Leave home without your iqama in Saudi Arabia and you are in serious shit. Not quite a beheading but you're getting closer. I'll never forget the day a friend and I drove out of Jeddah for a day on the beach along the Red Sea.
Halfway there, he almost lost his head when he tapped his shirt pocket. "Oh shit, I forgot my iqama!" he yelled and drove straight back home to retrieve it (actually, he didn't yell Oh shit! because in almost fifty years I've never heard him swear; put it down to bad parenting). Here he is:
The iqama, of course, is a Saudi Arabian residency permit and you take it everywhere - to work, to the beach, to the shops, even to the toilet - because if you're caught without it, you're taken away first and released later - MUCH LATER!
I still have mine, and occasionally still tap my shirt pocket. Occasionally, I also still tap my forehead and wonder why I ever decided to go there.
