Mutaween

The Islamic religious police (Arabic: مطوع‎‎ muṭawwiʿ, plural مطوعون muṭawwiʿūn – derived from classical Arabic: mutaṭawwiʿa/muṭṭawwiʿa) is the official vice squad of some Islamic states, who on behalf of the state, enforces Sharia law in respect to religious behavior (morality), or the precepts of Wahhabism. The establishment of a religious police is considered justified with the Quran doctrine, enjoining what is right and forbidding what is wrong or promotion of virtue and prevention of vice. Some controversy, though, exists and opinions are divided on the function or purpose of religious police, for example, in Saudi Arabia some see them as limiting secularization, while some foreign Islamic imams, see them as an outdated over-conservative annoyance.

The word mutaween (المطوعين muṭawwiʿīn; variant English spellings: mutawwain, ''muttawa", mutawallees, mutawa’ah, mutawi’, mutawwa') most literally means "volunteers" in the Arabic language, and is commonly used as a casual term for the government-authorized or government-recognized religious police (or clerical police) of Saudi Arabia. It was originally a casual synonym for the religious police of Saudi Arabia. The formal short term for the Saudi religious police is هيئة "hay'ah".

More recently the term has gained use as an umbrella term outside the Arabic-speaking world to indicate religious-policing organizations with at least some government recognition or deference which enforce varied interpretations of Sharia law. The concept is thought to have originated from Wahhabism in Saudi Arabia . However, the use of religious police was prevalent during Taliban rule as a means to promote their fundamentalist interpretation of Deobandi Islam.

...
Wikipedia