DOHA, Qatar � Mariam Saleh avoids malls and outdoor markets on the weekends because the low-cut tops, sheer dresses and miniskirts that foreign women wear reveal much more than she would like her impressionable young children to see.

DOHA, Qatar � Mariam Saleh avoids malls and outdoor markets on the weekends because the low-cut tops, sheer dresses and miniskirts that foreign women wear reveal much more than she would like her impressionable young children to see.

Saleh is part of a campaign in Qatar that was spurred by locals who are fed up with the way many tourists and visitors dress, especially as temperatures soar in the Gulf Arab nation. The campaigners say Qatar is, after all, their country, and they should not be the ones feeling uncomfortable because visitors want to show some skin or dress as they would back home.

The campaign is aimed at encouraging foreign women to dress more conservatively. However, it is not spearheaded by religious hard-liners, but by moderate locals who are concerned that a steady influx of foreigners is threatening to uproot their customs and traditions, which are intertwined with 1,400 years of Islam on the Arabian Peninsula.

The campaigners say they are mothers and wives, but also gatekeepers of Qatar�s Islamic society. Most Qatari women cover their hair and wear long, loose black robes. Many also cover their faces as is common in neighboring Saudi Arabia, where morality police enforce the region�s strictest dress code on locals and foreigners alike.

The campaigners plan to pass out more than 200,000 flyers throughout the capital, Doha, to raise awareness about local sensitivities with slogans such as: �Leggings are not pants� and �If you are in Qatar, you are one of us.�

The government, which allows alcohol in hotels to accommodate foreigners, is not involved in the campaign, which is being funded by volunteers, as well as a women�s business club in Qatar.

Four years ago, concerned citizens launched a campaign called �One of Us� to encourage foreign women to cover from their shoulders to their knees, but the campaign had little impact on visitors who felt out of touch with Qatari society.

This time around the theme is �Reflect Your Respect.� The flyers that will be passed out have one central plea: �Help us preserve Qatar�s culture and values.�

�We�re not telling you not to dress up. Get dressed up, but with respect, with modesty,� businesswoman Suhaila al-Harab, a supporter of the campaign, said. �I�m coming to a conservative country. I have to respect the culture of this society. This is a sensitive society and one has to be considerate of this point.�

Among Qatari men and women, conservative dress is seen as a way of deterring premarital sex and adultery, as well as treating women with respect. Islamic teachings hold that most or all of a woman�s body should be concealed from people outside her immediate family.

�The earth has an outer sphere, an atmosphere, to cover and protect it. The egg has its shell. Everything has something that protects it,� Saleh said. �We feel that a woman is like a pearl. She has to have a shell to grow and flourish.�