Homosexuals in the Kingdom

The monthly Magazine the Atlantic, www.Theatlantic.com ran a story by Nadya Labi in its May issue on homosexuality in Saudi Arabia, and how gay men and women in Saudi Arabia live their lives in a seemingly strict society and yet maintain a thriving homosexual culture and even running a beauty pageant of gay men.

The story, titled " the closet Kingdom" is startling in that it shows a stark picture of Saudi Arabia different from the one we are used to hear about in the media, which is normally a country that is very strict socially and religiously.
Remarkably enough, the writer interviewed many Saudi men who appeared to be shameless about their homosexuality and also Saudi women who engage in lesbian activities with other women though done in secrecy but did not seem to bother them however.
Yasser, a young gay Saudi was quoted saying that “ it is easier to be gay here than straight” Yasser was of course referring to the strict separation of sexes in the Kingdom therefore making easier for Saudi men to congregate and if they were homosexuals to engage in homosexual activities with other men.

Gay westerners, quoted in the story, described Saudi Arabia as “ Gay haven” a gay South African man remarked that even though South Africa allows gay marriage yet there are more gays in Saudi Arabia than South Africa”
That said however, the idea of being gay in an “ Arab” contest is different from the western idea of being gay. Gay in a western sense is a sort of identity, whereas in Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries is more like a” behavior” not an identity.
Arab Gulfies are known in the Arab world, the story goes, for their inclination toward homosexual relations with men and boys.
Osama Fawzi, editor of Huston based Arab Times, the most popular Arab American paper in the US and who had lived in the United Arab Emirates in the seventies said when I spoke on the phone for this column that “homosexuality is not unusual in the gulf societies, in fact for any respectable wedding in the UAE the family must bring a band of gay boys to entertain the guests”
In the UAE they call a gay man “ Saroukh” said Mr. Fawzi. “Saroukh” means rocket.
Kuwait is another Gulf country where homosexuality and pedophiles are found almost everywhere. Last year a story made headlines when two gay Kuwaitis got married and threw a wedding party in Egypt.

Fuad Al-Hashem a well-known Kuwaiti columnist for the Al-Watan newspaper is perhaps the best-known openly homosexual Kuwaiti. Though Mr. Hashem was married and had a daughter but that did not seem to prevent him from having sexual encounters with other men according to a public statement he made a few years ago.
In Oman, another gulf country where having sex with boys and gay relationship is not unusual. Oman is well known for those types of activities according to Mr. Fawzi.
This is all sound very strange especially for the manly Arab culture that stresses manhood and valor but for the Saudi and Kuwaiti pedophiles, however, they would still consider themselves as machismo men and not gay men. This contradiction in the way being Gay in the Gulf Arab societies and Gay in the Western sense is diminishing because of Arab Gays exposure to Gay rights in western societies and for some there is a need to be recognized as gays and lesbians.

Yasmeen is another young Saudi female who has sexual relations with another women in her college, and who said this type of behavior is very common in all-girls Saudi schools and colleges.
But the writer of the story made critical errors in trying to show that the Islamic faith did not condemn this type of behavior in more strict and obvious terms.

This however does not mean that Islam endorses this type of behavior, which was not common in the desert society and the Arab tribes Islam was born into. Homosexuality therefore would fall under more general rules of vice and virtue laws such as adultery and extramarital relationships.
Lack of mentioning homosexuality and not having a pronounced and a clear punishment for it in the Islamic jurisprudence system as in the case of adultery between a heterosexual man and a woman, does not give license or imply that such relationships were condoned. Homosexuality was and still is uncommon in the Arab and Muslim world, despite its pocket existence as in the case of Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries.

Abu Al-Nuwas (The Atlantic erroneously identified him as Aby Nuwaf) was a famous poet during the Abbasid era, in the eighth century and wrote long poems about Alcohol and the love of boys but that should not be taken, as a representative of something like a “gay culture” as the writer of The Atlantic seemed to insinuate. The writer Nadya Labi gives the meaning in her report that Gay relationships were common and prevalent in those days or that Islamic morality and value system was or still lenient when it comes to such behavior.

The report also missed the whole idea when the writer spoke of Saudi men looking at boys with lust and want as an evidence of gayness or homosexuality instead of treating the subject pedophiles preying upon their young victims.

The culture of the gun

The horrendous massacre at Virginia Tech came to remind us that we live in an unforgiving and violent world, even in our classrooms and living rooms.

Almost immediately, pro-gun commentators lashed out at the notion that the problem had anything to do with gun laws or gun control.
Arguments flared that had there been stricter gun control laws, Cho Seung Hui, who had a history of mental problems, would not have been able to obtain the guns legally, or would have been deterred or raised some red flags in his attempts to obtain them.
But look at the society we live in today. It is a very violent society; Americans are fed a daily fat diet of blood, gore and violence and we have become desensitized to it.
Cho Seung Hui may have had mental problems and issues of adjusting to his new society as a child since immigrating with his parents form South Korea.
That of course does not justify massacring 32 innocent young people, but it ought to make us stop and think of what the media and the society at large are telling young children.

Take for example pro wrestling, it is perhaps one of the stupidest “ sports” out there, where older men, puffed on steroid put out an act of gymnastic mayhem and violence and verbal threats to the delight of the deafening barbaric cheer of the crowd.

And what about video games; not only doest it teach children and adults alike the “ art” of shooting someone, and killing someone, but it also plants the seeds of violent behavior in one’s mind as a way to deal with his or her problems.
Violence, mafia, gangsterism, guns, shooing and killing is ever glamorized and glorified by the media and thus poison the well for everyone.
So, for a psychologically unstable Cho, traumatized by early racism,alienated and without friends and who grew up on a steady diet of violence everywhere, murdering 32 people was his way of venting and getting back at the society and a murderous punch.

The issue is not about more or stricter gun control or even abolishing gun ownership period with legitimate exceptions, which I am all for, but it is the broader issue of culture of violence that we seem to be oblivious about until we have massacres like Virginia Tech and Columbine High.
In these southern parts of the US, guns and gun ownership is a way of life, and part of everyday culture.
Many times I heard people or even friends saying something along the lines of “ if so and so come on my property, I’ll shoot’m” or something like “ if you pull a gun on me, you better shoot first, because you’ll be killed”. Threats of shooting and killing are almost everyday phrases and said with complete sense of normalcy. But perhaps there is a lot of machismo and jockeying around in these statements, nonetheless however, they illustrate the culture of the gun as a way to settle scores or disputes.
I was astonished; a few years back to find out that people, in the south can carry guns in their cars, and on their persons, giving certain requirements, are otherwise perfectly legal.
Many friends here are proud to show me their gun collections, which I normally refuse for I have a natural aversion to them and I am proud to say that I have never ever fired one.
One family I know is proud of its gun collection. The father owns over 12 guns, and some are used for deer hunting, while the wife owns a rifle, two pistols, and a small gun to carry around in the car. Their seventeen years old owns a rifle that he uses for target practice.
Pro gun arguments usually cite protection and deterrence as well as self-defense. But those arguments fail to understand that what their pro gun arguments are doing is spreading more guns and thus more potential for violence and murder.

Paul Hyde Greenville News columnist cited statistics, in his April 18 column, of murder incidents between the US and other developed European and Japanese societies where in 2001, “ firearms were used to murder six people in New Zealand, 56 in Japan, 96 in Great Britain, and 168 in Canada. In that same year, guns were used to murder 11, 348 people in the United States.

Don Imus and the hypocritical media

Don Imus racist remarks where he called Rutgers women basketball players "napp-headed hoes" has perhaps changed the way main stream American media deal with vulgarity and racism on the air waves. Sponsors of his show have pulled out their adds and his media outlets at NBC and CBS dropped him from thier lineup thus punishing him further for his racist and sexist remarks .

I agree with the argument that Imus remarks were sexist and racist and he ought to be disciplined for it. It is important to send a message to other public figures that racism is not tolerated.

Imus, however, did not invent those ugly remarks; he basically took them straight out of Rappers book.

We know that rappers and hiphoppers use even filthier language than Imus and it seems that a lot of people are cheering for this type of so called “ Art”

Why is it ok for Imus to be punished, and rightly, for his remarks, while Rappers go on to say things that are even worst than what Imus said? Where are the community and civic leaders when it comes to this kind of culture of violence.

Not only that, many of the lyrics of this form of music glorifies murder, encourages shooting police officers, shooting other rappers, encourage the use of drugs and open sexuality and with it comes sexually transmitted diseases.

How many times have you seen a “Rapper” present himself or herself as a positive role model for younger people or anyone? Never!

In fact, the only time I see them in the news is when they are being accused of rape, assault, drugs charges, murder, or being murdered. Yet we call them “ Artists” as if what they do is some kind of Art that lift the human spirit and represent the high or even decent form of culture and civilized expression. Do young women get motivated to go to college, or flock to the voting booth after they attend some concert of a hoodlum calling them “ hoes” among many other things.

And what about Arab Americans and Muslims being degraded, and humiliated almost everyday on the airwaves by some “ main stream” radio and TV hosts.

Almost no one flinch when some talk show host degrade Arab Americans and utter racist remarks belittling them at every corner.

Despite the protestations of many Arab and Muslim American organizations against hosts like Michael medvid and others who made a career out of it, it seems that anti-Arab racism is being tolerated by the news media and in some instances it has become a common currency.

Racism and bigotry should not be tolerated against any racial or ethnic group. The media should not punish certain people for things they say against one group, while they tolerate bigotry and racism against another.

This Medival republic

This medieval republic is suffering more now than it did under Saddam
AL ALARABI, For the Herald-Journal
Published April 8, 2007

It has been four years since the first shots were fired in the "shock and awe" war against Iraq. But the shocking truth is that Iraq is far worse off today than it was under Saddam Hussein in terms of economic development, stability, security and quality of life.
The recently published Brookings Institution Iraqi war index (www.brookings.edu/fp/
saban/iraq/index.pdf) catalogs the progress in Iraq in terms of security, U.S. troop involvement and quality of life. Category after category shows that Iraq is not only lagging behind its pre-war levels but that the slide is continuing downward.

Perhaps one would find so many moral arguments in favor of removing Saddam Hussein from power, and rightly so, however, according to a recently published U.N. report on the war in Iraq, more than 750,000 Iraqis were killed as a direct result of war, ethnic and religious violence. Moreover, there are more than 2 million Iraqi refugees in neighboring Syria

and Jordan in addition to 2 million more displaced inside Iraq, while 82 percent of Iraqis strongly oppose the presence of coalition troops, and 67 percent of Iraqis feel less secure because of U.S. occupation.

The United States has already spent more than $500 billion on this war, and this massive amount of money did not bring the level of security, quality of life, economic prosperity, education, health care and civil infrastructure to the pre-war level. What's even more shocking is that the "pre-war level" term refers to when Iraq, under Saddam Hussein, was languishing under brutal and suffocating sanctions.

Take, for example, some of the figures mentioned in the Brookings index: Of 34,000 doctors Iraq had before the war, 12,000 left the country, and 2,000 were murdered. And Baghdad residents get an average of only 5.7 hours of daily electricity compared to 16-24 hours of daily electricity before the war. Twenty-five percent of Iraqi children suffer from chronic malnutrition, and 40 percent of the professionals have left Iraq since the war began.

Sad to say, Iraq has become a medieval, intolerant republic of hatred and horror, ruled by anachronistic and cultist ayatollahs, and it has become a proving ground for terrorists of all kinds. Al-Qaida terrorists operate a daily horror show by killing innocent civilians, both Shias and Sunni. Shia death squads and terrorist groups such as the Mahdi Army and Badr Brigades rape Muslim women and destroy Muslim mosques.
Iraqi government troops and security forces also rape women and engage in kidnapping and murder of innocent civilians. The reason for the proliferation of terrorism in Iraq is that the United States supported a sectarian Shia rule instead of maintaining an Iraqi national identity that is not based on religious and ethnic background.

After the fog of war had subsided and Saddam's regime had collapsed, the Shia organizations descended upon Iraq (from Iran) like vandals looting the booty. And being Iranian financed, they sooner or later will turn their guns against the U.S. troops, if the United States engages Iran in some kind of military operation.

Reconciliation and rebuilding a democratic Iraq were nowhere on the minds of those organizations and their private terrorist militias when they took over the country. Judging by their performance in the past three years, revenge and blood was their mantra. The sending of more American soldiers into harm's way will support an Iraqi government that sees itself as strictly a cultist Shia government beholden only to Iran next door.

On Dec. 12, 1983, terrorists bombed the U.S. and French embassies, along with other facilities, in Kuwait City. Seventeen people were arrested, and as it turned out, they were from an Iraqi Shia terrorist group called Al-Dawa that bombed the U.S. embassy on behalf of Iran, which was at war with Iraq, a U.S. ally at the time. The Al-Dawa Shia party is the current Iraqi prime minister Nouri Maliki's ruling party in power in Iraq today.

Recent U.S. news reports uncovered that one of those terrorists convicted in that bombing is a current member of the Iraqi parliament.

It doesn't stop there. Other Shia groups, such as the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), headed by Abdel Aziz-Al Hakim, were financed by Iran and their militias trained and equipped by Iran.

Muqtada Sadr's Mahdi Army is another Shia terrorist group that has killed Arabs, Muslims and Christians and bombed mosques. These actions serve the narrow sectarian Shia interests and eventually the interests of their paymasters in Tehran.

Millions of other Iraqis can barely make ends meet, while their leaders loot the riches of their country. What needs to be done in Iraq today is for the U.S. government to stop the ongoing process of transforming Iraq into Iran's banana republic, or the "Iranification of Iraq," and thus force the Iraqi Shia leadership to dissolve its own militias and terrorists groups and rebuild Iraq for all Iraqis -- Arabs and Kurds, Muslims and Christians.

Ali Alarabi writes frequently on Middle East issues and can be reached at alialarabi@charter.net

Iran, the abused wife

With release of 15 British sailors is eminent followed a decision by the Iranian government to pardon them after they were captured possibly in its territorial waters nearly two weeks ago.

Iran has behaved irrationally, parading the British sailors on TV, showing them eating and in a good mood, showing them enjoying Iranian hospitality, sitting on rugs and also confessing and apologizing to the Iranian nation for their transgression.

Regardless of whether the British sailors have violated the Iranian waters or not, an incident happens all the time around the world, and it could be easily resolved.

But for Iran, the issue is more complicated. Iran is the subject of intense international sanctions over its nuclear program. It has some diplomats held captive in Iraq, It is often chided by the US and Britain over its policies and nuclear program. So this was a godsend opportunity for Iran to flex its muscles and show its western critics that it can cause them pain too.

Iran not only controls one of the world’s largest oil reserves, but it also controls the supplies routs through the strait of Hormuz at the mouth of the Gulf.

Iran also exercises a lot of power in Iraq through the Ayatollahs, the large Iranian expatriates living in Iraq, and Iraqi Shia parties who look for Tehran’s guidance and leadership. Therefore the Iranian leadership feels that it controls the levers of powers in their neighborhood, and they are right about that.

As a result of this crises Western and American consumers felt the pain of the Iranian-British crises first hand at the pump when the price of gas shot up dramatically.

But that does not explain the why Iran behaves in such immature and even adolescent way when it comes to international relations.

Modern Iran is an inheritor of a once great civilization and vast empire and feels that it ought to be treated and respected as if it is still that great empire. The problem for Iran however is that reality is harsh and painful and despite its glorious past it is now a weak, irrelevant third world country the west does not care about or recognize beyond its vast reserves of oil or whatever trouble it may makes in the neighborhood.

This lack of recognition enrages the Iranians and inflames their passions. At the beginning of the crises Iran was more concerned with a public apology from Britain and on a deeper level this would serve recognition from Britain for its past abuses of Iranians.
Although this sounds ridiculous and pathological, yet it is real in the minds of the Iranian leadership who fired up a lot of heated speeches and amusing rhetoric at the beginning of this crisis.

For Iran, the issue went from " Blatant aggression" to a pardon, and warm reception for the sailors, including a meeting with top Iranian leadership and pampering them with fine Iranian food which i am sure included squatting on fine Persian rugs. This is hardly the kind of treatment any country would accord to those who commit a “ blatant aggression” against it.
( British sailors meeting with Najad)

Iranians want the west and particularly the United States to have direct talks with them, that of course implies recognition which would put them an equal footing with the US as if it would make them feel as powerful as the super power itself if only they could sit face to face with it.

President Ahmadinajad unsolicited letter to President Bush last year was another example of Iran’s attempt to make or even force the US to hold talks with her. But president Bush did not give president Ahmadinajad the time of the day, and ignored his letter. That was painful and humiliating for the proud Iranian leadership.

Lets not forget that Iran has been abused by western powers through out its modern history and Britain in particular had basically robbed Iran of its precious oil at the beginning of the 20th century by giving the government of Iran a mere 15% of its own oil revenues.
Others wrongs by the West, especially Britain and America and their role in supporting the regime of the Shah and supporting Saddam Hussein in an 8 year devastating war are among a long laundry list of grievances that made the Iranians in general and the Islamic regime in particular hyper sensitive to any western incursion on their turf.

Iran should be treated with respect it deserves and to acquire whatever peaceful technology it needs, including nuclear, to develop its infrastructure within the framework of international law.

But Iran ought to change its behavior when it comes to international crises, which is more like the behavior of an abused wife, insecure and tormented from years of constant abuse and trauma from her former husband, but still unable to move forward after many years of divorce and with it the chance to start a new fresh chapter.

The march to Karbala

( a Shia rendering of Imam Ali)

It has become all too often to hear and read about the mass murder of innocent Iraqi Shias civilians marching into the city of Karbala to commemorate religious beliefs and occasions. Slaughter of civilians occurs almost daily when suicide bombers blow themselves up especially among the marchers who were commemorating the Arba’en, which literally means “Fortieth “ the 40th day to the date of the murder of Hussein, the grand son of Prophet Mohammad, and who Shia hold as the third Godly appointed Imam or ruler of “Islamic state”

In order to understand the broad political and social changes unfolding in Iraq now we should examine the religious rituals and its forceful disposition in today’s Iraq.

For one, the march into the city of Karbala by millions of Shia, Iranians, Arabs, and others is not to be viewed as simply as a religious march on a religious occasion, something some Christians do to commemorate events in Jesus Christ’s life. But rather as an expression of a distinctly evolved Shia ritual, though steeped in history and symbolism of martyrdom and injustice, however it was banned by the previous Iraqi regime because it asserted in the eyes of that regime, a religious and political identity deemed incompatible and even dangerous to the national secular-modernism identity of the state and its political existence.

The previous Iraqi state forged a common identity of all Iraqis regardless of the type or branch of religion one’s have, so long as loyalty to the state is strictly observed. Dissent and opposition were brutally and criminally suppressed however.

It was not unusual in such state, therefore, to see men like Tarik Aziz, a Christian Iraqi Arab reaching the upper echelons of power as deputy prime minister and the voice of Iraq to English speaking world, or former Information minister, Mohammad Said Sahaf, better known for his comical briefings during the 2003 war. He was an Iraqi Shia.

Many explanations and arguments were made to explain why Iraqis who share a common heritage, common religion as well as a common language and common blood, and tribal ties have descended into this vicious way of slaughtering one another.

We could discern from the violent crash of the former Iraqi state that it has ushered a breakdown of a larger national identity common to all Iraqis, dismembering it into pre-modern layers of identity of the tribe, family, ethnicity and religious sects.

Judging from the behavior of the Shia men of religion, the ayatollahs and other custodians of Shia relics, it was evident that they have not ascribed to the larger identity of being Arab, Muslim or Iraqi, in the national sense of the word. Otherwise it is absurd to think that one could switch loyalty in a day or two and behave in such fashion indicative of deep resentment and animosity to his “ former” identity” and his former country.

It is evident form ritual marches by millions of Shias to the city of Karbala, ceremonies of self-mutilation, ritualistic mourning of revered dead Muslim figures that they are signs of a “neo Shia identity” an emerging identity asserting itself not just by brute force but also with pump and extravagance.


This identity is teetering on the brink of “ Shia Nationalism” which will be based on a distinct Persian identity or Shia-Persian nationalism.

However, an Arab Shia-nationalism cannot hold in Arab society, partly because Shia Arabs are a minority and only about 10% of the Arab Muslims, and do not have a separate culture, language and other aspects of national characters outside the Arab fold.

But Iran does. So the specter of Arab Shia embracing Shia nationalism as a caveat to Persian nationalism would mean that a force from within the Arab fold is now challenging it and poses a grave danger to the existing social and political order for the benefit of a non-Arab country.

This might lead to repercussions against Shias and enforce their image as tools of power hungry Iran.

If we look at Iraq today we see that almost everything in it is going under some sort of shiafication process as well as holification, which is an aspect of Shiasm itself.

Al-Thawra city (Revolution City) became Sadr City, named after the late Shia Aytaollah Mohamad Baqer Sadr, whole neighborhoods were cleansed of their residents if they were Shias or Sunnis, depending on the majority, Statues of ancient Muslim Caliphs were removed because of ancient Shia animosity toward them. Large paintings and murals of Ayatollahs now adorn the walls and the streets, paintings of Imam Ali and his sons Hasan and Hussein are seen during Karbala marches. Such sights were virtually unknown in the past.

The cities of Najaf and Karbala became the holiest of all holies; to the Shias it is as if the hands of God himself built them. For the word “ holy” which has a Greek heritage and etymology means something divine or divine intervention and presence

The shrines of Imam Ali and his sons became almost an object of worship an anathema in mainstream Islam that stresses that there should be no intermediaries between man and God, and no man, or city for that matter are holy in the divine sense of the word Including prophet Mohammad himself and the city of Mecca.

Scoial changes; Muta'a marriages:

On the social level, Muta’a marriages have become widespread, despite that it is considered illegal and an affront to Islamic morality and values of mainstream Muslims. Muta’a means pleasure, which is a Shia practice, whereby a contractual agreement of temporary marriage for strictly sexual favors that ranges from one hour to days or months, depending on the contract drawn for the man and the woman by special religious clerics in special offices or houses.

Altghough it was considered a taboo in the past but this practice has been esepcially known in the cities of Najaf and Karbala were Iranian pilgrims come to pay a religious visit the shrines of Imams , and at the same time “marry” a woman for few hours or so for sex, then everyone is happy and each go their separate way .

For the rest of the Muslim community, this is considered an outright prostitution

For main stream Muslims, these social and political development has giving them a jolt for which unlike the Shias, other Muslims have no clerical establishment of Ayatollahs, or seminaries or a religious structure comparable to the Shias, in fact Shiasm has more in common with Christianity, structurally speaking, than Islam.

For most of the Arab and Muslim world the Shias practices are being perceived as an alien and strange. Practices like the Mut’a marriages, “ Pilgrimage” to places other than or in addition to Mecca, the designation of Najaf and Karbla as “ Holy cities” all of this gives the impression of separateness from the larger Muslim community. And Shias have indeed separated themselves from the larger community of Muslims throughout the centuries in rituals and religious practices.

Shiaism as a political Party

Shiaism, it started off as a political opposition group,a political party,that favored a claimant to power ( Ali )against another ( Abu Bakr who was elected by the Muslim community) but in the course of centuries Shiasm developed an intellectual argument and a theology, and in some cases it branched off into a whole new religion outside the main body of Islam.

Its central difference between the main body of Islam and Shiasm is whether Imam Ali should be the ruler of the Muslim community after the death of the prophet in the 7th century or not.

Moreover, “Sunnis” do not harbor any animosity to the Prophet’s clan and family, who the Shias believe f as “Holy”, nor do they have any animosity toward the Shia Imams. It is all too common for “ Sunnis” to name their children as “ Ali, Hasan, Hussein, Hadi, Mahdi, Jafar, all of which are holy, perfect, and sinless super human beings in the Shia theology. Conversely, however, no Shia family will ever name their children such names like Omar, Othman, Bakr; names of Muslim Caliphs and whom Shias are taught at a young age to hurl insults damnation and ritualistic curses at them until the present day. It’s worth noting that damnations and curses against historic Muslim figures are recited at every Shia prayers.


Picture of Imam Ali on T-shirt)

This type of historic vendetta rendered quaint in other religions and societies but still persists among the Shias indicates that the Shias are psychologically stuck in a tragic moment of history and unable to move forward past that moment..

Furthermore, it was non Shia Muslims who showed the most support for an exclusive Shia organization such as Hezbollah, during its war with Israel last summer. Egypt, Jordan, Palestine, Tunis Morocco, Algeria, are countries were Shiasm is virtually non-existent, yet it was where Hezbollah enjoyed the most support and sympathy in its war against Israel.
This shows that mainstream Muslims, unlike Shias, view themselves simply as Muslims, Not Sunnis.

Who are the Sunnis:
Sunnis cannot fairly be described as a “ Sunnis“. To label it as such would be an oversimplification because there is no such thing as a “ Sunni Identity” that corresponds with the Shia identity, nor there is a Sunni rituals or Sunni hierarchy such as Ayatollahs that will lead a Sunni establishment of sort or even Sunni states, for all of the Arab states, are secular in nature and in law, and nowhere mentioned in their modern constitutions the insistence on being a Sunni State with a Sunni head of State in contrast with Iranian’s constitution for example, the leading Shia state, that insists on the Shi’ism being the creed of the state and that of its head.