Wasting food in Saudi arabia and gulf

[faye]

salamandar,

you know what? i have more respect for muslims than you do. the cake in this photo was to be given to many people in the village according to the article that was first shown with it. if the people have just been through such a traumatic and destructive disaster, why shouldn't they have a celebration and a feast to warm their hearts? most of these people probably are very sincere in their love of their religion and allah. so, why do you keep propogating spite and divisiveness towards other muslims.
the one thing that has come through to me very strongly, with reading mohammads words, is that he was very big on forgiveness. you should try it sometime.

As much as I hate Saudi culture and mentality, at least they have quite a large number of people who are trying to bring Islah by teaching people not to be a bunch of nihilist pigs.

But even if the Saudis are a materialist and shallow bunch of incensitive people...they are not Mushriks like the people in Pakistan.

In Pakistan, people are burried in shirk, kufr and other types of pagan customs. And they are struck by natural disasters every year. yet hte government keeps begging in Gulf region and USA for money.

And only few months after the natural disaster in Pakiland, look what the Pakis do:

[ScimitarXEdge]

because that's what Salafism, nit picking at superficialities and ignoring the bigger picture.

[faye]

so now you are criticising salafism, scimitarx. surely each sect or group have positive aspects.

[ScimitarXEdge]

You're right actually

every group does have positive aspects

But we also have to understand their negatives and how the negatives influence and dictate over their world view

The positive aspects of Salafism is that they correctly acknowledged that many absurd practices and customs crept into Muslim communities over centuries which were later sanctioned or justified somehow by so-called Traditional Scholars. So they sought to purge and and restore/purify those aspects and steer people back to a more fundamental and practical form of Islam....what happened though is that this zeal ended up with extreme nit picking, overemphasis on secondary or even tertiary issues and denial of spiritual and intellectual sensibilities. In effect becoming the very problem they sought to rectify.

Don't be misguided in thinking because I pass a casual critique here and there that I somehow don't have a more holistic or nuanced understanding of this. After all I grew up around all of these competing and often conflicting streams of thought. I have taken the time to address everything under the scale of reason.

There are beautiful aspects to Sufism, but there is also a tremendous amount of garbage. I agree with Shamlawar in regards to this picture, all those resources for something extremely indulgent when it's broken down , who will enjoy it really? It is just being squandered under some pretense of Spiritual Grace and esoterism. The sheer irony is people who espouse this brand of thinking often try to create this mystique of deeper spiritual virtues but somehow find an excuse to indulge in wasteful materialism. Furthermore the men that are claimed to be revered and extolled as saints lives completely different lifestyles; much more pure and minimalist in approach. Eventually people who claimed to be their successors we have found laying on silken couches all day thumbing through a tasbeeh, while they adorn silken turbans and rub their rotund bellies.

I however disagree with Shamlawar that the Materialism of the Saudi Ruling classes is somehow a less heinous crime because they are somehow under their standards, Monotheists. Materialism under it's most plain logical dictates is a form of "Idol worship". If we examine the anthropological construct of idol worship customs; it's wholly observable, they made such idols because they believed in the primacy of the material, spirituality was mainly the concept that within an object was the culmination of felicity, how is that different than modern materialism really?

It's the new Paganism. or maybe it's the old one given a new name. The problem of the Muslim world today and this is across the board is that we are concentrated on misapplied efforts, our energies are being wasted on frivolties. And Imperial powers are manipulating and even orchestrating that situation to everyone's detriment, even their own.

[fzpz]

Karachi is just peed off that us pakis don't have that much to eat. We'd do the exact same thing, probably even worse. Hell we do worse right now even when we don't have much to eat. I find anti-arab sentiments and jealousy amongst non-well-off muslims. Focus on yourself instead of crying about others.

[Karachi]

^ i come from a wealthy pakistani family and i know many wealthy people both canadian and pakistani, and we dont eat like this at all. In saudi arabia/gulf the biggest problem is every thing is excessively done, be it the buildings they build, the houses they live in or how much food they eat, they waste so much of everything, they burn money.

I am not just blaming arabs here, i am actually blaming the mentalitly of arabs and muslims in the east. The things they do are totally opposite what islam is teaching us, this is where my problem is. why are muslims (even many pakistanis) the most hypocrite people in the world??? in the west every one is human, no matter how rich they are they are treated like human, but in the muslim world, as soon as a person becomes rich he thinks he has become God, this is the problem. No wonder we have become of the lowest of people in the world, because we can't even follow the easiest things that the religion teaches us.

[ScimitarXEdge]

Karachi I know of wealthy Pakistani families who waste food all the time; in fact one time I saw this Pakistani Business man, beat a boy with his shoes because the boy was rummaging through left overs which he had later intended to throw out; this man ran a banquet hall. He called the child a "chor" .

Wealthy Pakistanis are often as low life and degenerate as Saudi Royals appear to be.

The difference is however, that there are people in those countries who are Speaking out against it and are making a public campaign to RECTIFY the situation

where is such a campaign in Pakistan?

[Karachi]

^ i agree there are people in pakistan like that, but again pakistan is a 90% poor country, so even if there are people who are doing that, their number is really small, This excessive wasting has not become part of the society only some rich class do it

But because saudi arabia/gulf is so rich, wasting money, wasting food and wasting everything has become part of the society, part of habit, part of their attitudes and part of the culture there. Having lived there for 15 years i know the society inside out there

[faye]

don't you think though, scimitarx, that the indulgence in the intellectualism about religion is similar to the worship of idols. it distracts from the simple and basic ideals and the awareness of allah/god.

[ScimitarXEdge]

no, because intellect is the faculty to which we come to realize God.

even the Qur'an says "THINK" and "REFLECT". The Qur'an never says "indulge yourself to the fullest in material objects".

This isn't an indulgence at all, but rather a necessary aspect of knowing Allah, anyone who isn't intellectually convinced of Allah(swt), hasn't truly believed.

[ScimitarXEdge]

^ i agree there are people in pakistan like that, but again pakistan is a 90% poor country, so even if there are people who are doing that, their number is really small, This excessive wasting has not become part of the society only some rich class do it

But because saudi arabia/gulf is so rich, wasting money, wasting food and wasting everything has become part of the society, part of habit, part of their attitudes and part of the culture there. Having lived there for 15 years i know the society inside out there

For someone who has lived there you have a very black/white view of what goes on there which reflects a very novice and externalized viewpoint. I can't confirm or deny the authenticity of your stories; I can say that the unrealistic narrowiness in them makes me question just to what extent you're familiar.

For one thing I can say as a fact; is that most Saudi Arabians are not wealthy at all, the people who are wealthy are a small segment of Saudi Arabia, who are the elite class mainly people who are either related to the Sauds and/or close compatriots, Saudi society is largely feudal so it maintains it's wealth/power within those groups.

If you've lived in Saudi Arabia there are Arab beggars in the streets, not exactly a reflection of a wealthy people.

Only people who either have never been to Saudi Arabia have this view that the streets are paved with gold.

[faye]

scimitarx, then why is it that the seemingly well educated, on this forum, tend to fill at least a quarter of their comments disparaging the intelligence of those they are debating? not a very compassionate way to communicate or debate.

[ScimitarXEdge]

because God's justice is often harsh and sometimes you must call a spade a spade. If God can inspire men to vanquish entire populaces of sinners, a few psyops tactics isn't a smite against our dear lord.

[faye]

but it is, against oneself. it would come under the heading of 'arrogance'

[ScimitarXEdge]

ah but to be arrogant one must assume what my intention and goal and intended effect is

and in that for you to assume this means playing God, which thus in effect would mean you have violated his domain exclusively.