NOUAKCHOTT, April 8, 2005 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – Friday, April 8, was the last as a weekend by Mauritanians as the government’s controversial decision to shift the weekend to Sunday in the Muslim country.

From next week, the weekend will be Saturday and Sunday, instead of the present Friday and Saturday under a decision taken following a ministerial vote Wednesday, April 6.

As from next week, businesses and government offices will be open Monday to Thursday from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., and on Friday work will stop from midday for prayers, according to Reuters.

The government, on its part, said it adopted the new weekend to prove the county’s ability to do business as it gears up to start pumping oil this week.

The Islamic High Council, the most powerful religious body in the country, has approved the decision.

The body said not working on Friday was contrary to the spirit and letter of Islamic Shari’ah law, adding that working done on Friday constituted “pious deeds”.

However, on the dusty streets of the desert capital Nouakchott, the response has been mixed.

Office workers, particularly in industries with international connections, think the change a positive one.

“It is a good decision that we are now in line with the outside world,” said Mohamed Salem, director of a travel agency.

Mauritania, which conducts the majority of its international trade with Europe, will become an oil-exporting nation when deep-sea oil fields roar into production next year. Oil means global business is finding its way to the once remote country of less than 3 million people.

“Before, we were essentially cut off from the outside world for four days of every week,” bank manager, Moktar Fall, told Reuters.

“We had to get all our transactions done between Monday and Wednesday, because if they got left to Thursday they would just get stuck as we wound down for the Mauritanian weekend.”

The government says bringing the country into line with other countries will save millions of dollars.

But some residents and politicians dismissed the change as a sop to the West.

“It is a clear move to please Western governments - even more so than the recognition of Israel,” said an old Imam in a small mosque in Nouakchott.

“This is a political decision aimed at improving the regime’s image in the West,” Opposition leader Mohamed Ghoulam Ould Haj Seikh was quoted by the BBC News Online as saying.

Communications Minister Hamoud Ould Abdi told the BBC: “Each year we lose US$70m... economic losses could be higher, now that we are entering the era of oil, gas and

gold.”

In 1999, Mauritania became the only Islamic Republic to forge diplomatic relations with Israel, through an agreement signed in the US capital Washington.

Arab states criticized the government, accusing Mauritanian president Maaouiya Ould Taya of compromising principles to foster better relations with the United States.

During Friday prayers last week, some imams criticized the government’s decision, but the majority seem to be in favor.

But in the Nouakchott city market, poor women traders felt unconcerned, according to Reuters.