WHY SAUDI ARABIA STILL CANNOT HAVE A CHURCH Why can Saudi Arabia build mosques across the world, while Christians in Saudi Arabia still cannot build a public church? The answer goes back to Muhammad himself. Muhammad said: “I have been commanded to fight the people until they testify that there is no god but Allah and that Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah…” Sahih al-Bukhari He wanted the Jews and Christians to accept his claim to prophethood. According to another hadith, Muhammad said: “Had only ten Jews believed in me, all the Jews would definitely have believed me.” Sahih al-Bukhari But the Jewish tribes of Medina did not collectively accept him. Conflict followed: Banu Qaynuqa and Banu Nadir were expelled, while the men of Banu Qurayza were killed after their surrender and judgment. Eventually Muhammad declared: “I will surely expel the Jews and Christians from the Arabian Peninsula until I leave none but Muslims.” Sahih Muslim Another Hadith puts it even clearer: “Two religions shall not coexist in the Arabian Peninsula.” Muwatta Malik This was not left as rhetoric. The second caliph, Umar ibn al-Khattab, carried out expulsions. Sahih al-Bukhari explicitly reports that Umar expelled the Jews and Christians from the Hijaz, including the Jews who had remained at Khaybar under an arrangement made during Muhammad’s lifetime. Sahih al-Bukhari The Qur’an itself established religious exclusion from Islam’s holiest sanctuary: “Indeed, the polytheists are unclean, so let them not approach al-Masjid al-Haram after this…” Qur’an 9:28 And the very next verse commands Muslims to fight unbelievers, including “those who were given the Scripture,” until they pay the jizya. Qur’an 9:29 This is the historical and religious background to a reality that survives into the modern Saudi state: Christians may live and work in Saudi Arabia, but public non-Muslim houses of worship remain extraordinarily restricted. Foreign Christians, including Asian workers, Western expatriates and Egyptian Copts, have historically worshipped privately rather than in ordinary, publicly recognized churches. Saudi converts to Christianity face an even more difficult reality and generally cannot openly establish Saudi churches. Meanwhile, Saudi money has financed mosques abroad, where Muslims benefit from religious freedoms unavailable on the same terms to Christians in Saudi Arabia. One standard abroad. Another at home. And even after the enormous modernization campaign under Mohammed bin Salman, with concerts, international celebrities, football stars, tourism and massive entertainment projects, this ancient religious boundary remains remarkably difficult to cross. Saudi Arabia can bring the world’s entertainers to Riyadh. But building a normal public church remains another matter entirely. My criticism is not only directed at Saudi Arabia. Western and other governments should ask why their Muslim citizens can build mosques and openly preach their religion at home while their Christian citizens working in Saudi Arabia cannot enjoy equivalent freedom of public worship there. International pressure has pushed Saudi Arabia toward reforms in other areas. Religious freedom deserves the same attention. If Saudi Arabia wants to present itself as a modern country open to the world, opening its doors should also mean opening them to churches and places of worship for other religions. Religious freedom cannot mean: mosques for us in your country, but no churches for you in ours.

MY ANCESTORS CONVERTED UNDER THE SWORD I spent much of my life believing a lie, a big one. My parents told me I was Arab. My mother said she was Arab. My father said he was Arab and even claimed “holy blood,” as many North Africans do when claiming descent from the Prophet’s family. Then I came to America and took a DNA test. The result shocked me: 94% North African Amazigh. I wasn’t from the Arabian Peninsula. My roots were right where my family had lived for generations: North Africa. Suddenly, the history made sense. When Arab-Muslim armies conquered North Africa in the 7th and 8th centuries, the Amazigh did not simply disappear. They resisted the new rulers repeatedly, sometimes fiercely. Over the centuries, much of North Africa was Islamized and Arabized. Indigenous languages, religions, identities, and histories were pushed aside as Arabic and Islam became dominant. Somewhere along my family line, being “Arab” became the story passed from parent to child. Perhaps claiming Arab, and especially prestigious Arab, ancestry offered status, protection, or simply a way to belong in the society that emerged after the conquest. The irony is that science eventually challenged the family story. My DNA said: You are Amazigh. You are North African. Christianity had deep roots in pre-Islamic North Africa. This was the land of Augustine, Tertullian, Cyprian, and countless North African Christians. Then conquest transformed the region, followed over centuries by Islamization and Arabization. So when people romanticize the “spread of Islam” in North Africa as though our ancestors simply heard the message and enthusiastically abandoned everything they had been, I ask them to read the history of conquest, taxation, slavery, rebellion, and resistance. My ancestors did not need foreigners from Arabia to give them an identity. They already had one. Their land was North Africa. Their people were Amazigh. Their languages existed before Arabic arrived. Their religions were Christianity and Judaism. Their history existed before Islam arrived. Today, Morocco officially recognizes Tamazight, the language of the people who were there long before the Arab conquest. For generations, we were taught to look east to discover who we were. My DNA pointed me back home. Islamization changed my ancestors’ religion. Arabization obscured their identity. But neither could change their blood.