Saudi Cleric on American Democracy, Globalization, and Haircuts

The following are excerpts from an interview with Saudi cleric Saleh Al-Munajid

Interviewer: The Muslims are unhappy with democracy because of its form in Western societies. Liberty and human rights make some Muslims angry. Why does this term make them angry?

Saleh Al-Munajid: If you compare Un-Islamic regimes, some of them would be bad and the others would be worse. It is a known fact. For instance, if you compare between a tyrannical, evil, oppressing regime and Western democracy – which is better? Western democracy is better. But is it our dream come true? No!

Take the issue of elections, for instance. What do you think of a voting system like the American one that gives a physician, an intellectual, an astronaut, an intelligent person and the head of the family, a vote that has the same weight as the vote of an ignorant, a fool, an idiot, an imbecile, a hippy, a bum, an unemployed man, who has no diploma, culture, or brains. What is this?!

Interviewer: What should we do then? This globalization influences (Muslim) identity and imposes the English language, for example. Should we resist this globalization? Must we reject this globalization altogether?

Saleh Al-Munajid: Globalization stems from our religion. Allah sent Muhammad out of mercy. He sent him for all mankind. Therefore, it is our duty to globalize the world around Islam and call the world to join Islam: "you may warn the Mother of Cities and those around her." This means the entire world. This religion was sent to the entire world. Globalization, in principle…

Interviewer: We are the source of globalization.

Saleh Al-Munajid: We are the source of it. The problem is that globalization now comes from the others to us. Therefore, we are being globalized, and not globalizing others. We want to turn the tables.

My brother, there is the crab haircut, the lion haircut, the mouse haircut… They didn't leave out a single haircut. Nowadays, we hear amazing things. It's no longer just the barbershop chair. They are leisure salons and coiffure – coiffure which is explicitly for men. They dye hair and put on makeup, as the viewer had mentioned, and there is the third sex, and the fourth... Westernization is very clear. Today when a young man leaves a barbershop you can't tell which planet or country he came from, because of the haircuts and makeup. Some leave the barbershop with hair that looks like a thorn-bush, others look like a jinn. Allah said about the Zaqoum tree (in hell) that it looks like the heads of demons, and this young man's head also looks like the head of demons. This is Westernization and the loss of identity.