Any changes in high level appointments are exceptionally rare in Saudi Arabia where the foreign minister, Prince Saud al-Faisal, has been in office since 1975, and the defence minister, Crown Prince Sultan, has held his job since 1964.
This renders any reshuffle a bold step and the first shakeup of King Abdullah's reign was intended to send a message of reform.
Norah al-Faiz, an American-educated official, has become the first woman ever to enter the governing elite in a kingdom where women are not even permitted to drive.
"This is a successful step. We've always suffered from having a man occupy the position," she told the Saudi newspaper Arab News after her appointment as deputy education minister with special responsibility for female education.
She added: "A woman knows what problems and challenges her peers face. It's a change for the better."
King Abdullah also sacked two conservative figures, both of them deeply unpopular. Sheikh Ibrahim al-Ghaith, the head of the "Mutawwa", or religious police who routinely bully and intimidate citizens as they pursue their task of "promoting virtue and preventing vice", has been dismissed.
http://newageislam.com/saudi-king-appoints-first-female-minister--/the-war-within-islam/d/1202
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11:44 PM
Moderate Islamist here
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