Will Saudis Ban the Letter ‘X’? – January 15, 2007 – The New York Sun — As nutty as some of the clerics are over there, this will never happen. But it is funny!
The letter “X” soon may be banned in Saudi Arabia because it resembles the mother of all banned religious symbols in the oil kingdom: the cross. The new development came with the issuing of another mind-bending fatwa, or religious edict, by the infamous Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice — the group of senior Islamic clergy that reigns supreme on all legal, civil, and governance matters in the kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
The commission’s damning of the letter “X” came in response to a Ministry of Trade query about whether it should grant trademark protection to a Saudi businessman for a new service carrying the English name “Explorer.”
“No! Nein! Nyet!” was the commission’s categorical answer.
Why?
Well, never mind that none of the so-called scholars manning the upper ranks of the religious outfit can speak or read a word of English. But their experts who examined the English word “explorer” were struck by how suspicious that “X” appeared. In a kingdom where Friday preachers routinely refer to Christians as pigs and infidel crusaders, even a twisted cross ranks as an abomination.
found by Peter Rodwell who says this will screw up the marketing plans in the middle East for Xerox. But the kicker for me is wondering how will they deal with their major trading partner Exxon?? This story is bull.
Far from it! The “T” is the sacred symbol of our Ford, and the lowercase form is simply a little stylized 😉
It will be so nice when these idiots run out of Oil and we no longer care what they say.
History repeats itself — especially when led by the corrupt and reactionary.
When a fascist coup took military control of Greece in 1967, they banned the letter “Z”. It was the symbol of Greece’s peace movement.
brought to you you by the letter C
I wouldn’t immediately dismiss the story as bull. Western Chess sets in Islamic countries are often mutilated by removing the cross from atop the Kings. Surprisingly, there is no tendency to replace the Knights, which could be interpreted to be graven images of creatures (horses) with a soul–something verboten in the Koran.
Back 1300 years ago, Christians and Jews, as “people of the book” (the Bible), had special status in Islam. They could not, for example, be taken as slaves. But that still leaves a lot of room for disapproval.
The Soviets eliminated the letter Fita (same as Greek Theta) from the alphabet with the revised orthography of 1918. It could be argued that Fita wasn’t used much anyway, and even when it was, it was pronounced “ef”. Or you could see it as a sneaky way to eliminate Theology.
So much for “XBox” in Saudia Arabia!
Hmmm. it’s pretty common in the Muslim world for newspapers to use “Xmas” instead of Christmas because they don’t want to mention Christ.
What will the holiday be called if they ban an X…. just “mas?”
Some of Saudi Arabia’s biggest problems arise when their rulers are perceived as embracing the corrupting influence of western values. Banning the letter “x” seems to me like an innovative and relatively innocuous way to distance themselves from false religion (anything but theirs) and pander to Muslims. If it placates the extremists, it’s certainly better than something more substantive, such as the removal of all American military bases from the home of Mecca and Medina. The Saudis are constantly treading a very fine line.
Microsoft may have to rethink any marketing plans they have for their video game console.
Shows how backwards these people are. The letter ‘C’ is actually the one that needs to go (and be replaced by ‘X’: http://www.uspressnews.com/articles/1101
what do the law makers DO, after they have made ALL the lawas??
And Saudi calculators have, what, in place of the “+”?
I’m going to dissolve into laughter when/if they do this and then an imam needs to get x-rayed for a medical procedure – how are they going to refer to it without getting “e$communicated”
I guess Malcolm X isn’t important over there.
But what if the Saudi’s are right? Does that make XXX entertainment highly Christian? (Oh, they probably already think so.)