Watcha think about the most iconic middle eastern country , home of Islam's two holiest places Makkah and Madinah?


Fun facts:
1. It has the world's second largest oil reserves
2.Women are not permitted to drive.
3.Islam is the only religion Saudi locals* are allowed to practice . You are considered muslim from the moment you are born and leaving the faith will result in capital punishment
4.Sorcery is a capital offense. It is illegal in Saudi Arabia to practice any form of sorcery or magic.
5. They are famous for sidewalk skiing


6.It is visited by millions of people yearly, for the Hajj Pilgrimage




7. If you kill somebody you are executed unless you pay the Diyya (That's only if you killed a person by accident, like through a car accident. Not anyone who kills someone can just pay and get away with it. They're normally executed/beheaded)
8. If you steal something your hand is cut off , so that means you can theoretically drop you wallet and find it in the same place again the next day (theoretically)
9.There is a shortage of swordsmen for beheadings
10. There's a special police called Mutawa ( religious police) ( which sometimes abduct people whom they find on the streets when it's Prayer Time and give them a lift to the nearest Mosque)


http://listverse.com/2013/09/28/10-f...-saudi-arabia/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saudi_Arabia

P.S Dear Saudi ATRL-ers , feel free to correct me if I am wrong. I'll update the OP.

Locals not Citizens ....

I have nothing good to say about it.

Misogynist & homophobic.

wow. if this is true.. let me just stay away from that country

My opinion: It isn't a bad country, sure they have rules and they might not be the same in my country( which is an hour away by plane) but whatever. Places like Riyadh are far more liberal than you'd expect and people from there are just as liberal/conservative as people would be in any other country.


I'm not a fan of the no-women driving rule or the constant segregation between women/families and men that goes on in the country but that isn't my problem.

Mekkah (the ONLY place where non-Muslims aren't allowed in) is by far the most magical place I have ever witnessed.


P.S: The things you decided to point out is sad, because you only focused on the negatives and anyway hopefully the posters after me can be respectful and polite with their thoughts.

They need to STAHP.

Is at the top of my list of never-go-to-countries it's an horrible, authoritarian, theocratical regime, thank God I was born in the western world.

the comments

What?

"7. If you kill somebody you are executed unless you pay the Diyya"
False. That's only if you killed a person by accident, like through a car accident. Not anyone who kills someone can just pay and get away with it.
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I've lived in Saudi for the first few years of my life and I come back and visit every other summer and it honestly isn't as bad as people make it out to be. Sure, the country is a mess but people exaggerate a lot when it comes to it.

I'm sorry , I searched facts about SA on Google and found this article http://listverse.com/2013/09/28/10-f...-saudi-arabia/

I based the OP on this article. Feel free to inform me on the positive sides of SA so I can include them in the OP.

PS. Non-Muslims can't enter Madinah either I think

awful, 1/10, would not go back again. Nothing to do, feel scared your going to break some random law, feel sorry for everyone who isn't a rich arab man.

Couldn't even drink to cope with the boredom

That isn't true at all and whoever told you that is a liar. These extremists don't go around checking people's hands for that line and they sure as hell don't go around cutting people's hands off for no reason.

So if you kill somebody by accident you are automatically executed unless you pay the Diyya?

omg you are the devil