Saudi Arabia

Key

Current issues

Saudi Citizens potentially face being sentenced to death if they are discovered to be Christians.

Although in recent years the courts have sentenced Christian converts from Islam to other punishments, it is as yet unclear whether this is always the case, as not all arrests are made public and religious prisoners can be tried in secret sessions in specialised criminal courts where the death penalty is sometimes demanded.[1] There is also evidence that agents of the state have engaged in extra-judicial killings of those seen as being dissidents.

It is likely that most Saudi Christians who are killed for their faith die at the hands of their own families. It is impossible to know how many Christians are killed in such honour killings as shari’a gives impunity to those carrying out such acts. Additionally, a family member who became a Christian is regarded as having brought shame on the whole family who therefore explain the disappearance of the person in other ways.

There are no non-Muslim places of worship in Saudi Arabia and the building of churches is illegal.

Public performance of any non-Muslim acts, including prayer are illegal.

It is illegal for Christian symbols such as the cross to be visible.

The importation of Bibles and non-Islamic religious books is illegal.

Saudi Arabia is not simply a police state where the government closely monitors its citizens and residents for non-Islamic acts, there is also significant additional surveillance from tribal and community groups, as well as the mutawa (religious police) who, although no longer having powers of arrest, report any suspicion of non-Islamic behaviour to family, imams and the government.

The government also carries out extensive social media surveillance and arrests those posting content which is deemed to undermine the officially approved interpretations of Islam.

The position of female Saudi Christians is particularly vulnerable due to the Guardianship law, which allows a male guardian not only to arrange who they marry, but also to make a criminal complaint of “parental disobedience” following which the woman can be forcibly returned home by the police or imprisoned. Christian women may be forcibly married to a Muslim man, sometimes as a second wife, as a corrective measure to compel them to return to Islam.[2]

Although there has been some toning down of anti-Christian rhetoric in Saudi school textbooks since 2001, the curriculum still specifies the teaching of hudud offences including execution for apostasy (ridda).[3]

A wide variety of crimes can be labelled as blasphemy and punishments include fines, imprisonment, whipping and potentially execution. In the recent past simply discussing the Bible has led to imprisonment and flogging.[4]

The actual treatment of Christians appears to be determined in part by Saudi Arabia’s political relationships. Western Christians accused of religious offences are likely to be deported, African or Asian Christians working in the country may be imprisoned or beaten, Saudi citizens are treated more severely.

Legal situation

Saudi laws are based on a combination of Hanbali shari’a, fatwas from the Council of senior religious scholars and royal decrees.

Saudi Arabia has for pragmatic reasons slowly made changes to some aspects of Classical Islam that it sees as hindering its economic relationship with the West. This includes the formal abolition of slavery in 1962, which had been permitted for non-Muslims and had historically included Christians[5], and the curtailment of the powers of mutawa (religious police) in 2016. However, this represents a pragmatic decision not to implement these aspects of shari’a, rather than a change in Islamic jurisprudence.

Article 1 of Saudi Arabia’s 1992 Basic Law states that the country’s constitution is: “The Holy Qur'an and the Prophet's Sunnah (traditions)”. This reflects the Islamic theology that shari’a. as God-given law, is “discovered” by study of the Islamic scriptures, with man-made laws simply being administrative regulations to enact these laws.

The Basic Law also requires the king to rule on the basis of the Qur’an and Sunnah and all citizens to pledge unquestioning obedience to him on this basis. It requires all aspects of life to be in conformity with shari’a, states that the aim of education is to inculcate the Islamic creed in the next generation and specifically requires the state to “enjoin good and forbid evil”. The latter reflects the Islamic doctrine of Hisb – that every person or group in society has a duty to ensure others follow the behaviour required by shari’a. Although the Basic Law does require the state to protect human rights this is explicitly stated to be “in accordance with Islamic Shari'ah”.

The judicial system is largely based on Hanbali jurisprudence. This imposes an immediate death penalty on any adult, either male or female deemed guilty of apostasy, while children who have converted are required to be executed on reaching adulthood.

Although some Saudi Christians have had to flee to other countries vaguely worded provisions in the 2014 Terrorism law make it an offence for any person, Saudi or non-Saudi, to be in any way involved in an act “outside the Kingdom” deemed to “undermine the interests of the Kingdom, its economy, or national or societal security”.[6] 

Ideologies linked to persecution

Islamic History. The acts of the first generations of Islam are viewed as a pattern to be emulated. In particular: i) The Constitution of Medina which was made by Muhammad with the people of Medina when he migrated to Medina (622 AD) and set out the basis of Islamic government. This required absolute loyalty to Muhammad by both Muslims and non-Muslims;[7] ii) The Pact of Umar reputedly made by Umar, the second Caliph (634-644CE) i.e. successor of Muhammad, with the Christians of Syria, which forms the basis of the Islamic concept of dhimmitude. This placed significant restrictions on non-Muslims including specifically forbidding them from building or even repairing churches, only allowed them to worship in private behind closed doors and forbade them from having crosses or Christian books where Muslims could see them, as well as requiring Christians to show total subservience to Muslims;[8] iii) There is also an Hadith that Muhammad said "I will certainly expel the Jews and the Christians from the Arabian Peninsula until only Muslims are left in it.” In 2015 when a law prohibiting new church buildings was proposed in Kuwait, Saudi Arabia’s Grand Mufti, Sheikh Abdul Aziz bin Abdullah cited this hadith to call for the destruction of all churches anywhere in the Arabian Peninsula.

Wahhabism. An Islamic reform movement begun in the Arabian Peninsula by Muhammad Abd al Wuhab (1703-92) who was joined by a tribal chief, Muhammad ibn Saud (s.1765) which sought to purify Islam and regarded all Muslims who resisted as unbelievers to be fought. The present day flag of Saudi Arabia consists of the shahada (Islamic confession of faith) and the crossed swords of the House of Saud and ibn Abd al-Wahhab.

Tribalism. Tribal leaders taking pride in reporting anyone suspected of converting to Christianity to the government.

Authoritariansim. The government has sought to counter radical Islamic clerics who since the 1980s have opposed it for being insufficiently Islamic, by a combination of i) seeking to gain support of the younger generation with a slight loosening of some Islamic restrictions on for example women, while at the same time ii) clamping down in an authoritarian manner against any form of religious or political dissent.

Future risks

The limited concessions on human rights that the Saudi government has been prepared to make in recent years need to be seen in the context of its desire for strong economic relationships with western countries. However, the prospect of Saudi oil reserves becoming increasingly depleted from the mid-twentieth century may remove the incentive for further improvement.

Church History 

The Christian church became well established in Arabia in the early centuries of Christianity with six bishops from Arabia recorded as attending the Council of Nicaea in 325 AD. Shortly afterwards Arabia became a place of refuge for hundreds of Christians fleeing the Zoroastrian persecution in Persia under Sharpur 11 from 337 AD. The Arab king of Hirtha on the east coast north of Qatar accepted Christianity in 512 and by the time of Muhammad there was a significant Christian community in places such as Yemen.[9] Ibn Ishaq, the earliest Muslim biographer of Muhammad records that in 615 AD a group of the first Muslims facing persecution from the pagan Meccans fled to the nearby Christian kingdom of Abyssinia. He narrates that one of them, Ubaydullah ibn Jahsh became a Christian at this point and preached to his Muslim companions.[10] In 631 AD a large delegation from the Christians at Najran, now in southwestern Saudi Arabia, including its bishop visited Muhammad at Medina and prayed with him. However, during the time of the Caliph Omar nearly all Christians who refused to become Muslims were deported to Iraq. Despite this, in recent years there have been small signs of a growing awareness of Arabia’s ancient Christian heritage. In 1986 a fourth-century mud-built church was discovered near the town of Jubail in Eastern Saudi Arabia, while in 2017, the Saudi government marked the visit of Lebanese Maronite Patriarch, Cardinal Bechara Boutros Al Rai, by announcing it would restore (though not reopen for worship) a 900-year-old church.

© Material in this analysis may be freely reproduced or quoted in context provided i) the source is explicitly acknowledged as The Lindisfarne Centre for the Study of Christian Persecution and ii) the date of download is stated.

[1] ‘The figures threatened with death in Saudi jails’ Middle East Monitor 28 April 2020 [accessed 1 April 2022]>.

[2] Scott Weiner Guardianship, women and religious freedom in Saudi Arabia (Washington,USCIRF,2020).

[3] Eldad J Pardo and Uzi Rabi The Winding Road to a New Identity: Saudi Arabian Curriculum 2016-2019 Interim Report (Ramat Gan: Institute for Monitoring and Peace and Cultural Tolerance in School Education, February 2020) 26 <KSAs-Winding-Road-to-New-Identity_2016-19-Curriculum_Final-.pdf (impact-se.org)> [accessed 16 May 2022].

[4] ‘Saudi teacher flogged for Bible talk’ World Gulf 14 November 2005 [accessed 16 May 2022].

[5] William Gervase Clarence-Smith Islam and the Abolition of Slavery (Oxford:OUP,2006) 178-84.

[6] S.3 ‘Law on Combatting the financing of Terrorism’ 2014.

[7]The Constitution of Medina  . Within four years two Jewish tribes, the Banu Qaynuqa and the Banu n’Nadir were expelled by Muhammad and their homes allocated to Muslims. A year later the sole surviving Jewish tribe, the Banu Qurayzah sought to remain neutral during a siege of Medina known as the battle of al Khandaq. Following which Muhammad appointed a judge who “decreed that all the men of Qurayzah should be put to death and the women and children sold as slaves. This sentence was duly carried out, apparently on the following day.” William Montgomery Watt Muhammad at Medina (Karachi:OUP,1956) 214.

[8] Pact of Umar, 7th Century? Fordham University  [accessed 16 May 2022]

[9] George E Kelsey ‘Saudi Arabia’ 855 in A Scott Moreau (ed) Evangelical Dictionary of World Missions (Grand Rapids,Baker,2000).

[10] Ibn Ishaq Sirat Rasul Allah s.144ff ET by Alfred Guillaume as The Life of Muhammad (Karachi, OUP,1955) 99.