A Saudi woman has reportedly lost a legal battle to marry the man of her choice after her family objected because he played a musical instrument.

Relatives of the woman, a bank manager, refused to allow her to wed the man, a teacher, saying his oud (lute) playing made them “religiously incompatible”.

A lower court backed that view, and its verdict has now been confirmed at appeal, a lawyer and local media say.

Some people in the conservative Muslim state say music is “haram” (forbidden).

Despite that, Saudi Arabia has a distinctive musical tradition – in which the oud features – and public concerts by Arab and Western artists are permitted.

The case of the bank manager and teacher came to light over the weekend, when Saudi lawyer Abdul Rahman al-Lahim discussed it in a video on Snapchat .

He said a woman from Unaiza, in the Qassim region, had asked him two years ago to file a lawsuit against her brothers because they had refused to give their permission for her to marry a man who “once played the oud and so was not considered religious”.

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