Please fill in the gaps with the connectors below:
SAUDI ARABIA'S Shura Council agreed on April 22nd to consider a proposal to switch the country’s official weekend from Thursday and Friday to Friday and Saturday. The idea was first debated in 2007, …………………………………………….. it was blocked by the council. Some members of the conservative Islamic clergy opposed it on the grounds that it would mean observing the same weekend as the Jews—whose Sabbath lasts from Friday evening to Saturday evening—and might even be a step towards the Saturday-Sunday weekend observed by Christians.
…………………………………………….. why is Saudi Arabia once again thinking of moving its weekend?
……………………………………………..the seven-day week dates back at least as far 2350BC—when it was first formalised by Sargon I, king of the Mesopotamian empire of Akkad—the two-day weekend is a more recent development. The norm, first established by the Bible, was to work for six days and rest only on the seventh.
For Jews and early Christians, that day was Saturday. When the Roman Empire embraced Christianity, Constantine the Great switched it to Sunday—some say in order to attract converts from the eastern religions who worshipped the Sun. A few hundred years later, the Koran fixed Friday as Islam’s holy day, on which Muslims must gather at midday for communal prayer ……………………………………… there is no particular requirement to rest.
…………………………………………….. the idea of a two-day weekend is a product of modern day labour laws. Indeed, Saudi Arabia is only now discussing legislation to give private-sector employees the same rights to two days off that public-sector workers now enjoy.
While much of the Middle East established Friday to Saturday weekends, some Gulf and North African countries took off Thursday and Friday instead. …………………………………………….., as the economic cost of sharing only three working days (Monday to Wednesday) with international trading partners became increasingly apparent, most switched to Friday and Saturday. The most recent country to do so was Oman, on May 1st.
Saudi Arabia has the region’s biggest economy and largest stock market. As it tries to promote itself as a regional financial hub, it is paying an especially high price for keeping its calendar out of sync with its neighbours. Opinion polls suggest most Saudis approve of changing the current weekend. Business has been pressing for change for years. And some private companies are taking unilateral action: the Savola group, a Saudi company that is one of the Middle East’s biggest conglomerates, is considering moving its weekend from the middle of this year to facilitate its operations with the rest of the region.
The issue is a national topic of debate. …………………………………………….. there is no religious proscription against working on a Thursday, traditionalists dislike the change. The switch may still not be approved; the Saudi gerontocracy has been notoriously slow to reform. …………………………………………….. as the cost to Saudi Arabia’s economy becomes ever clearer in difficult economic times, the pressure to fall in line will continue to mount.
