RIYADH: It is eight o’clock in the evening at Sahara Mall in Riyadh and Um Abdul Aziz is distributing booklets to shoppers titled “To where are you going?” She is completely covered except for one small hole in her veil over her right eye.
“Fear God,” she whispers to women whom she attempts to give her pamphlets. “May He guide you!”
Some show interest, others just ignore her as they walk past. The booklet was written by Muhammed Alarify, an Islamic scholar, who decries the “odd phenomenon” of women wearing the hair covering of their abayas down on their shoulders, and finds it strange that women choose not to wear long black gloves that cover their hands and arms and stockings to ensure their ankles are not exposed inadvertently from the hemline of their robes.
Um Abdul Aziz, who is an Arabic language arts instructor at a girls’ secondary school in Riyadh, agrees and considers her shopping mall proselytizing important. She laments the way Saudi women dress these days.
“I seek God’s satisfaction,” she said. “Have a look around! Colored and tight abayas... today’s veil needs to be covered by another veil.”
The Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice, would obviously agree with this notion, yet apparently they feel no need to hire women who might agree with their mission. When they need women to assist in enforcing moral and religious laws and the separation of unrelated men and women, they use women in security agencies.
“But as far as ‘dawa’ is concerned, this is not the domain of the commission but rather the Ministry of Islamic Affairs,” said commission spokesman Ahmed Al-Jardan.
The term “dawa” literally means “invitation” in Arabic, and refers to the act of preaching and proselytizing.
Um Abdul Aziz’s husband, who works as a mosque muezzin (a person who gives the call to prayer), provides her with religious brochures and books to distribute at private women’s events and public places. She has other voluntary preaching initiatives, such as holding weekly symposiums at her school, which many teenagers attend.
The Ministry of Islamic Affairs attempts to direct dawa activities among women by having 200 women officials on its staff as daiyat (preachers) who can lecture girls at educational institutions and social and charitable foundations. But there are many women like Um Abdul Aziz who independently preach in public places on their own, particularly concerning the women’s veil.
This has generated a public debate over whether everybody should have the right to preach their own understanding of religion in public. The voluntary women preachers are different from the 200 women approved by the ministry, who are qualified academic staff.
Rukayah Al-Muharib, a well-known daiyah, who has held a series of religious seminars and symposium at universities, charitable and social centers, said that people do not distinguish between official daiyah and those who preach on their own initiative. (A similar problem persists in distinguishing members of the commission with “volunteers” who try to enforce religious rules on others with no discernable authority to do so.)
“A woman who works as ‘dayiah’ must be qualified academically and knowledgeable about not only Islam but also other religions,” she said.
Nevertheless, it is the duty of every Muslim, she said, to give advice when they see another Muslim violate Islamic teachings because God said in the Qur’an that a Muslim should “invite for God’s way through wisdom and fair preaching, and argue with them in a way that is better.”
She added: “Since there is no Muslim version of sacerdotal class, the duty of preaching cannot be left to a group called the ‘men of religion.’ It’s everyone’s duty.”
In her opinion many of the religious and social concepts have been twisted in the eyes of many Saudis, especially young women, who find repealing traditional “Islamic hijab” as freedom.
“Television and satellite channels are mainly responsible for this,” she said. “Not many of the talk shows we see today discuss rights of widows, elderly women and the disabled,” said Al-Muharib, whose symposiums emphasize women’s rights from an Islamic perspective. She added: “On the other hand, the media interpret women’s liberty and independence as wearing what they want and driving a car.”
However, a section of the public differs with her on this type of public preaching. Although Amani Al-Rikaby does not wear a conservative abaya, she does not take offense at someone giving her an advice or handing her a book. “After all, preachers have good intentions behind their actions and I don’t see any harm in listening to them,” she said.
She added that the booklets and brochures they distribute are useful especially when they contain daily prayers and other basics in Islam. Asked why she does not cover her face, she said: “Not all four schools of Islamic thought require that.”
In some cases preaching serves other purposes than religious. Majeedah Al-Rashid, a mother of four girls, supports women preachers in public places and she even started to do it herself, targeting girls wearing abayas in ways she considers improper.
“The way some women look troubles me because my 16-year-old daughter is now insisting on not covering her face because this is what she sees everywhere,” she said.
She also said that some women’s appearance annoyed other women, who, as she put it, “can’t close their husband’s eyes in public.”
In recent years, abayas that reveal the shape of the body has become popular among Saudi women, especially the young. They are made of thin material with colored designs. This has raised the ire of many Islamic scholars, who say that they are not the kind of abayas prescribed in the Shariah as they understand it. They believe that the Shariah dictates that an abaya should be black, wide and cover the entire body from head to toe.
Some people see preachers’ advice on women’s hijab as a violation of privacy. Thahab Alotaibi, a translation student at King Saud University, disagrees with the way some preachers approach girls. She said she did not understand why some women asked if she was a Saudi before they commented or gave advice on her hijab.
“Is there a certain form of hijab in Islam that is specialized for Saudis and not other Muslims?” she asked.
The 21-year-old recounted an incident when a woman threw a hand-written leaflet into her trolley in a supermarket that said her face would be burned in hell because she did not cover it.
She added: “I do wear black abayas and cover my hair so I am not violating Islamic teachings. But weather my abaya has blue or white stripe is a very personal choice.” She added that “some preachers don’t ask your permission before giving pamphlets and this is where there is a violation of privacy.”
Saudi columnist Fares bin Hezan, who specializes in extremism in the Kingdom, said that moving preaching from mosques and symposium rooms to the streets is not appropriate. “People who want to listen to preachers know where to go and preachers shouldn’t chase people in the streets,” he said.
Hezan added: “It’s the responsibility of the Ministry of Islamic Affairs to regulate preaching activity and not give a free hand to anyone to implement their own version of the law according to their own personal beliefs.”
He said that in some cases voluntary preachers, whether men or women, force an inadequate understanding of religion onto the public. “If every person takes the law into his own hands, society will soon be in chaos.”
Fawziah Al-Bakr, professor at King Saud University and author of the book “My School is a Locked Box,” said school curriculum for girls was responsible for the way women look at things. “Girls are taught that there is only one form of hijab and any other is considered immodest and un-Islamic,” she said.
This in her opinion is what makes some preachers to dedicate their efforts to convince women to wear their abayas on their heads instead of using their efforts to educate them about important topics such as domestic violence or breast cancer.
She also blamed schools for not educating students to respect individual’s personal choices. This in her opinion has led to the general trend in society for anyone who says that he or she is defending traditions or religious values to be allowed to get away with almost anything, no matter how extreme.
Publishing houses assist women who would like to practice voluntary preaching and spread the religious message. Mahjoob Eid, from an Islamic publishing house in Riyadh, said that many people ask for copies of certain religious booklets and brochures in order to distribute them.
He said they could take their copies or ask the house to distribute them on their behalf. He added that people can choose the subject which is mainly prayers, part of a religious book or “fatwas” (religious opinion on Islamic law issued by Islamic scholar), but sometimes it can be medical or other educational topic. He noted that before copying any booklet or brochure, it hands it over to a committee that supervises its content.
