RIYADH—Saudi Arabia's king replaced the hard-line chief of the country's morality police with a more liberal cleric who has encouraged greater women's rights, a change welcomed by activists as a sign that the monarchy would continue to pursue cautious social reforms in the face of political upheaval in the Middle East.
Saudi King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz al Saud on Friday appointed Sheik Abdulatif al-Sheikh to oversee the religious police, who roam the kingdom's shopping malls and streets enforcing a rigorous version of Islamic law among the 27 million residents of Saudi Arabia.
Sheik Sheikh opposed child marriage in his role as senior member of the Council of Senior Scholars, one of the two highest religious authorities in the kingdom. He also defended Saudi women's rights under Islam to work and to mix with men in public places, as long as they are dressed properly, in a 2010 interview with a London-based newspaper.
The king decreed, without explanation, that Sheik Sheikh would succeed Sheik Abdulaziz al-Humain as the head of the Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, which enforces compliance to the ultra-puritan Wahhabi form of Islam.
Rights activists said they hoped the religious police under Sheik Sheikh would enforce a more lenient interpretation of Islamic law.
"The king has been trying to show a more tolerant version of Islam and al-Sheikh could finally make that happen," said a Riyadh-based human-rights activist. "Even though we weren't given a reason for replacing al-Humain, we know that it is because he disappointed the people and didn't carry out the reforms the king and the Saudis want," the activist said.
The move also allayed concerns among some more liberal Saudis about the king's naming last year of a conservative crown prince.
King Abdullah, who is believed to be 87 and underwent three back operations in less than a year, named his half-brother, Prince Nayef bin Abdulaziz, as crown prince in October, raising the prospect of Prince Nayef's ascension to the throne of the world's top oil-exporting country.
Some more liberal Saudis who say Crown Prince Nayef, as interior minister since 1975, has blocked social and political change and overseen crackdowns on political dissidents. He has been quoted as saying he saw no need for Saudi women to drive or vote. Many Saudis have watched for the government to take a more conservative turn with his appointment.
Many Saudis favor stringent enforcement of Islamic law and social code, leading even pro-reform Saudi officials to move cautiously.
The choice of a more liberal chief of religious police "could be an indicator that Prince Nayef is more moderate" than perceived, said Eman Fahad al Nafjan, a university professor and leading blogger on women's issues in Riyadh, the capital of Saudi Arabia.
Although the ruling al Saud family and senior religious authorities have maintained a close alliance, they have sometimes clashed over the government's attempts to limit the role of religion in education, to give women greater freedoms, and to standardize the country's Islamic legal system.
After the spread of popular Arab revolutions across the Mideast last year, the clergy stood behind the ruling family by issuing fatwas barring political protests, and the government appeared to back off efforts to promote social changes. Authorities arrested some women who broke the no-driving rule in a popular campaign last year.
Some activists argue that reforms by King Abdullah, who in September gave women the right to participate in local elections and to become members of the country's top advisory body, seem to be limited and may take years to be effective.
Sheik Humain, after his appointment by King Abdullah in 2009 with a mandate to reform the religious police, has been criticized by some Saudis for trying to knock back government initiatives to liberalize Saudi society.
Sheik Humain's dismissal came a week after a government deadline for Saudi stores to comply with a decree by King Abdullah ordering that only women can work in stores that deal with women's goods, such as lingerie. In recent days, religious police have harassed women who took such jobs, according to local media reports.
Such stores have been run by men, as restrictions on women and men interacting in public have largely limited women to working in health, education and a few office jobs.
Sheik Sheikh, in the 2010 interview, he argued that ikhtilat, the mixing of males men and females, isn't proscribed by Islamic law and that women can do all jobs in Saudi society.
Women working as clerks in stores dealing with women's goods wasn't only "permissible, but desirable," Sheik Sheikh told the newspaper.
Write to Summer Said at summer.said@dowjones.com and Ellen Knickmeyer at ellen.knickmeyer@dowjones.com
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