What are the benefits living in Saudi?

I currently live in Saudi Arabia. Really, you live in Saudi Arabia? Is what people ask me.

Many people may be reluctant to stay in this country because of the scary stories like qisash law which is the cutting off hands of people who steal, abuse women, rape, torture.  These acts upon female workers, and others make everyone think many times to move to this country. No doubt that many families are separated, the husband or wife works and lives in Saudi, while his or her family lives in their respective countries. Not only non-Muslims who choose this kind of life, but Muslims also. Many women who already have a good career in their own countries are reluctant to move to Saudi, because of limited employment for women, especially if they are non-Saudis.

Mosque near Corniche Jeddah
Mosque near Corniche Jeddah

I left my career in my home country a few years ago and have been living in this very hot climate (It can reach 50 degrees Celsius which is around 100+ degrees Farenheit) of Jeddah for 9 years.

How can I stand to live in Jeddah? How can anyone for that matter?

The opportunities for women are not sufficient.  For example a woman cannot drive a car or even a bike on public roads. Exceptions are if living in a residential area (compound), woman may drive a car or motorcycle inside the compound area. There are no cinemas, no public buses or minivans. Even, when you are going to a traditional market, you better go with friends or mahram. Colleges or University for women are also a few, if any, only in certain majors and generally speaking Arabic. Maybe you’ll stop your choice of visiting Saudi if you just read up here. Read on sister. In reality, actually there are many pluses in living in Saudi that I cannot get in my beloved homeland. What do you think that is?

For Muslims, the close vicinity to the holy places in Islam: Mecca and Medina. These two places trump out any cool monument in the world. These two places define my decision in an instant. Imagine Mecca is only about 90 km from Jeddah and which takes only  50 minutes to 1 hour to arrive at Baytullah! While Jeddah-Medina can be reached about 4-5 hours by car/bus. You can go for umrah and haj anytime you are ready. It’s only for haj we are limited to go legally every 5 years.

DSCN0040
Road in Jeddah

We also can get halal food especially meat that slaughtered according to Islam more easily in this country.  Even though we still have to be careful because many products are imported from non-Muslim countries (because shops are small and maybe some persons brought it in without passing proper immigration). And there are no liquor and pork sold freely in Saudi because examination of the government is quite tight.

What about traffic congestion? The streets are relatively wide in Arabia and most of them are not crowded. Bikers are very rare, if there are, usually are rich people who drive a big motor in certain times. Public transportation here is taxi only. Public buses are very limited in number and are usually used by construction workers to get to and from work. The time taken from home to the workplace, school children, mall usually are no more than 30 minutes, so we can save time on the road and spend more time with family. This is the most valuable reason.

If you want to know more about Jeddah, you can go to Jeddah-Blog.com.

Scroll to Top