Implications of finding nouf on gender and ethnic minorities in saudi arabia

He is a Palestinian and not a Saudi but he has strict adherence to the rules and regulations of Islam. The lives of women in Saudi Arabia are hidden from sight behind walls and behind veils. This country is one of the most gender-biased and gender-segregated countries worldwide (Bahri $ Sharifa 2019, 100-115). Perhaps, Finding Nouf is a sixteen-year-old girl who becomes a mystery and a psychological study individual not to forget her searing glimpse nature into the lives of people of Saudi Arabia. She is fortunate to come from one of the prominent and famous dynasties in the country. The coroner makes rules that Nouf’s death was a result of nothing rather than a mere accident. As a result, she was drowned after being found in Wadi.

She says that such accidents are not common when sudden storms turn the dry riverbeds into swiftly moving rivers. This Coroner’s result was full of contradictions and objections from others since at that time, there was no any presence of running water and occurrence of such. On the other hand, Katya extensively disputed his findings with evidence of wounds on Nouf’s and arms. In short, he was a strict observant Muslim. He believed on their regulations and principles and followed them to the latter. Nevertheless, he chooses to instill Othman’s comfortability by following all the obligations to Nouf and Othman and agreeing to learn and understand the secret lives of women in Saudi Arabia. It was a great surprise that Othman was the only person grieving Nouf in the entire family.

Nouf lived in a walled estate owned by Saudi prince, she was ever surrounded by women and bodyguards and therefore Katya and Nayir remains in confusion as they try to figure out how hard it was for Nouf to have any time alone with a man. It focuses on how these principles affect the investigation process through the characters. The main characters of this novel are Othman, Nayir and Katya. We also realized that there is existence of cultural differences that also contributes to the failure of the investigation process. This article begins by discussing the various cultural activities pertaining to men and women in Saudi Arabia. Consequently, this will aid in providing distinguishing elements between the two genders. This transformation has been affected by several factors including the communications revolution and external scholarships (Al-Hakami et al.

In the early 18th century, Wahhabi Islamic movement commenced in Saudi Arabia and it predominates the country up to date. As one of the Muslim dominated countries, people adhere to the principle of enjoying good and forbidding wrong which has led to intense limitations and prohibitions on behavior and dressing code on both men and women. These obligations are enforced both legally and socially. Most of the traditional codes of conduct have been modified including allowing women to drive among other female-related issues. This is believed to be a continuation of their mercy and hospitality attributes they offered to strangers in the desert in the traditional society. The religious tradition requires men and women to conform not only to a conservative dress but also to a uniformity of dress uniqueness to many.

All women are required to wear a long black cloak that covers all the body parts except the hands and the face especially in black. This mode of dress code is mandatory for all the Islam but the color varies depending on culture. On the face, the women do wear a full veil and their clothes are always decorated with sequins, tribal motifs, metallic threads, threads among others. The Saudi law contends that every adult female must have a male relative as a guardian. For any situation of travelling, studying and working, she must acquire permission from the male guardian. This male guardian is therefore responsible for making various critical decisions on the woman’s behalf. However, a law is undergoing law-making processes that pose a proposal that women who are over 18 years should be allowed to travel without engaging guardian’s permissions.

Currently, women who are over 21 years are able to travel without seeking any permission of the guardian, which is a great achievement to women (Al-Hakami et al. It is the region that has the lowest percentage of employed females in the whole Middle East since they believe that involvement of a women in paid work is an abomination. Studies show that mathematically out of 8. 5 million women in the region, only 15% of the women are employed. This is an extremely low number as compared to other nations where the vice versa is true (Downing & Joseph 2019, 151-186). Historic Overview of Women’s Status in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia Much attention to women’s issues was initiated in the early 1970’s when there was a spontaneous rapid economic development.

It began long time ago thus is traditionally structured in the society. These inequalities can only be dislodged when women in Saudi Arabia unite and voice their concerns together. Just as other women in any other society differ in age, class, cultural background, race they should ignore all these and fight for their rights. There is also an urgent need that they should cross their borders and ignore their cultural and social norms. Generally, the role of women in Saudi Arabia was basically to structure her home and family thus they enhanced structure of the society (Al-Hakami et al. Surprisingly, she lost three days before her wedding day. Othman requested Shayir to lead the troupe in searching for her because he has led many successful search and rescue teams before.

After ten days before Shayir seeing any sign of finding, he finally concedes defeat and admits that his mission has failed. He the returned to Shrawi’s family empty handed. Soon after Nayir’s return to Jeddah, a group of people finds Nouf body in a wadi, a lakebed in deserts and semi-deserts. The correctional bodies, for instances the police ignores doing much investigations on her death, which was proclaimed as murder. Saudi Arabia has many rules that work against women. They seems to more unfavorable to women than men. For instance, pregnant women before marriage are criminals and are punishable by death. Besides the wounds discovered on her hands and arms, she is found to be pregnant and since such crime must face consequences of death, this is a clear indication of her murder.

Nayir becomes surprised to realize that Katya and Othman are in a relationship. It was also not required for a powerful and wealthy family to accept a woman who works among men into their fraternity. When Nayir enquired about this from Othman, he responds that his family has granted him freedom to choose a wife of his desire regardless of the culture’s obligations. Ironically, Nayir continues to work with Katya in this particular case even though he feels like betraying his society’s culture. Nouf’s pregnancy becomes questionable and unbelievable since she lived in all round walled Shrawi family compound. Unbelievably, the true killer of Nouf is none other than her blood sister Abir who is in a serious relationship with Qazi, Nouf’s husband to be.

She was therefore jealous with the relationship between her sister and her lover. Customarily, marriages in Saudi Arabia are arranged and the bridegrooms make vows to their respective brides that are never adhered to. Before the wedding day, brides are taken for a travel outside Saudi Arabia and Middle East at large. The men strengthen these promises by buying jackets to their brides. When the Islamic culture began to spread in the Arab nations, the Palestinians were under the influence of Christianity. It was not later than few decades that the Palestine was conquered by the Islamic culture and thereafter, they completely adopted it. It was ruled by various dynasties including Umayyad, Abbasids and Fatimid. During crusades in Palestine, the Islamic cultures were interrupted, but later restored under the reign of Mamluks.

There were existence of interplay relationships between the Arabs and the Palestinians in terms of their identities and nationalism. Women were expected to adapt to the customary laws of the society whereas females were not required to gain income from the family set-up. Nevertheless, females were considered equal to men as far tradition strategies were concerned. About many decades ago, education systems of the Palestinian daughters have been questionable due to the gradual change in parent’s attitudes. These attitudes were influenced by several factors including the belief that an educated woman was vulnerable to early marriage and the rapid increase in labor demand in the market (THOMPSON & THOMAS 2016, 125-169). Generally, there have been issues around gender inequality in Palestine’s society that for long time have been unfair to one gender, women.

She uses these characters as detectives even though there is inadequate connectedness. It is not easy to believe how Katya, the female character, got promoted and seems to providing career opportunities for others. The suspenseful nature of murder mystery on Nouf due to the simmering generational differences in the contemporary Saudi Arabian society creates a lot of motion and many questions on the Shrawi’s family. The two major characters, Katya Hijazi and Nayir al-Sharqi are representatives of the opposite ends of great division between the former Wahhabist Sunni establishment and the emerging and developing current generation of Saudis. They collaborate, which is unusual act, in order to solve some of the challenges facing the society. In regard to the love he has to the desert ecosystem, he serves the wealthy family, Shrawi family especially his dear friend Othman.

He is also a devout Muslim thus; he is not allowed to glance at a woman by the rule of Muslim’s laws. He therefore stays in a lonely place in marina in a boat. Othman therefore engages him immediately after Nouf is realized to be missing so that he may lead a group into the desert to go look for her (Pfoh & Emanuel 2016, 100-150). The task assigned on Nayir enables him to interact with Ketya, a pathologist by profession and Othman’s lover, whose independence clash with Nayir’s traditional way of viewing women. Conclusions Indeed the author of this article portrays a society that embraces discrimination and gender inequalities through cultural patterns. Cohesively, the society prevailed has great beliefs on the rules of the Muslims which becomes the basis of the various themes presented through the novel.

The culture influenced various relationships among the characters, for instance the relationship between the late and Othman. It is true that Nouf died when she was pregnant, her death is presumed not to be a common death or accident but she was murdered. Evidently, some wounds were found on her hands and arm. On the other hand, during special occasions, men wear special clothes for instance, a bisht or mishlah over the thobe. They are long white, black or brown cloaks trimmed in gold. In short, we can conclude that social lives in Saudi Arabia revolve around the home and family. They often visit family members especially those who were in the older generation unlike to the current generation where this is considered as a big deal.

Surprisingly, it is normally a routine that women can only visit one another during the day. Their beliefs and norms led to the murder of Nouf. Moreover, as Nouf is being searched, the participants find it hard to carry out their activities with an ease due to the outlined code of conducts that they have to adhere to the latter. This makes the investigation process to fail massively. According to my perceptions and other fellow revolutionists, we should be at the farthest end criticizing some of our societies’ norms and beliefs since most of them of them are not favorable. As far as we should obey the natural land’s laws, some should be totally abolished as they lead to increase of mortality of our people.