Bahrain Mirror: Bahraini religious scholars and preachers denounced the proposal made by members of Parliament to change the weekly holiday from Friday to Sunday under the pretext of "advancing the national economy."

The clerics and preachers affirmed, in a joint statement, that "the basis for determining the weekly holidays in the world is religious, and God Almighty chose Friday for Muslims because it is the best day of the week, after the Jews chose Saturday and the Christians chose Sunday."

They warned that "deliberately keeping people busy with work on Friday causes some of them to neglect Friday prayers, or attend late, in addition to neglecting to arrive early to perform it". They added that it also deprives generations of students of hearing guidance from the Friday platform.

While mentioning that "the Prophet commanded dissenting from the People of the Book and forbade imitating them," they pointed out that "it has become a habit for nations to disable what they deem appropriate to their identity." They explained that "the Jews' holiday is on Saturday and the Christians' is on Sunday out of reverence and sanctification for them, and although Sharia law does not prohibit working on any day, even on the two Eids, deliberately canceling the Friday holiday and adopting their weekly holiday is one of the greatest types of imitation."

Bahrain's scholars and preachers went on to say that "these calls are based on flimsy arguments refuted by the specialists themselves, including economists and businessmen, as half-time work on Fridays does not correspond to the targeted global markets due to the time difference." They drew attention to the fact that "financial institutions that need to work on Fridays actually do this by providing a work system for the concerned departments that is compatible with market requirements whenever the need arises without changing the working days."

They further highlighted that: "It is not allowed to neglect Friday as a weekly holiday, which proves our Islamic identity in order to please the Jews and Christians for delusional worldly reasons."