Saturday, June 28, 2008

Haram abayas & 50 degrees!


The temperature in Riyadh actually hit 50 degrees centigrade yesterday afternoon - meltdown!

We made a quick trip down to the souq at Dirah which is the old town centre. Sign posts pointing you to 'Wasat Al-Madinah' (Town centre) which not take you to Olaya where the Mamlaka and Faisalia towers are situated along with all the designer shops but rather to the old town.

We wanted to buy a new abaya for my eldest daughter plus a couple of other bits and pieces. We didn't manage to buy an abaya at that souq though after all... When we arrived we had some trouble finding abaya shops and then noticed abaya vendors wrapping sheets around their stocks and closing up shop. I thought my watch was wrong and it must be almost time for maghrib prayer... wrong, it was only 4:30pm.


It turned out that the mutaween were around and were 'raiding' abaya shops. The objectionable items in question? Abayas with embroidery or diamante. The couple of abaya shops remaining open had only 100% plain black abayas on display and any embellished abayas had been quickly whisked away.

It was a bit of a wasted trip all the way down there but I did manage to take plenty of photos of the area showing the contrast being new Riyadh and old Riyadh - photo post coming soon!

6 comments:

Najeeba said...

Salam,

:(
what a pity condition!!!!

Anonymous said...

mashaallah how controlled is life over there...? I wish you a blessed journey and hope you will continue to write :) may Allah bless you!

Umm Ibrahim said...

Assalaamu alaikum,

I found it quite amusing really although I am sure the vendors didn't. :/

itto: I love your blog but have problems with posting comments. :(

American Muslima Writer said...

I find it a bit amusing too lol.
Shame though you went all that way though! I liked this post about crackdowns ;)

Umm Ibrahim said...

AMW, it was a good opportunity to take the piccies for the other post and it was nice to get out with just hubby and the baby! We actually had a conversation in the car! LOL

Ann Tamimi said...

keep those muttawwa in riyadh. Some major decorations on abyas here (khobar) some that shouldn't even be defined as abyas are found here.