{"id":857,"date":"2010-11-06T09:59:21","date_gmt":"2010-11-06T05:59:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/?p=857"},"modified":"2010-11-06T10:05:50","modified_gmt":"2010-11-06T06:05:50","slug":"saudi-arabia-how-far-can-a-fatwa-go","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/middle-east-business\/middle-east-employment-analysis\/saudi-arabia-how-far-can-a-fatwa-go\/","title":{"rendered":"Saudi Arabia: How Far Can a Fatwa Go?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>In less than two months a new door which had opened for Saudi women has now been slammed closed.\u00a0 I\u2019m referring specifically for the opportunity of Saudi women working as cashiers.\u00a0 It\u2019s odd\u2026Saudi women (at least for now) are still working in mixed environments such as hospitals, but a position as a cashier has been deemed as inappropriate.<\/p>\n

According to the Committee on Scholarly Work and Ifta, the official issuer of fatwas, or Islamic religious rulings, under the Council of Senior Scholars, the top authority for Islamic issues in the Kingdom, \u201cit is not permissible for a woman to work in a place where they mix with men.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is necessary to keep away from places where men congregate. Women should look for decent work that does not make it possible for them to attract men or be attracted by men.\u201d<\/p>\n

The ruling was signed by Grand Mufti Sheikh Abdul Aziz al-Sheikh, the head of the Council of Senior Scholars, and six other members of the fatwa committee.<\/p>\n

(Saudi Woman<\/a> has posted the fatwa in its entirety on her blog in both Arabic and English)<\/p>\n

I wonder how Benazir Bhutto<\/a> would have responded to such a fatwa?\u00a0 She was a Muslim woman and served twice as the Prime Minister of Pakistan (1988 \u2013 1990; 1993 \u2013 1996).\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0Sadly, she was assassinated<\/a> on 27 December 2007, after departing a PPP rally in the Pakistani city of Rawalpindi<\/a>, two weeks before the scheduled Pakistani general election of 2008<\/a> in which she was a leading opposition candidate.<\/p>\n

Benazir Bhutto is not the only Muslim woman who stands out as a trailblazer for Muslim women around the world.\u00a0 In 2007, 10 female Muslim executives are cited by Forbes<\/a> as among the world\u2019s most powerful women.\u00a0 Going further back, Muslims worldwide are very familiar that the Prophet\u2019s (PBUH) first wife, Khadijah<\/a>, was an astute businesswoman.<\/p>\n

The recent ruling in Saudi Arabia has made me wonder what exactly is a fatwa?\u00a0 According to Wikipedia, a fatwa<\/a> is a religious opinion concerning Islamic law<\/a> issued by an Islamic scholar<\/a>. In Sunni Islam<\/a> any fatwa<\/strong> is non-binding, whereas in Shia Islam<\/a> it could be considered by an individual as binding, depending on his or her relation to the scholar.<\/p>\n

It seems to me that if a fatwa is a religious opinion and in Sunni Islam (which Saudi Arabia follows) is non-binding, then perhaps there can be a glimmer of hope and optimism.\u00a0 I see the fatwa more as a recommendation rather than a law.<\/p>\n

My analysis of the fatwa is that the conservatives of Saudi society are not ready to see women as cashiers.\u00a0 The majority of grocery store cashiers in Saudi Arabia are foreign nationals from Pakistan and India.\u00a0 A minority are from other Arab states or even young Saudi men.\u00a0 As such, a position as a cashier for a Saudi woman is likely viewed as demeaning and beneath her by mainstream society and not so much as a position which will attract men.<\/p>\n

In my own view I think that stating the need for segregation and sheltering women from men has become more of a standard litany than a reality.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My analysis of the fatwa is that the conservatives of Saudi society are not ready to see women as cashiers. The majority of grocery store cashiers in Saudi Arabia are foreign nationals from Pakistan and India.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":27,"featured_media":858,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[64,73],"tags":[2207,2206,108,1314,359,2204,18275,109],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/857"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/27"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=857"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/857\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/858"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=857"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=857"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=857"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}