believe.

I am not interested in any enemies crap all these 22 heads of state are like Lilliputians midgets other than hold the masses in check for the neo colonials... they might be moslems but doubt them being muslim...Read The Prince and you will have no more questions in your empty head left...You taunt about Islamic utopia...how can it be  while these 22 of the kingdoms or sheikdoms or whatever were granted by the European neo colonial winners of the WWII and these states were the booty to be divided amongst them! Facetiousness has limits! Ignorance doesn't...I don't see any animosity between these oil thugs and their handlers business is great why rock the boat!

Boomer wrote: Well, I guess it's not so hard to believe when I see and hear different leaders of moslem countries lauded and praised by the very moslems who keep these dictators in place. To me, it seems the sheer number of the people could overwhelm the dictators and throw them out.

If you get freebies you will do the same thing if you easy money coming to you, I bet! Do you have any foggiest idea how good a security is provided by their western /European benefactors? Why doesn't west demand an election in these 22 states of midgets?

This will shut your big mouth for a while!

I mean, why wait for the US to dislodge unsavory dictators for you when moslems can and should unite and do their own dictator displacements?

No kidding! Excuse me do you really believe that the people can unite... then what the Empire gonna do?

And how the World Bank gonna keep the people in the third world? Very funny suggestion indeed! It has taken a decade and trillion dollars to dislodge one dictator and I don't care to count the casualties!

It certainly doesn't happen legitimately through suicide bombings of your co-religionists, raging riots that destroy people and property, incessant worldwide whining and begging for infidel welfare dollars.

Now that kamikaze part has it's own history just as the European have theirs, the difference is technology only...welfare dollars have some dirty work involved so why not whine? The whole world is on beg borrow or steal mission...take the white Europeans attitude towards the darker club med financial misery!

Spammer.  Look, Mr. Boomer, I know your type, believe me.  You are a good man, a real patriot, and I�m baffled as to why your handlers sent us such a pompous troll.  One so full of himself, that he trolls using his real name.  Mr. Boomer, like you, I love my country- I am an American.  I am not a terrorist or supporter of terrorism, and the majority of Muslims, as a matter of fact, are on your side when it comes to hating terrorism.  Muslims want for their families the same that you desire for yours.  I understand you grew up in the heartland of this country in pretty much homogeneous surroundings, but please, do not think about Muslims in terms of �the only good Indian is a dead Indian� as this only plays into the hands of those evil people we both seek to eradicate.  Mr. Boomer, you are wasting your time on this forum.  Please request a reassignment.

Nigeria is one of the heartlands of abuse, but hardly the only one: the United Nations Children�s Fund says tens of thousands of children have been targeted throughout Africa."

"Islamophobes like Robert Spencer have expressed their ardent outrage.  Yet, there were �15,000 children [who] have been accused�and around 1,000 have been murdered� by Christians in Africa�Where is your outrage, Mr. Spencer? "

Yesterday a coalition of http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSTRE58M4Q820090923 - U.N. officials, NGOs, and representatives from affected countries addressed the United Nations asking for governments to face the full extent of witch hunts across the world . Far from being a localized phenomenon in �primitive� or isolated villages, witch hunts and witch killings are now global in nature and spreading.

"The purpose here is not to bash Christianity, Hinduism, or any other religion.  It�s simply to point out that witch hunts are a problem throughout the world.  If you just follow Islamophobic sources like Robert Spencer, you�d come to think that the only �culprits� are Muslims, but like I said before: it�s simply not true.  The selective outrage of Spencer et al. shows that they don�t really care about human rights at all.  Their indignation is not principled, but political in nature. 

"Aint this man going to Hajj, a sign of his repentence and that he is Muslim?"

"AL-AIN, Lebanon (AP) � Lebanese psychic Ali Sibat had just woken from an afternoon nap in a Saudi hotel when the telephone rang. A Saudi man asked if he could make magical talisman for his sister who had marital problems. Sibat, in the kingdom on a pilgrimage, said he'd be happy to help."

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hQ_jb3NeJqD5cjGvkNxW5Jlje9AwD9EVD3I03 - http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hQ_jb3NeJqD5cjGvkNxW5Jlje9AwD9EVD3I03

Saudis Not to Behead Lebanese Psychic

abuayisha wrote: "Aint this man going to Hajj, a sign of his repentence and that he is Muslim?"     "AL-AIN, Lebanon (AP) � Lebanese psychic Ali Sibat had just woken from an afternoon nap in a Saudi hotel when the telephone rang. A Saudi man asked if he could make magical talisman for his sister who had marital problems. Sibat, in the kingdom on a pilgrimage, said he'd be happy to help."   http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hQ_jb3NeJqD5cjGvkNxW5Jlje9AwD9EVD3I03 - http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hQ_jb3NeJqD5cjGvkNxW5Jlje9AwD9EVD3I03

AL-AIN, Lebanon � Lebanese psychic Ali Sibat had just woken from an afternoon nap in a Saudi hotel when the telephone rang. A Saudi man asked if he could make magical talisman for his sister who had marital problems. Sibat, in the kingdom on a pilgrimage, said he'd be happy to help.

As soon as he hung up, religious police stormed into his room and arrested him for witchcraft. Now Sibat is on death row, sentenced to be beheaded.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hQ_jb3NeJqD5cjGvkNxW5Jlje9AwD9EVD3I03 - http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hQ_jb3NeJqD5cjGvkNxW5Jlje9AwD9EVD3I03

----

 

Looks like he didnt commit the crime  

 

So its wrong when the West pre-emptively and unjustly arrest and prison Muslims who have explicitly stated certain things, which I wont go into, everyone moans like a girl, but when the holly Saudis Arrest a Muslim it is ok? 

Anyway your above post shows it was just a Attention seeking formula from a state that arrests and imprisons jinns  

April 21, 2010

Saudis Not to Behead Lebanese Psychic"

AlhumdulIllha, for the moderates and those who have a clear reasoning, whose efforts may have helped save his life. No doubt a great deal of damage has been done to his family, thanks to the Saudis and their blind supporters!

When you try to reason using verses of the Qur�an and hadith which clearly do not sanction the kind of punishment that the heavy handed GUARDIANS OF ISLAM were going to mete out to this man and have ruined him and his family mentally, physically and financially, I wonder who deserves a greater punishment. Unfortunately, lateral thinking is completely lacking amongst the so called pious Muslims who prefer to let others do the thinking for them and for whom everything is black and white.

004.082

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Do they not ponder over the Word (of Allah), or has anything (new) come to them that did not come to their fathers of old?

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(Here is) a Book which We have sent down unto thee, full of blessings, that they may mediate on its Signs, and that men of understanding may receive admonition.

�No doubt a great deal of damage has been done to his family, thanks to the Saudis and their blind supporters!�

Yeah, and what responsibility does Mr. Sibat bear? Or does �clear reasoning� suggest otherwise?