JEDDAH – In a sparse, wood-floored studio, Saudi women squat, lunge and doheadstands. Even a year ago, teaching these yoga postures could haverendered them outlaws in the conservative Islamic kingdom. Widely perceivedas a Hindu spiritual practice, yoga was not officially permitted fordecades in Saudi Arabia, the cradle of Islam where all non-Muslim worshipis banned.

But with crown prince Mohammad Bin Salman vowing an “open, moderate Islam”,the kingdom last November recognised yoga as a sport amid a newliberalisation drive that has sidelined religious hardliners.

Spearheading efforts to normalise yoga in the kingdom is Nouf Marwaai, aSaudi woman who has battled insults and threats from extremists tochallenge the notion that yoga is incompatible with Islam.

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“I have been harassed, (and) sent a lot of hate messages,” said the38-year-old head of the Arab Yoga Foundation, which has trained hundreds ofyoga instructors in the kingdom.

“Five years ago, this (teaching yoga) would have been impossible,” addedMarwaai, as she began training a cluster of women students at a privatestudio in the Red Sea city of Jeddah. Hanging up their body-shroudingabayas and headscarves, the women stretched in unison in an arching warriorpose known as “virabhadrasana”.

Arms outstretched, their bodies folded into a 180-degree backward bendingposture known as “chakrasana”, or wheel pose. In a country where women havelong been denied the right to exercise publicly, the students — some ofwhom regularly attend yoga retreats in India — said the exercise hadtransformed their lives. – APP/AFP