Sukaina al-Zayer is an unlikely beauty queen hopeful. She covers her face and body in black robes and an Islamic veil, so no one can tell what she looks like. She also admits she’s a little on the plump side.

But at Saudi Arabia’s only beauty pageant, the judges don’t care about a perfect figure or face. What they’re looking for in the quest for “Miss Beautiful Morals” is the contestant who shows the most devotion and respect for her parents.

“The idea of the pageant is to measure the contestants’ commitment to Islamic morals… It’s an alternative to the calls for decadence in the other beauty contests that only take into account a woman’s body and looks,” said pageant founder Khadra al-Mubarak.

“The winner won’t necessarily be pretty,” she added. “We care about the beauty of the soul and the morals.”

There are few beauty pageants in the largely conservative Arab world. The most dazzling is in Lebanon, the region’s most liberal country, where contestants appear on TV in one-piece swimsuits and glamorous evening gowns and answer questions that test their confidence and general knowledge.

There are no such displays in ultra-strict Saudi Arabia, where until Miss Beautiful Morals was inaugurated last year, the only pageants were for goats, sheep, camels and other animals, aimed at encouraging livestock breeding.

That last paragraph might be the finest thing I’ve ever read. I’d hate to see the camel that won Miss Congeniality though. Good to see that they got around to women AFTER having pageants for animals for years though. That pretty much shows where ladies stand in their hierarchy. I’m surprised they didn’t have an event where handfuls of sand paraded around on a stage before they got around to women.

[via]

“And then he said, ‘No, that’s my CAMEL!’”

A court in Saudi Arabia has granted an 8-year-old girl a divorce from her 47-year-old husband, after twice denying the divorce request previously, local media reported Thursday.

The marriage sparked condemnations around the world from human rights groups and U.S. and other government officials when it first came to light in December.

Local media, which is highly regulated by the Saudi government, reported that the court in the city of Onaiza approved the divorce decree Thursday, and the divorce is final.

A source at the court told the Saudi daily newspaper Al-Watan that the divorce “came after a series of pleas made by a number of officials in the region to the husband.”

The issue of child marriage has been a hot-button topic in the deeply conservative Saudi kingdom recently. While rights groups have petitioned the government for laws to protect children from such marriages, the kingdom’s top cleric has said that it’s OK for girls as young as 10 to wed.

“It is incorrect to say that it’s not permitted to marry off girls who are 15 and younger,” Sheikh Abdul Aziz Al-Sheikh, the kingdom’s grand mufti, said in January, according to the regional Al-Hayat newspaper. “A girl aged 10 or 12 can be married. Those who think she’s too young are wrong, and they are being unfair to her.”

Good to see that some Saudi men are still fighting the good fight. Though, in fairness, he’s saying girls age 10 can marry. This girl is a mere TWENTY PERCENT younger than that. Plus he’s right, it’s unfair to the girl. What prepubescent girl hasn’t come of age mentally and thought, “One day, I hope to have a sweaty 50 year-old man draping his hummus-smelling balls on my chin. And by one day, I mean like, next Thursday.”

When reached for comment, the 8 year-old girl said, “Where’s my mommy? Can I do fingerpainting now?” So brave and mature in the face of such a tumultuous time.

[via]

A Saudi man has divorced his wife by text message, a newspaper said on Thursday.

The man was in Iraq when he sent the SMS informing her she was no longer his spouse. He followed up with a telephone call to two of his relatives, the daily Arab News reported.

A court in the Red Sea city of Jeddah finalised the split — the first known divorce in Saudi Arabia by text message — after summoning the two relatives to check they had received word of the husband’s intention, the paper said.

Saudi Arabia practises a strict form of Islamic Sharia law, and clerics preside over Sharia courts as judges. Under the law a man can divorce his wife by saying “I divorce you” three times.

[source]

Saudi marriage officiant Dr. Ahmad al-Mu’bi told Lebanese television viewers last week that it’s permissible for girls as young as 1 to marry — as long as sex is postponed.

Al-Mu’bi’s remarkable comments also included an explanation that “there is no minimal age for entering marriage.”

“You can have a marriage contract even with a 1-year-old girl, not to mention a girl of 9, 7 or 8,” he said. “But is the girl ready for sex or not?” What is the appropriate age for sex for the first time? This varies according to environment and tradition,” al-Mu’bi said.

These Saudis are pretty freaking on the ball. Like they totally get that American society is moving in a direction that sexualizes teenagers so they twirl their big mustaches and go, “HA HA WE WILL SHOW AMERICAN PIGS AND MARRY OUR 1 YEAR-OLD GIRLS! THEN THEY WILL BE BIGGER THAN 600 HANNAH MONTANAS!”

My question is the dowry higher or lower with a 1 year-old? Because like it can go either way with them really. But you’re getting them really young so I guess there’s a lot of potential. I guess what I’m saying is that I want dowries in America. I don’t want to marry your ass for free. Not only that, but at a LOSS! I have to buy a ring and crap! What the f. Yeah, it’s great that I can get Diet Coke and whatever, but America sucks sometimes.