View Point: Good luck to Saudi women

Thousands of Saudi women have signed an online petition’ entitled “October 26, driving for women”. A news report says some 20 women are going to take to the wheel as part of a campaign to have a long-standing ban on driving lifted. Press reports also point out that in addition to the driving ban the kingdom imposes other major restriction on women, such as a requirement to cover from head to toe when in public, and a strict guardianship system that prevents women from opening bank accounts, working, travelling, and going to school without the express permission of their male guardians.

Women elsewhere may not even think of driving as some kind of a privilege, but in the ultra-conservative Saudi society they have been actively struggling to attain this right since 1991. That year, a group of 47 activists who drove through Riyadh to challenge the ban were arrested; many of them were punished with a further restriction on travel and suspension from work. It took them a decade. ie, till June 2011, to pluck courage again to drive in different cities as part of “Women2Drive” campaign. Whilst the protest continued one woman was convicted by a court for driving without permission and sentenced with ten lashes even though there is no law prohibiting female drivers. The sentence order generated world-wide outrage. It must have embarrassed the kingdom’s Western friends. The King finally intervened to grant her pardon.

The online petition draws attention to the fact that “there is not a single text in the Sharia Islamic law that prevents us [from driving]. Any pretexts used to do that are based on inherited customs.” Indeed, women enjoyed important rights and openness during early Islam that are now being denied in the holy land. They rode horses and camels – Holy Prophet’s (PBUH) wife Hazrat Ayesha (RA) even led a battle riding a camel – and engaged in other outdoor activities such as providing medical help to the injured during wars and playing motivational drums as well. If they could ride camels, surely present-day women can feel easier to drive handle and secure motor vehicles. Also, contrary to the present practice whereby women need the help of male relatives to do simple things as opening a bank account, they had much more independence. The first wife of Holy Prophet (PBUH) Hazrat Khadija (RA), was a successful businesswoman. It was she who also proposed marriage to him. Equally important, whereas women in Europe won the right to own property only a coupe of centuries back, Islam gave them that right more than 14 centuries ago. Islam surely allows those owning property or engaged in business to make independent decisions whether related to putting their money in a bank, contracting a marriage, working, or acquiring education.

It is worthwhile to note, too, that the head-to-toe veil women are required to wear in the kingdom, and also by conservative elements in other countries, including Pakistan, is very different from what it used to be like during early days of Islam. The one observance that is performed in exactly the same manner, up to every minute detail, since the time of the Holy Prophet (PBUH) is the annual Hajj. Women perform the Hajj with their faces, hands and feet uncovered, moving shoulder to shoulder with men.

Interestingly, in the present situation in Saudi Arabia, since the clerics cannot find validation from religion they have been looking for other justifications. A conservative cleric, Sheikh Lohaidan, has come up with absurd reasoning to prevent women from driving. According to him ” if a woman drives a car, not out of pure necessity, that could have negative physiological impacts, as functional and physiological medical studies show that it automatically affects the ovaries and pushes the pelvis upwards.” That, he says, “is why we find those who regularly drive have children with clinical problems of varying degrees.” As ludicrous as these assertions are they do not even qualify for a serious response. Sadly, though they are part of mainstream conversations on the subject.

Islam has nothing to do with any of these anti-women practices. They come from old ‘customs” and a so-called “societal consensus”. The ‘consensus’ excludes at least half of the population; in fact, a lot more than that considering that there must be many male members of society who do not consent to such oppressive customs and traditions. What women in Saudi, and under the Taliban rule in Afghanistan, have been facing are customs of patriarchal tribal societies that are given a religious colour. Little wonder then that even in countries ruled by Islamists women get differing deals. In tribal Saudi and the Taliban ruled Afghanistan, segregation, veil and suffocating restrictions on social freedoms are common. In Iran, at a different level of socio-economic development, women are required to wear hijab, but they are free to get education and to work in any field. In the Islamists ruled but advanced Turkey, even voluntary use of the hijab is questioned.

In short, what the Saudi women are up against has nothing to do with Islam and everything to do with a tribal society’s patriarchal traditions that are deliberately mixed with religion to keep women down. It calls for a lot of courage to break a contrived nexus between religion and traditions that the system seeks to protect and preserve against women. Good luck to the brave women who are going to come out to challenge that oppressive system on October 26!

saida_fazal@yahoo.com