Despite a Royal Decree to restrict the issuing of Fatwas to the Board of Senior Ulema and authorized Islamic scholars, a university professor was recently seen on YouTube calling for the mass boycott of a famous Saudi hypermarket which has hired female cashiers as an experimental program. The YouTube video clip, which was taken from Al-Usra TV, showed Yousuf Al-Ahmad answering a viewer who asked by phone whether the hypermarket should be boycotted for hiring Saudi females as cashiers. “Yes, it (boycott) is a noble act and all Muslim Ulema in history did resort to boycott against whoever made innovations in Islam,” said Al-Ahmad. “The danger of hiring females in such public places is that it is part of normalizing the Western culture and that it is hypocritical and should be stopped,” he added. The professor, who teaches at Imam Muhammad Bin Saud Islamic University in Riyadh, claimed that the hiring of women to work in public places was against the regulations of the country. However, there has been a clear announcement from Qussay Filali, Director General of the Labor Office in Jeddah, that Saudi women will be able to work as cashiers in supermarkets. Filali said that female workers will be subject to controls, including setting up suitable barriers between men and women, and that families will have the option of dealing with male or female cashiers. An official at the hypermarket branch, where the women are employed, was earlier quoted by this newspaper as saying that the experimental program to employ females was proving to be a success. A majority of Internet users refused to heed Al-Ahmad's advice, describing his statement as an extreme opinion. Al-Ahmad once sparked anger when he suggested rebuilding the Grand Mosque in Makkah to ensure gender segregation.
