Sheikh ‘Abd Al-‘Aziz Bin ‘Abdallah Al A-Sheikh, the chief Mufti of Saudi Arabia, openly railed against a recent economic conference in Jedda in which women and men participated together.
He was angered that men and women mixed during the conference, claiming that mixing the sexes is the chief reason for collective punishment, it spawns abomination and adultery, and above all it is the reason for death and plague, according to the London-based Arabic daily Al-Hayyat.
Mufti A-Sheikh is a revered religious cleric who heads the supreme board of clerics and a center for religious studies.
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Women’s rights were given an unprecedented platform during the conference, as Saudi businesswomen called for political and social reforms. They addressed issues such as permitting women to drive and removing the requirement to supervise women’s conduct in business.
A-Sheikh was also highly critical of the women who turned up at the conference unveiled. “Women who go out without adorning the Shari’a-binding hijab [traditional headscarf], like Allah ordered them to do, this is unanimously forbidden,” he said. He added that the press was also at fault for publishing pictures of these women and depicting this as the beginning of Saudi women’s liberation.
The Mufti said he was pained by the behavior he saw at the conference, which he found unsuitable for the land that accommodates the two major Muslim holy sites, and in which matters are supposed to be managed by adherence to Muslim law.