Today’s essay comes from a former Muslim radical called Ed Husain. He writes of his experiences in Saudi Arabia in an essay in The Australian called Barely veiled menace. I doubt that what is recounted here will surprise anyone, but it is an interesting essay none the less.

I have one quibble with the essay though. The author repeatedly refers to the Saudi youth as being sex starved and he blames the strict separation of the sexs for many of the problems that he observes. But I think he has the cause and effect mixed up.

There are a lot of non- Islamic cultures in the world who have worse sexual problems than the author describes in Saudi Arabia. Sub-Sahara Africa springs to mind right off the bat. So do some Caribbean countries.

I think that popularity of many of seeming harsh sexual regulations in Islam stems from the fact that many woman fear that things would be even worse for them without those regulations. Certainly a large part of the Taliban’s popularity stemmed from the fact that they gave greater protection to the woman of that country then the Warlords did.