My husband and I lived in Saudi Arabia for five years. We lived on the VERY nice ARAMCO camp and didn't much to into the tiny town nearby. What a dust-bowl it was. But we lived and worked with the Saudis, Pakistanis and Indians (Only Catholic Indians worked in Saudi Arabia, no Muslim Indians, for some reason.) for all those years.
There WERE the usual jerks, numb-nuts and retards in that group...and in our own American group but we had "special teachers" for each camp. Read that as PRIEST and we had a resident priest and he had a daily 9:00 A.M. Mass.
The Muslim holy day was Friday but I wanted to go to Mass on Sundays, which were work days. My co-worker, an East Indian Catholic, REALLY objected when I took off 20 lousy stinking minutes to go to Mass on Sundays. He said I should go on Fridays, like everyone else. I would ALWAYS make up the time from my lunch hour...ALWAYS.
He was so angry at me that he said he was going to "tell on me" to our Saudi boss. And he did.
I can remember exactly what our Saudi boss said. He said: "Harry, God is number one. There is always time for God. CloudMountain (not my real name, of course) can go to pray any time she wants."
I don't know whose jaw dropped farther or faster, mine or Harry's. SO, I went to Mass on Sundays. I also decided that it was such a good thing for me that I started going to DAILY Mass.
I picked up the habit of DAILY MASS in Saudi Arabia, from what my Saudi boss let me do. Does the Lord work in mysterious ways or what?!
My point: the Saudis, ALL Shi'ite Muslims in that Eastern Province (NOT Sunni), did NOT consider Jesus an enemy. I ASKED'em all. They considered Him a "good man" who did "many good things." That was the general consensus of Jesus to THOSE 30-odd blue-collar Saudi men.
Powerful testimony!
Tomorrow we rejoice in the Presentation of Our Lord and St. Simeon’s hymn that He is the “Light of nations”...including Saudi Arabia!