As people across the world prepare to celebrate Valentine's Day, florists and toy stores in Saudi Arabia prepare to hide their red roses and romantic gifts in an annual struggle between the country's religious police and its love birds. Toy stores have cuddly red teddy bears and candy merchants have heart-shaped red boxes of bon bons in stock, but all are hidden out of sight.
It is the annual battle between Saudi romantics and the Muttawas, or religious police, who believe that Valentine's Day is a pagan holiday not suitable for the homeland of Islam.
Like every year, imams sent out reminders of a years-old fatwa reminding people that Islam does not recognize Valentine's Day, and according to media reports the education ministry sent out circulars about the day in an effort to prevent the most vulnerable-- dreamy-eyed students --from succumbing to Westernized thoughts of romance.
Red gifts hidden
Meanwhile supermarkets have tucked away red gift items that might get them shut down for a day or two, and chocolate shops have done the same.
Two days before Feb.14 a florist in Riyadh's up market Suleimaniya district was shipping out wreaths of red roses and crimson apples in the middle of the afternoon, the time that everyone else, including the Muttawas, is at rest.
"Every year they try to stop Valentine's Day," said a Pakistani deliveryman as he packed the wreaths into a van. "The Muttawa will come tonight. If they catch me they will take all of these and destroy them."
The Muttawas--which go by the official name of the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vices--are only a nuisance, not a reign of terror, said a choclatier in front of his shop.
His Valentine's assortments are mixed colors -- red, blue, green etc-- so that he doesn't attract undo attention. "Sales are still good," he said, not wanting to be identified to be on the safe side.
Saudi Arabia follows a strict form of Islamic Sharia law and prohibits the intermingling of the sexes in public.
Across other parts of the Middle East, Arabs and Muslims alike prepared to celebrate the day with their significant other with many saying they do not pay heed to the religious undertones of Valentines Day and simply view it as a day to show someone you love them.