MP's motion on beards draws ire of Bahrain liberals

A Bahraini Islamist MP is urging his colleagues to support a motion that would make it illegal for government bodies to force employees to shave their beards.

The matter involves "dozens of people" who were forced to quit their jobs in such government bodies as the Bahrain Defense Force (BDF), the police force and the National Guard because they didn't want to shave their beards, claimed MP Sheikh Jassim Al Saidi.

According to the Islamic Shari'a, men should not shave the facial hair, he told Gulf News yesterday. "These people didn't want to disobey the Creator, so they quit their jobs," said Al Saidi, a member of the fundamentalist Salafi block in the Bahraini elected lower house, the House of Deputies. Critics of the motion say parliament should focus on more serious issues.

"Al Saidi keeps bringing up issues that don't interest the majority of the public," said a liberal MP, who didn't want to be named. "We have bigger issues to decide," he said, citing unemployment, attracting investment and corruption.

"Al Saidi and his friends want to keep us stuck in the past while the rest of the world moves ahead," the MP told Gulf News. Islamists, both Sunni and Shiites, control more than half of the 40-member parliament, elected last year for the first time in three decades.

They managed to pass a number of religiously-driven laws. Despite protests from liberals and the business community, they succeeded in passing a motion that makes it illegal for the government to borrow money from conventional banks.

They say interest is prohibited in Islam. They want the government to borrow money from Islamic banks exclusively.

They also succeeded in granting veiled women the right to drive, reversing a decade-old ban. Until last month, veiled women were not allowed to drive for security reasons.