Gulf | Saudi Arabia
Saudi clerics backtrack on female prayer ban near Kaaba
Saudi clerics appear to have backtracked on controversial plans to ban women from praying at the centre of the holy shrine in Makkah.
- Reuters
- Published: 00:00 September 12, 2006
Riyadh: Saudi clerics appear to have backtracked on controversial plans to ban women from praying at the centre of the holy shrine in Makkah.
At present, women can pray in the immediate vicinity of the Kaaba, a cube-shaped structure inside the Grand Mosque which forms the centrepiece of the Haj pilgrimage.
But plans by the all-male committee overseeing the holy sites would have placed women in two distant sections of the mosque overlooking the Kaaba, though at a distance while men would still be able to pray in the key space.
"The presidency [committee] decided to adopt a second proposal, which is to expand two special places for women's prayer, in addition to the one that already exists," Mohammad Bin Nasser Al Khozayem, deputy head of Grand Mosque affairs, was quoted a saying in Okaz newspaper yesterday.
"Women have the same right as me [to pray] in the sahn [Kaaba area]," he said. "In fact 53 per cent of the mosque's space will now be for women to pray, which is more than men."
Women activists in Saudi Arabia said the original plan was discriminatory and had vowed to oppose it.
A US-based group called the Muslimah Writers Alliance began a web petition to lobby the authorities against the plans, called "Project Grand Mosque Equal Access for Women".
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