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Despite the senior cleric’s statement, there is no sign that Saudi authorities plan to alter the law<\/p>\nDespite the senior cleric’s statement, there is no sign that Saudi authorities plan to alter the law<\/p>\n
Saudi women should not have to wear the loose-fitting abaya robe to shroud their bodies in public, a senior cleric said, in the latest sign of a far-reaching liberalization drive.<\/p>\n
“More than 90 percent of pious Muslim women in the Muslim world do not wear abayas,” said Sheikh Abdullah al-Mutlaq, a member of the Council of Senior Scholars — the kingdom’s highest religious body.<\/p>\n
“So we should not force people to wear abayas,” he told a television program broadcast on Friday.<\/p>\n
Saudi Arabia, which has some of the world’s tightest restrictions on women, requires them to wear the garment by law.<\/p>\n
The government has not said whether it will change the law, but this is the first such comment from a senior religious figure.<\/p>\n
Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has recently introduced a series of reforms in favor of women as the kingdom prepares for a post-oil era.<\/p>\n
Saudi Arabia last month allowed women to enter a football stadium for the first time to watch a game.<\/p>\n
The move came four months after the kingdom announced an end to a long-standing ban on women driving — a major change to the country’s ultra-conservative social order. But women still face a number of restrictions.<\/p>\n
Under Saudi Arabia’s existing guardianship system, a male family member — normally the father, husband or brother — must grant permission for a woman’s study, travel and a host of other activities.Sheikh Mutlaq’s comment sparked a host of reactions on social media, including from other clerics who backed his statement.<\/p>\n
One Saudi Twitter user commented: “Chastity and morality should not be tied to a piece of cloth.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Despite the senior cleric’s statement, there is no sign that Saudi authorities plan to alter the law Saudi women should not have to wear the loose-fitting abaya robe to shroud their bodies in public, a senior cleric said, in the latest sign of a far-reaching liberalization drive. “More than 90 percent of pious Muslim women […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[66,49],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\n