Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah appoints moderates to key posts
February 18, 2009 by SAF Desk
By Jeffrey Fleishman
Reporting from Cairo — King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia weakened the hold of Islamic hard-liners Saturday by appointing the first woman to a ministerial post and dismissing a leading fundamentalist cleric and the head of the nation’s powerful religious police.
The surprising government reshuffle indicated that the 84-year-old monarch was frustrated with the pace of reform in a kingdom uneasily balanced between moderates and ultra-conservatives. By broadening the voices of modern Islamic thinkers, King Abdullah apparently is trying to refashion the religious establishment at a time the country faces the global financial crisis and renewed threats from Al Qaeda militants.
The king dismissed Sheik Ibrahim Ghaith as head of the Commission of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice, which oversees the religious police who arrest those deemed to flout religious edicts, such as women not properly veiled. The monarch also removed Sheik Saleh Lihedan as chief of the country’s highest religious tribunal. In September, Lihedan issued a fatwa saying it was permissible to kill TV executives for broadcasting “evil” and immoral programs.
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