Saudi Arabia Fights Spreading of Coronavirus with Religious Edicts

On a show that dispenses religious edicts on state-run Saudi television, Sheikh Abdullah al-Mutlaq told a woman she had every right to kick her husband out of bed if he doesn’t comply with social-distancing rules to tackle coronavirus, Bloomberg reports.

Another woman wanted to know if she could cede her conjugal rights to her husband’s second wife if she’s concerned about being infected. She could, said the cleric, who is a royal court adviser, with a smile.

As countries across the world try to keep people apart to stop the spread of the Covid-19, the birthplace of Islam is deploying its religious establishment to fight the pandemic and giving preachers that support its measures more prominence. Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman had sidelined many of them over the past few years as he introduced reforms that reversed decades-old edicts against gender mixing, music and entertainment.

In slick videos produced by government institutions, the clerics reinforce the message in soundbites urging social-distancing, highlighting a Muslim’s duty to preserve life and extolling the measures taken by King Salman against coronavirus. One featuring several members of the Council of Senior Scholars showed them rubbing their hands with sanitizer before addressing the faithful.

The religious police, stripped of their powers by the crown prince, have become part of the campaign to keep people at home, putting up banners including one that said when Prophet Mohammed sneezed, he would cover his face with his hand or cloth.

Saudi Arabia has been effective in dealing with the crisis and it wants to showcase its ability to deal with it, said Ayham Kamel, head of Middle East and North Africa at the Eurasia Group consultancy. There have been 1,885 confirmed cases of the disease in the kingdom and 21 deaths.

“The efforts have been based on the science, on policies, on what works and what doesn’t and they want to take credit for that,” he said. “They don’t want clerics to start preaching about how they will pray and how this will save souls.”