mutawa
/mʊˈtɑːwə/
mutawa noun: a member of the religious police in Saudi Arabia.
Noun
mutawa (plural mutaween)
- A member of the religious police in Saudi Arabia.
- Meanwhile, another trial is already under way in the city of Tabuk, where the family of a man who died of an apparent heart attack in the commission’s custody is likewise demanding a death sentence for four mutaween allegedly involved in his detention. Ahmed al-Bulawi died after being hauled into a...2007 August 6, Scott Macleod, “Vice Squad”, in Time, CLXX, № 5, page 36
- Conservatively dressed, but not in the standard attire of Saudi women, Wynn-Stanley was harangued by a mutawwa, so she pulled out her Saudi-issued diplomatic identity card. The mutawwa’s response was to throw it on the ground and grind it into the pavement with the sole of his shoe, a gesture...ibidem, page 37
- The religious police as a body.
Forms of mutawa
| plural | mutaween |
|---|---|
| alternative form | mutawwa |
| alternative form | muttawa |
Origin of mutawa
From the Arabic مُطَوَّع (muṭawwaʕ, “compliance officer, pious volunteer”), from طَوَّعَ (ṭawwaʕa, “to subjugate”).
Questions about mutawa
- What does mutawa mean?
- Mutawa means a member of the religious police in Saudi Arabia.
- What part of speech is mutawa?
- Mutawa is a noun.
- How do you pronounce mutawa?
- Mutawa is pronounced /mʊˈtɑːwə/.
- What is the plural of mutawa?
- The plural of mutawa is mutaween.
Words near mutawa in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: mutawa (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
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Cite this entry: “mutawa.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/mutawa. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.