Saudi Clown Reprimanded for Fatwa on Female Cashiers

Friend of radical Islamists Michael Bloomberg was unavailable for comment.

A conservative Saudi cleric was told to stop giving unauthorized edicts after he called for a boycott of a supermarket chain that employs women as cashiers, the office of the kingdom's most senior religious leader said Thursday.

The move is the first public reprimand of a prominent cleric following a royal decree that limits the issuance of fatwas to the country's most senior group of clerics. Fatwas are religious edicts that provide guidance in matters of everyday life to pious Muslims.

Sheik Youssef al-Ahmed had urged people not to shop at Panda Supermarket because women there work in jobs that allow for the mingling of the sexes, which the cleric said was a violation of Islamic law.

Saudi media reported that al-Ahmed's fatwa forced the supermarket management to reassign 11 of its women employees to other positions on Wednesday. The chain could not be reached for comment.

Grand Mufti Sheik Abdul-Aziz Al Sheik's office said Thursday he had summoned al-Ahmed and ordered the cleric to refrain from issuing unauthorized fatwas.

The office said it "received a pledge from al-Ahmed not to issue any fatwas" without approval.

Saudi Arabia follows a strict interpretation of Islam and religious leaders have strong influence over policy making and social mores. Sexes are segregated in schools and public places. Women are not allowed to drive or vote, and physical education classes are banned in state-run girls' schools.

Makes you wonder why the left embraces these fanatics. Why do they support such degradation of women? Oh, right, cultural diversity or something.

Al-Ahmad said having women work as cashiers was a step "toward adopting a Westernized project."

"This is a project of the hypocrites that must be stopped, it's a violation of the country's laws," he said in the show.

Yet when we have radicals who believe this nonsense rubbing it in our faces at Ground Zero we're all supposed to shut up, according to our moral superiors on the left.