A senior member of the Saudi religious police repeated on Wednesday his support for Muslim men and women mixing, and denied that his stance against strict separation rules had got him fired.

Sheikh Ahmed al-Ghamdi (pictured), the Islamic scholar who heads the Mecca branch of the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, told Al-Arabiya television that a widely circulated news report that he had been sacked by the head of the organisation over his views was not true.

The Associated Press was among those who reported that Al-Ghamdi had been dismissed following remarks in a recent interview that the mixing of the sexes in public places – ikhtilat – should not be banned.

“The news of my termination is false. I am still carrying out my duties in my office. I have not received any formal decision about being fired,” he told Al-Arabiya news.

He also said he believed there is no strong evidence that Islam outlaws mixing between unrelated men and women, as long as women are modestly dressed, Al-Arabiya reported.

Rumours that Ghamdi would be dismissed from the commission, variously known as the “muttawa” and the “religious police”, have circulated ever since he said in a December interview that he supported allowing men and women in to mix.

Saudi Arabia’s strict iterpretation of Islam forbids unrelated men and women from mixing together in public. One of the key duties of the religious police force is to prevent mixing, with arrest and possible jail sentences the punishment.

The rule is under pressure from Saudi progressives and many women, who say it is used to maintain various restrictions on women, including a complete ban on women driving cars and controls on their going out in public.

Al-Ghamid’s December interview with Okaz, made in the context of the recently opened coeducational King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, was his first expression of his views on mixing (ikhtilat), describing it, “in its current usage”, as “a recent adoption unknown to the early people of knowledge”, and he pointed toward a contradiction in contemporary practice.

“Mixing was part of normal life for the Ummah and its societies,” he said. “The word in its contemporary meaning has entered customary jurisprudential terminology from outside.”

“Those who prohibit the mixing of the genders actually live it in their real lives, which is an objectionable contradiction as every fair-minded Muslim should follow Shariah judgments without excess or negligence.”

“In many Muslim houses – even those of Muslims who say mixing is haraam – you can find female servants working around unrelated males,” he added.

Ghamdi repeated his beliefs in a newspaper interview last week, leading to the newest wave of rumours that he was fired.

But his endorsement in December of a new research university near Jeddah, where men and women scientists freely mix in their work, has placed him on the side of Saudi King Abdullah, for whom the new institution is named.

King Abdullah, whose pictures receiving women official visitors are usually published in the media, is believed in favour of relaxing the mixing rules, though he has never publicly stated so.

Sources:

“Saudi religious cop denies firing for liberal views on women” AFP April 21,2010

“Hai’a chief denies dismissal ” Saudi Gazette April 22, 2010