Oh joy! Longer-term €S readers will remember all the way back to May, when I first brought you word in this space about the “Miss Saudi Arabia” pageant. Due to the . . . er . . . somewhat different nature of that extravaganza’s judging-process, it takes rather longer than your average beauty pageant. But now this year’s winner has finally been crowned, and that is eighteen-year-old Aya Ali Mulla. I had not really been on the look-out for any sort of follow-up to May’s story – I promise! – but my RSS feeds nonetheless came up for me big-time and alerted me to recent coverage of that pageant’s outcome from the Czech press, namely from Lidové noviny and Mladá fronta dnes. These articles are (almost) the same, as they both are by-lined to the same Czech press agency piece. For example, they have similar headlines: “Saudi Arabia has new Miss, but no one has seen her” and “Miss Saudi Arabia’s face seen only by female jury-members,” respectively.

Naturally, both Czech papers ultimately refer back to the Saudi press for coverage of this marquee event, but have to report that no Saudi paper was actually able to state what it was about Ms. Mulla* that catapulted her to victory. It was easier just to report what she won: an amount in riyals that, from the Czech-crown equivalent that is cited, seems to be just under €1,000; a pearl necklace; some diamonds (mounted on what, is not revealed); a wristwatch; and a paid vacation to Malaysia, which, although of course another Islamic land, is a pretty nice place to visit, I’ve heard. There’s also further detail here on one of the event’s key competitions, the “How much do you respect your mother?” event: apparently contestants each spend an entire day out “in the country” with their own mother, under the observation of one of the jury-members (wielding a clipboard, no doubt). I say, get coverage of that on the X-Games channel, pronto!

The Czech papers are able to contribute some added detail, perhaps somewhat wistfully, about another beauty pageant held in the Arab world that does actually conform a bit more tightly to what most of the rest of the world understands by the concept, namely the one for Miss Lebanon, where the girls do actually appear in swimsuits (one-piece only, though) and in evening gowns, and are interviewed in front of an audience. In contrast, returning again to Saudi Arabia, the LN article states “Beauty competitions there only have to do with goats, sheep, camels, and other animals” – despite the considerable effort required each year to get the camels into their one-piece bathing-suits!

[Cymbal crash] No, that last part I made up myself . . .

*Quite a suitable name, eh? No, I’m not making it up, click through above to the articles and see for yourself if you want. But don’t be fooled when you see the winner’s last name as “Mullaová”: that last “-ová” part is added routinely in Czech, Slovak, and some other Slavic languages to women’s last names.

Ah yes: Miss World! Miss Universe! Miss What-Have-You! They all raise loads of money and attract widespread media-interest. And did you know that they even have a beauty pageant for young misses in Saudi Arabia? Indeed they do, in the capital Riyadh; the Dutch daily Algemeen Dagblad is kind enough to report on this today (Miss Pageant in a niqab).

That reference to the niqab – namely the veil over the face worn by Muslim women – and for that matter to Saudi Arabia should warn you, though, that what is going on here is somewhat different from the normal template. Take “beauty”; in Saudi Arabia, it’s all about inner beauty, you see, which is good since naturally no sort of evening gown – much less bikini – competition could ever be allowed.

So how do they judge that? Apparently the whole evaluation-process takes ten weeks, and is conducted by a panel of all-female judges – and that last bit alone tells you quite a lot. What is examined is things like respect for elders and how contestants respond when asked about how they “discover their inner force.” There’s even a “bring-your-Mom-to-the-contest” day, during which contestants are evaluated as to their respectful interaction with their own and everyone else’s mother. At bottom as a fundamental consideration, as you might expect, is any given candidate’s fealty to “Islamic values.”

Not likely to be a top-ten television hit, then, either in the rest of the world or, I dare say, within the Kingdom itself. On the other hand, there’s some serious money involved: the woman with the “most beautiful soul,” as the AD puts it, walks away with a prize of $2,600. And that prospect has attracted this year a field of some 200 contestants.

UPDATE: What do you know: It looks like even the Saudi beauty pageant has fallen victim to scandal! Yes, topless photos have been discovered of the winner – you can even see her entire forehead.

[Cymbal crash] I wish I could take credit for that one. But no, it’s from Jay Leno.