Your story sounds odd, compared with what you have claimed in the past, that Muslims are broad minded. (Though relative prosperity might tone down their religious fervor, granted.)
My particular boss was not broadminded and I never said he was. He was EXTREMELY kind. He was unlettered and so developed an extraordinary memory.
I never did say that Muslims were broad minded either.
The religious zealots always seemed to be younger men.
During the beginning of the Muslim year, via the Muslim calendar, these Shi'ite Muslim young men would beat up on themselves in a frenzy of self-punishment. The Saudi government didn't like this and would send troops to beat the HOLY PIE out of them.
The Islamic calendar, Muslim calendar or Hijri calendar (AH)is a lunar calendar consisting of 12 months in a year of 354 or 355 days.
It is used to date events in many Muslim countries (concurrently with the Gregorian calendar), and used by Muslims everywhere to determine the proper days on which to observe the annual fast (see Ramadan), to attend Hajj, and to celebrate other Islamic holidays and festivals.
The first year was the Islamic year beginning in A.D. 622 during which the emigration of the Islamic Prophet Muhammad from Mecca to Medina, known as the Hijra, occurred. Each numbered year is designated either H for Hijra or AH for the Latin anno Hegirae (in the year of the Hijra); hence, Muslims typically call their calendar the Hijri calendar.
The current Islamic year is 1435 A.H. In the Gregorian calendar 1435 AH runs from approximately 3 November 2013 (evening) to 23 October 2014 (evening).
Most of Saudi Arabia is Sunni Muslim but the Eastern Province, right near the Arabian/Persian Gulf, happened to have a sizable Shi'ite population.
In town (Rahima) there were mutawahs that, we heard, got after foreigners who were inappropriately dressed. We never saw them. I looked for them, but the Saudis aren't people who LIKE to look for trouble. They would MUCH rather sit around, in their own gender, drink tea and talk for hours.
It was really WAY too hot to anything else.
Starting in April the air temperature would rise. It got to 117 degrees by mid summer. At the Gulf, where we lived, the water temperature AND humidity were 95 degrees and % respectively.
November was the only pleasant month.
During the three winter months, December-February, the area experienced the "hamzeens"--WIND blowing in from the north. It was cooler but the sky was FILLED with sand. Nasty weather all the time.
I was told that southeast Asia was the only place on the planet that had worse weather.
It rained for two hours ONE day ONLY in all the five years I was there. Two hours of rain in FIVE long years.
Dry, dry, dry.