Is Dubai tolerant of other religions?
By Bernie on 17 Feb 2006
According to the CIA World Factbook Dubai is 80% Sunni, 16% Shi'a, and 4% other. So one could think well Dubai must be somewhat tolerant of other religions. Not quite:
John Mark Ministries, 29 April 2003, Dubai: Christian Pastor Gets Suspended Sentence
A Filipino pastor has been found guilty of "Abusing Islam and Christian Missionary Activity" in Dubai, UAE. He received a suspended sentenced of a year in prison, deportation and confiscation of seized materials except the Bible. The probation period is three years.
This judgement follows a series of court appearances. The only witness against him, an Egyptian man to whom Rev. Alconga had given Christian literature in Arabic in November 2002, testified that he had willingly accepted the materials knowing what they were.
The court asked a panel of Islamic experts to evaluate the materials. Their judgement was that, according to Islam, the materials were acceptable for private use but not for distributing to non-Christians.
You can be a Non-Muslim but don't discuss it with anyone else. Most of Dubai's revenues do not come from oil (less than 6% and will probably run out by 2010) but rather is very heavily driven by tourism. They even allow bars with alcohol (as long as they are tied to hotels).
Some Dubai trivia: There is more construction going on in Dubai than anywhere else in the world; 16% of the world's large construction cranes reside in Dubai [Wiki]. To help with this massive boom the Dubayyans rely heavily on workers from the Indian sub-continent for cheap labor which helps explain why they are "tolerant" of Hindus in their country.
Other than tourism Dubai is investing heavily in businesses outside of the UAE such as DP World.
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