The Mutaween (مطوعين in Arabic) (variant English spellings: mutawwain, muttawa, mutawallees, mutawa’ah, mutawi’) are the government-authorized or -recognized religious police (or clerical police or public order police) within Islamist theocracies which adhere to varied interpretations of Sharia Law in which governments are either directly controlled by or significantly under the influence of Islamic clergy. In contrast to the legislatively-restrained police forces of secular democracies, Islamist religious police have broad and arbitrary discretionary powers of surveillance and entry to property, detention and interrogation of suspects, and, in some places, summary judgment and execution of punishment for perceived violations of Sharia. While nominally tasked with disciplining Muslims, in less-tolerant regimes, such religious police invest themselves with the authority to harrass and persecute non-Muslim dhimmi second-class citizens and kafirs or infidels into converting to Islam. Arabic (; , less formally, ) is the largest member of the Semitic branch of the Afro-Asiatic language family (classification: South Central Semitic) and is closely related to Hebrew and Aramaic. ... Islamism is a political ideology derived from the conservative religious views of Muslim fundamentalism. ... Sharia (Arabic شريعة also Sharia, Shariah or Syariah) is traditional Islamic law. ... Islam (Arabic: ; ( â–¶ (help· info)), the submission to God) is a monotheistic faith, one of the Abrahamic religions and the worlds second-largest religion. ... Clergy is the generic term used to describe the formal religious leadership within a given religion. ... This article concerns secularity, that is, being secular, in various senses. ... A Muslim is a believer in or follower of Islam. ... A Dhimmi, or Zimmi (Arabic ذمي), as defined in classical Islamic legal and political literature, is a person living in a Muslim state who is a member of an officially tolerated non-Islamic religion. ... Kafirs are tribes of Africans, belonging to the great Bantu family inhabiting the southeastern coast of Africa. ... An infidel Is an unbeliever with respect to a particular religion, especially Christianity or Islam. ... Islam (Arabic: ; ( â–¶ (help· info)), the submission to God) is a monotheistic faith, one of the Abrahamic religions and the worlds second-largest religion. ...

"Mutaween" originally referred solely to Saudi Arabia's infrastructure of proselytization and enforcement of Wahhabist tenets; but the English-alphabetized "mutaween" has gained increasing use as an umbrella term indicating any religious-policing organization in an Islamic nation with at least some government recognition or deference, ranging from official state bureaucracies to unabashed terrorist enforcers aligned to powerful local clerics (e.g., the Komité [Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corp] and more militant Basij and Pasejis all simultaneously exist in Iran). Recently (2005), "mutaween" has appeared to describe religious-policing within Muslim enclaves located inside secular nations, and has also entered the lexicon of blogosphere slang as a sarcastic pejorative describing politicized, non-Islamic religious groups. The English language word proselytism is derived ultimately from the Greek language prefix pros (towards) and the verb erchomai (to come). ... Wahhabism (sometimes spelled Wahabbism or Wahabism) is a movement of Islam named after Muhammad ibn Abd al Wahhab (1703–1792). ... The expression umbrella term means a word that provides a superset or grouping of related concepts. ... Basij is grass route govermnet organization which has branch in almost every mosque. ... A lexicon is usually a list of words together with additional word-specific information, i. ... It has been suggested that this article or section be merged with Weblog. ... Slang is the non-standard or non-dialectal use of words in a language of a particular social group, and sometimes the creation of new words or importation of words from another language. ... Sarcasm is the making of remarks intended to mock the person referred to (who is normally the person addressed), a situation or thing. ... Look up pejorative on Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ...

As of January 2006, Islamic nations including Algeria, Egypt, Iran, Libya, Malaysia, Indonesia, Nigeria, Sudan, Uzbekistan and Yemen either employ separate religious police under governmental authority (e.g., the Wilayatul Hisbah ["the Control Team"] was formed in Indonesia following the 2002 implementation of Shariah Law, and has become increasingly hard-line in the wake of the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami [which killed an estimated 170,000 there and was attributed to divine wrath by fundamentalists]), or, in the case of more militant or dictatorial regimes (e.g., Libya, and Taliban Afghanistan), "civil crime" and "religious crime" are not considered distinguishable concepts. The December 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami hits Thailand The 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake, known by the scientific community as the Sumatra-Andaman earthquake, was an undersea earthquake that occurred at 00:58:53 UTC (07:58:53 local time) on December 26, 2004. ... The tsunami that struck Malé in the Maldives on December 26, 2004. ... For other uses of this term, see Taliban (disambiguation) Flag flown by the Taliban. ...

Several predominantly Muslim nations feature de facto mutaween who are not directly employed by the state; additionally, some local governments form groups indepedent of national governments to enforce Sharia Law. Examples include chaos-wracked Bangladesh and Chad, where maurading terrorist factions enforce Sharia Law, Pakistan, where far-flung provinces do as they please regardless of government ruling or court judgment, Iran, where Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani's sanctioned Pasejis patrol regions under his influence, and Egypt, where the Muslim Brotherhood exists in political opposition to the present (2006) government. | name=Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani اکبر هاشمی رفسنجانی | nationality=iranian | image=Rafsanjani. ... The factual accuracy of this article is disputed. ...

Mutaween in Saudi Arabia

The Saudi Arabian Mutaween are tasked with enforcing Sharia as defined by the government; purportedly the Committee for the Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice "comprises more than 3,500 officers plus thousands of volunteers...often accompanied by a police escort" who have the power to arrest unrelated males and females caught socializing, enforce Islamic dress-codes, prayer schedules, and Muslim dietary laws prohibiting the comsumption or sale of alcoholic beverages and pork, and seize banned consumer products and media regarded as "un-Islamic" (such as CDs/DVDs of various Western musical groups, television shows and film). Additionally, they actively prevent the proselytizing of other religions within Saudi Arabia (where it is banned). The Committee for the Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice (CPVPV) is a Saudi Arabian police force meant to prevent religious crimes. ... Muslim dietary laws provide a set of rules as to what Muslims eat in their diet. ... Bottles of cachaça, a Brazilian alcoholic beverage. ... Two halves of a pig being delivered Pork is the meat taken from pigs. ... Religious conversion is the adoption of new religious beliefs that differ from the converts previous beliefs; in some cultures (e. ...

The Saudi mutaween recently launched a website where people can anonymously report tips about "un-Islamic" activities within that country.

Criticism of Saudi mutaween

A notorious incident attributed to the Saudi mutaween occurred on March 11, 2002 when they prevented schoolgirls from escaping a burning school in Mecca, because the girls weren't wearing headscarves and abayas (black robes). Fifteen girls died and 50 were injured as a result. There was widespread public criticism afterwards, both internationally and within Saudi Arabia itself. [1] 11 March is the 70th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (71st in Leap year). ... 2002 (MMII) was a common year starting on Tuesday of the Gregorian calendar. ... This article is about the city in Saudi Arabia. ... A critic (derived from the ancient Greek word krites meaning a judge) is a person who offers a value judgement or an interpretation. ...

Additionally, the Saudi media have been critical of the use of flogging as a means of punishment. Whipping on a post Flagellation is the act of whipping (Latin flagellum, whip) the human body. ...

References

• "Saudi police 'stopped' fire rescue" BBC, March 15, 2002
• The Saudi Media Debates Flogging by the Saudi Religious Police Middle East Media Research Institute, January 19, 2004
• Saudis Arrest Christians For Spreading 'Poison' NY Sun, May 2, 2005
• Inside Saudi Arabia
• "Saudi minister rebukes religious police", BBC, November 4, 2002
• Website of the Saudi mutaween.