As the debate about women's right to drive rumbles on in Saudi Arabia, the Jeddah-based Arab News has raised another contentious issue: the forced closure of businesses at prayer times.

Though many in the kingdom are clearly disgruntled by the practice, it is rarely challenged in the Saudi media and the paper's reason for highlighting it just now is unclear – except that its report says "residents in the kingdom have expressed concern" about the closure rule.

One Jeddah resident quoted in the article argues that pharmacies should be allowed to remain open. Another complains of being "stranded without petrol and being delayed on several occasions" because filling stations refused to serve him.

The article points out that this practice is unique to Saudi Arabia – other Gulf states do not apply a similar rule. Even if the intention is to encourage people to pray, it doesn't necessarily have that result: instead of going to the mosque, many workers just hang around smoking outside their workplace until it is time to reopen.

The article has more than 80 comments, many of them opposing any change. One says:

"Why are we raising [an] issue when it is not called for? Why are we attacking our system of life when religion is concern? Isn't it enough that we are being brutally attacked in the west?"

The issue was also discussed on al-Arabiya television last October, when a number of businessmen said that closing for prayer has a negative effect on productivity and causes economic damage.

As with the ban on women's driving, there appears to be no Saudi law that says businesses must close at prayer times: it is simply a custom enforced by the religious police and there seems to be significant public resistance to it. According to al-Arabiya:

"Recent statistics reveal that the Committee for the Propagation of Virtue and Prevention of Vice [the religious police] has 23,710 reported cases of people not praying or not closing down their shops, and the number of detained for violating the these two criteria reached up to 25,000.

"After four warnings if violations [are] found, shops will be closed for 24 hours, and 48 hours if the shop owners were warned for the fifth time. In very rare cases, continuous violations will reach [the] courts."

Posted by Brian Whitaker, 4 July 2011.