The head of the Taif office of the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice has been receiving a lot of heat for expressing his view that ikhtilat, the mixing of sexes in public places, is a recent concept that has no source in historic Islam. He says sexes always mixed and history if full of examples. In this piece by Saudi Gazette/Okaz, Ahmed Qassim Al-Ghamdi stands by his earlier statements.

For people, now, to seek to outlaw the mingling of sexes in public places is just strange. Al-Ghamdi also pointed out that the “greatest enemy of change and development” was the “clinging to customs and tradition”. He also said that he is researching the Shariah view of group worship in mosques, that is, putting male and female worshipers in different parts of the mosque. That is sure to win him friends.

If this is the new face of the Haya, then I’m impressed. I still reject idea that an official, religio-governmental body is necessary or even proper to enforce morality. If moral transgressions cross the line into criminality, then law enforcement should be able to deal with the issue. If those transgressions do not arise to that level, then it is up to the individual to define how a proper life is to be lived. Coercion by the state does not strike me as useful, nor productive.

Segregation of sexes: Hai’a chief stands by his comment
Muhammed Saeed Al-Zahrani

TAIF – Ahmed Qassim Al-Ghamdi, the head of the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice (the Hai’a) in Makkah, has said he will not go back on his previous comments on the segregation of the sexes, and described opposition to his views from within his own organization as disgruntled individuals trying to “get their own back”.

With a notable security presence and an audience of both sexes, Al-Ghamdi addressed the Taif Literary Club Sunday on a series of sensitive topics, although questions put to him concerning his views on segregation were blocked by the chairman and any attempt to broach the subject from other angles was quickly put paid to.

… You can write in the newspaper from my own mouth that I still hold to the view I expressed on ikhtilat, and I won’t go back on it, and I’ll continue to repeat what I wrote.”

In an interview reported by Saudi Gazette last December Al-Ghamdi spoke at length on the subject of the mixing of sexes – “ikhtilat” – in which he described it in the current usage as “a recent adoption unknown to the early people of knowledge”.

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