Amsterdam company El Asira is to open its first shop ‘for a sensual love life’ in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, selling only items which are in line with Islam, according to various media reports.

Claims have been made on a number of websites, including the Independent and Huffington Post, and appear to be based on an Arabic website Alyaoum24.

According to news agency AFP, the shop is being opened after ‘due consultation with Saudi clerics who have approved it as halal’.

Founder Abdelaziz Aouragh, who was born in Amsterdam and is of Moroccan origin, reportedly told AFP that clerics had told him opening a halal shop would lead to ‘the improvement of sexual relations between husband and wife’.

However, website ThinkProgress said Aouragh had told it that he had no such plans.

‘The media attention that it’s getting is unbelievable,’  Aouragh reportedly told the website via Skype. ‘I’m getting requests from all corners of the world who want to know about the story in Mecca and I’m like, you don’t have your facts straight, unfortunately.’

El Asira was founded in 2010 and concentrates on the market for what it calls ‘sensual wellness’. ‘In the west, people think sensuality means pornography but we are not a sex shop,’ Aouragh told the Financieele Dagblad last year.

El Asira sells massage oils, lingerie and personal care products but not sex aids, and has worked together with German sex shop chain Beate Uhse since last year.