Sheikh Youssef Al-Ahmad, a lecturer at Imam Muhammad bin Saud Islamic University, has filed the lawsuit with the Court of Appeals in Riyadh to stop female teachers from teaching boys.

He has also called on the court to process the lawsuit according to the Kingdom's regulations and to hold those responsible to account.

Al-Ahmad, a lecturer in Fiqh at the university's Shariah College, said he filed the complaint after Noura Al-Faiz, deputy minister of education, allowed female teachers in private girls schools to teach boys in the first three years of elementary education. Sources said Al-Ahmad had written letters to both of the Kingdom's deputy ministers of education and to the president of the Control and Investigation Board that included “religious advice” about the need to stop female teachers from teaching male students.

"When I received no reply, I went to court," he said. Al-Ahmed said it is Haram (forbidden) for female teachers to teach male pupils in girl schools "because this is a realization of the liberal scheme to gradually normalize the mixing of genders in schools."

He said the decision is also against the Kingdom's General Education Policy, which prevents the mixing of boys and girls at all educational levels, except in nurseries and kindergartens.

Al-Ahmed added that the decision is in gross violation of Article 5 of the Charter of Private Schools, which stipulates that private schools should not allow the mixing of the genders.

“It is also against the directives of the acting chairman of the Higher Committee for Educational Policies, Prince Sultan bin Abdul Aziz, who in a letter to the former president of girls education refused the request of a private girls school to teach male students under eight," he said.

In a recent televised interview, Minister of Education Prince Faisal bin Abdullah said the ministry has no intention of grouping male and female students in one classroom but does not object to the opening of special classrooms for young male students in girl schools.

"Female teachers are closer to and understand better young boys of this age," he said, warning against any misunderstanding of his position.

The minister also made it clear that he has only agreed to special classrooms for male students in girl schools. "Boys and girls will be sitting in separate classrooms. They will not mix," he explained.