Women of Reddit who have lived in a country with Sharia law what was it really like?

1. Finally, a place I could reply in. It’s long because I have a lot to tell. Grammatical and punctuation errors are rampant, as well as misspelled words as English is not my mother tongue, but please, bear with me. Born and raised in the central region of Saudi Arabia as an expat and spent almost my whole life here, barring some 4 years, give or take due to education and vacation (a month of yearly vacation my whole life). The city I live in is stricter than most compared to the other cities besides Makkah, as it is the city where the King is based in. I was born in the mid 90s, so it was actually pretty strict then compared to what Saudi Arabia is today. This is according to my parents, in their early days when they just had me and not centralized, they had to carry their marriage certificate and my birth certificate (more on this in a bit) anywhere (going to work and dropping me off to school) they go to at that time, because of the muttawas. They get stopped a lot by the muttawas. Now though, a lot of people (especially expatriates) here (since single males and females cannot interact with each other in public) borrow their friends’ children, to pose as their children, when they’re outside just to have a “date”. Just walking outside (I JUST WANTED TO BUY A GOD DAMNED MILK LIKE A BLOCK AWAY), alone without a male guardian, can make you feel like you are being molested with just their eyes, even now. Take note, I am wearing an abaya (mandatory black clothes on females) all the time when out in public. On a side note, I did get molested in a store when I was young and had no idea what the fuck was happening, it did fuck me up big time. I picked up the “no-looking-at-strangers-eyes” or any to be honest, pretty early on, so I had to adjust big time when I lived in the US for six months (it apparently shows dishonesty or something like that). I had a big culture shock too, when I had to go home to my home country to continue my education that I was sadly not able to integrate well. It’s also a common occurrence at that time, but women with no male guardians outside could get you picked off the streets then raped, if you’re lucky, you survive, if not, they dump you in the desert. We hear a lot of those stories, and that’s the reason why we didn’t go out a lot unless my dad drops us off to places we need to be in. You can literally get harassed without anyone batting an eye just because you wanted to go somewhere and that is just sad. I have read the lucky ones who got to live on a compound. Let me tell you mine, to be honest, with my dad’s company, we could have gotten to live in one of those compounds but he chose to live in an apartment because it’s cheaper and we get to save money (they give a housing allowance for those living outside the compound premises, like 1/4-1/2 of their annual salary, no matter how much the actual cost of the rent is). So my days were spent only at school, and house. My parents are too scared to go outside (unless grocery shopping and going to this medical city where muttawas or “religious police” are not allowed, and the females can walk around without the abaya). It’s illegal for single women to give birth here. I don’t know the specifics but I have had unmarried female friends and acquaintances that had to go back to their country of origin just to give birth to their child. Apparently, they require a marriage certificate on expats. I am not sure how it goes with the natives here though. I am a bit of a tomboy, so it’s a bit difficult for me in this situation. I have mentioned I am an expat, and my countrymen are actually pretty open and liberal compared to some other expat nationalities. Anyways, I prefer hanging out with the guys (girls are well, girls) at school. We were lucky that we were co-ed, and the only time we had to go to separate classrooms is when the Ministry of Education came for inspection. They’d have a meet up and stuff, and I could not come, because guess what? I’m a female. We managed to circumnavigate around it, but it was always nerve-wracking when I do hang out with them. We can get deported. Single men and women cannot be in the same car as well, unless it’s taxi or uber. Using the taxi alone is also a scary experience sometimes, because there’s a chance that the driver might have sold you to somebody (you never know to whom they’re talking to in their cellphone). It’s why I never use taxi alone. Also sometimes, a driver will chase another car with females in it just to get a “rate”, you know what it is. I’ve encountered them a lot of times to be honest. Yes, I grew up without the freedom and all the things to learn in this world. I grew up sheltered. I do thank Saudi Arabia for giving my parents and I a good life, even if my social and emotional development were sacrificed. Thank you for reading until here. I have a lot more to say about my experiences here, but I don’t have anything I can think of at the moment. I am so sorry for the headache you had after wading through my train wreck comment. Have a nice day. Almost a thousand words. :<
   — Zenjuuro


2. My family lived in Saudi Arabia in the 90s before I was born. They stayed in a complex for expats and my mom always told stories about life there. What stood out to me was mainly three things. Apparently my parents was brewing alcohol in their basement, since alcohol was banned. All their friends in the complex also did this so I'm guessing it was kind of widespread. The second thing was that my mom always had a scarf with her in case the police told her to cover her hair. She pretty much couldn't go a die without having to wear it. The third was that their was this fairly large square that my parents sometimes walked by. Nothing special with it except that on Sunday's people's punishments would be carried out on it. Hands getting chopped of was nothing new on that square. The worst part however was that foreigners would be pushed to the front as to get at good look on what was going on. The common consensus in my family about that practice is that they wanted to show foreigners what would happen if they broke the law. Other than that it was pretty lax.
   — Ekenlan


3. I lived in Bahrain for a year and actually didn't think about the Sharia law at all. Of course I didn't wear shorts or short skirts. Also I probably only had two glasses of wine the entire time I was there at private dinner parties. You can find alcohol in hotels but I never cared enough to do that. More shocking was the Sunni/shia divide as well as the fact that most police were Pakistani and didn't speak Arabic the language of Bahrain.
   — Bekiala






4. I lived in Qatar when I was like 9-11 so this is more from a little girl's perspective. My mom had to get a liquor license and go to a place an hour away to get alcohol if she ever wanted it and it was such a process that she rarely did. We had to watch what we wore all the time. it didn't matter so much for me being a child and always looking young for my age and i went to an international school so it was more chill. Anyone who was Jewish had to shut the fuck up about it. I know friends who had their bar/bat mitzvahs a lot later than most kids because they couldn't actually do it until they moved out of the country. I think it's worse in some countries than it is others, Qatar was pretty fine. This certainly isn't the best perspective and may be a bit incorrect given my age and lack of understanding that I was actually living somewhere with Sharia law at the time, so apologies.
   — takingmytimeonmyride