12, 13 November 2007, Riyadh,
UNDP Saudi Arabia has been carrying, since September 2006, a Gender Mainstreaming Initiative at the Country Office level using a gender mainstreaming trust fund from UNDP Headquarters. The office has taken several measures to mainstream gender into its programmes, projects, and activities at the national level. In line with this initiative and as part of its activities UNDP Saudi Arabia carried a workshop on “Islamic Law and Gender.”
This two-day workshop was for an audience that included UN staff members as well as UNDP project directors and managers in Saudi Arabia. Mr. Saad Hamid, a lawyer and a legal & gender consultant and advisor for different entities including some UN agencies, facilitated this workshop through a series of enlightening lectures. Mr. Hamid is an expert in International Law and UN system, in Human Rights research advocacy and training, in Constitutional Law and Legal Reform, and in Islamic Jurisprudence (Sharia Law).   
The workshop, in principle, focused on the judicial and regulatory aspects that have a bearing on gender issues in the Arab/ Islamic world and the means to tackle such issues.
On the fist day Mr. Hamid introduced the audience to the Legal Systems that existed, their characteristics, and their evolvement over the centuries in the whole world in general, and in the Arab/ Muslim world in particular. Then he moved to focus on the aspects of the Islamic Legal System, its moral nature, its specificities, its legal nature, its structure, and its overall characteristics.
On the second day of the workshop, Mr. Hamid tackled Gender Dynamics in the Islamic Legal Discourse with a special overview of the Legal and Disciplinary Assessment of Arab Reservations to CEDAW from the perspective of the Islamic Shari’a.
The conclusion that was reached collectively during the two-day workshop was that “the Islamic legal system – including reference texts (Qur’ān and authentic Sunnah), and jurisprudential works and teachings (i.e. fiqh madhabs or schools of jurisprudence) as well as the judiciary precedents contain diversity, pluralism and difference. Hence, reference texts are as much diverse, multiple and different as their interpretations and meanings. The same applies to jurisprudential works and teachings and legal jurisprudential rulings,” according to Hamid.
“Therefore, any attempt to comprehend the Islamic legal system on the basis of generalization, uniformity and oneness is flawed in principle and can only result in erroneous conclusions and judgments regardless of the subject matter of research,” said Hamid.
He added: “Thus, the Islamic legal system is neither at odds nor in line with any right or legal principle even if it may appear to be so when seen from a generalizing, uniform or unitary perspective. In fact, the Islamic legal system intersects the majority of rights and legal principles, in varying and numerous ways, ranging from confirmation to refutation.”
He also confirmed that “It should not be claimed that Islamic Shari’ah or Islamic legal system is in its totality in contradiction or in conformity with women’s rights under CEDAW. What is correct and precise is that Islamic legal system provides for various different interpretations and schools of law some of which conform with these rights and others do not. Hence, the system provides for conformity and compatibility with such rights in its whole.”
He used a few arguments, supported by Islamic Texts, to demonstrate the various Islamic calls for equality between men and women in various domains (Political, Civil, Economic, and Family).
To sum up the event, Mr. Hamid opened the floor for extensive discussions on ways to implement gender strategies at legal and programming level in Saudi Arabia.
The overall outcome from this workshop is that participants became adequately oriented in Islamic legal systems and their relation to Gender, and they were exposed to best strategies, approaches and tools to be utilized in Gender planning and programming.

Click here to view the pictures taken during this event

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