Sheikh Ahmed Al Ghamedi, who has said covering the face is not a must for women under Islam, sat alongside his wife Jawaher bint Ali as she spoke to Dubai-based Saudi MBC television, in a programme broadcast at the weekend.
Saudi women rarely show their faces in public.
Sporting trendy sunglasses, light makeup and varnished nails, but also wearing the traditional black abaya cloak, Ghamedi’s spouse spoke of the problems their children have at school because of their father’s controversial fatwas or edicts.
“Our children complain that some teachers tell them: why does your father say this and that?”
Ghamedi, who once headed the religious police in Makkah, has openly challenged the tradition that imposes niqab on women.
He has also said that wearing makeup is permissible.
“The Prophet did not order women to cover their faces. Wearing make up is allowed,” he told Badria Al Bishr, female host of the television programme.
“Happy now? Every mobile phone now has a picture of your wife, you cuckold,” said one outraged post on Twitter.
Like other posts, it used a picture of the couple — but with the wife’s face blurred.
Saudi Arabia’s religious leader Sheikh Abdul Aziz Al Sheikh criticised Ghamedi on Saudi news website Sabq, urging him to repent and praying that “Allah will guide Ghamedi to the right path”.
But Ghamedi supporters also took to social media.
“They insult him for showing his wife’s face… but they shut up when it’s Alwaleed (bin Talal),” tweeted Ahmed Rasan, posting a picture of the Saudi billionaire prince next to his fashionably dressed wife.
Saudi women are required to cover themselves from head to toe when outside the home, and still need permission from a male guardian to work and marry.
