[Aryan_]

I'm all for securing women's rights, but just this goes too far. I hope his majesty King Abdullah realises it would be more haram than a drunken camel on Ramadan. Allowing women to drive isn't just a religious and social issue, it poses a threat to social order and national security.

With women driving Saudi roads will become endless lanes of congestion and amazing driving like this will become a thing of the past:
YouTube - Crazy Saudi Skating
YouTube - crazy saudi driving

Saudi women lobby king for driving right

JIDDAH, Saudi Arabia - For the first time ever, a group of women in the only country that bans female drivers have formed a committee to lobby for the right to get behind the wheel, and they plan to petition King Abdullah in the next few days for the privilege.

The government is unlikely to respond because the issue remains so highly sensitive and divisive. But committee members say their petition will at least highlight what many Saudis — both men and women — consider a "stolen" right.

"We would like to remind officials that this is, as many have said, a social and not a religious or political issue," said Fowziyyah al-Oyouni, a founding member of the Committee of Demanders of Women's Right to Drive Cars. "And since it's a social issue, we have the right to lobby for it."

Committee members want to deliver their petition to the king by Sunday, Saudi Arabia's national day.

The driving ban applies to all women, Saudi and foreign, and forces families to hire live-in drivers. Women whose families cannot afford $300-$400 a month for a driver must rely on male relatives to drive them to work, school, shopping or the doctor's.

The last time the issue was raised was two years ago, when Mohammed al-Zulfa, a member of the unelected Consultative Council, asked his colleagues to think about studying the possibility of allowing women over age 35 or 40 to drive — unchaperoned on city streets but accompanied by a male guardian on highways.

The suggestion touched off a fierce controversy that included calls for al-Zulfa's removal from the council and stripping him of Saudi citizenship, as well as accusations he was encouraging women to commit the double sins of discarding their veils and mixing with men.

The uproar underscored the divisions in Saudi society between the guardians of its super-strict Islamic codes of behavior and those who want to usher in more liberal attitudes.

Conservatives, who believe women should be shielded from male strangers, say women in the driver's seat will be free to leave home alone and go when and where they please. They also will unduly expose their eyes while driving and interact with male strangers, such as traffic police and mechanics.

But supporters of female drivers say the prohibition exists neither in law nor Islam, but is based on fatwas, or edicts, by senior clerics who say women at the wheel create situations for sinful temptation.

Women tried to defy the ban once and paid heavily for it. In November 1990, when U.S. troops were in Saudi Arabia following Iraq's invasion of Kuwait, some 50 women got behind the wheel and drove family cars. They were jailed for one day, their passports were confiscated and they lost their jobs.

Although the furor over al-Zulfa's comments has abated, anything that touches on the issue provokes strong feelings.

In the weeks ushering in the holy Muslim fasting month of Ramadan, which began Thursday, a furious debate erupted in a Saudi newspaper over a Ramadan television serial that takes up the hardships the ban has caused.

In the serial, "Amsha bint Ammash," the main character, Amsha, loses her father and is forced to relocate from her village to Jiddah. After an unsuccessful round of job searching, she decides to become a taxi driver — a job open only to men.

To get around the ban, she disguises herself as a man, adding a mustache and donning the white robe and red-and-white-checkered headdress Saudi men wear.

When the program was first advertised, some reacted with shock that a Saudi woman was not only portraying a man, but also one who drives. Conservatives say women should not emulate men in behavior or dress.

The controversy has forced the serial's writer, Abdullah Abdul-Amer, to issue a statement stressing the goal of the program, aired on the Lebanese satellite channel LBC, "is not to incite women to drive."

"All I wanted to do was raise our contemporary issues from a Saudi viewpoint and through comedy," said Abdul-Amer.

But that has not appeased Saudis determined to uphold the driving ban.

In a letter to Al-Hayat daily titled "Amsha, we don't need you," reader Iman Abdul-Wahhab wondered why the driving issue "has become an obsession for many, Saudis and non-Saudis."

"Has this become a weak point for us?" she wrote. "As a Saudi girl, I say, 'No.'"

"This is a tradition that has become acceptable," she added. "No one has any right to use it as a means to mock or ridicule."

On Monday, another Saudi newspaper, Al-Watan, ran an article about a major car dealership sending out invitations for women in Jiddah to come try out a new family sedan for 24 hours. But the dealership stressed the invitation was for women and their drivers, who are the only ones permitted to test-drive the cars.

Al-Oyouni said she understands that some women oppose ending the ban.

"We won't force it on those who don't want it," she said.

The petition, circulated electronically for signatures, has received a lot of support from within the kingdom, from both men and women, as well as from outside Saudi Arabia, al-Oyouni said. "This is a right that has been delayed for too long."

[m_ali_qazi]

women shouldnt be allowed to drive no matter what country or religion

[tinkerbell]

Originally Posted by m_ali_qazi

women shouldnt be allowed to drive no matter what country or religion

thats asinine.

[Jamroll]

Maybe it makes sense to them, but it just seems totally weird that women should not be allowed to drive.

[shsh]

Originally Posted by m_ali_qazi

women shouldnt be allowed to drive no matter what country or religion

=|


tenchar...

[Musashi]

Asallamu 'alaikum wa rahmatulLahi wa barakatuh

Trust me, it does NOT make sense to a lot of us.
The reasons are ridiculous at best and downright condescending and hurtful at worst (men are more trustworthy, women are not... et cetera)

Though oddly, you can drive in Dhahran's Aramco (it's full of Americans and foreigners anyway) and the deserts if you're a nomad. Figures.

[Jamroll]

Originally Posted by Musashi

Asallamu 'alaikum wa rahmatulLahi wa barakatuh

Trust me, it does NOT make sense to a lot of us.
The reasons are ridiculous at best and downright condescending and hurtful at worst (men are more trustworthy, women are not... et cetera)

Though oddly, you can drive in Dhahran's Aramco (it's full of Americans and foreigners anyway) and the deserts if you're a nomad. Figures.

I think a camel-back protest would be effective. All the women need to get together, round up loads of camels, and do a protest on camel-back. The camels should amble along slowly, thereby blocking the roads. if the authorities come along the women should be like "What? I'm just riding my camel. That ain't against the law."

Wait, women can ride camels, right?

[ameen]

Originally Posted by Jamroll

Wait, women can ride camels, right?

salam,

apparently, they found a (false) hadith that speaks of women not being suitable to ride on camels / horses.

[Musashi]

Asallamu 'alaikum wa rahmatulLahi wa barakatuh

What? Great. o_o;

Maybe the woman should have all of their drivers drive very slowly and badly instead?

Or ride donkies?

[WarriorAndWiseman]

Great the only thing I could've liked about Saudia and they had to take it away

[roberto]

Originally Posted by Aryan_

I'm all for securing women's rights, but just this goes too far. I hope his majesty King Abdullah realises it would be more haram than a drunken camel on Ramadan. Allowing women to drive isn't just a religious and social issue, it poses a threat to social order and national security.

With women driving Saudi roads will become endless lanes of congestion and amazing driving like this will become a thing of the past:
YouTube - Crazy Saudi Skating
YouTube - crazy saudi driving

Well, there's a lot to be said for women being banned from driving as any male motorist faced with one of them trying to decide how to proceed at a mini roundabout would surely agree

[AceOfHearts]

If you ask them, they will say it is Islamic for women not to drive. Yet Saudi Arabia is considered the heart of Islam where Islam originated from, the Prophet himself lived there! how can they be wrong?

Where is the basis of this practice? It is in the Hadith books which spreads false teachings like women are deficient in their intelligence (Bukhari) etc. and the overall men better than women mentality concocted by anti-women arab society of the Prophet's time and centuries after him and have become spread in extra-Qur'anic Scriptures written in later periods.

The same question I always pose: Is it in the Qur'an (that women should not drive)? No. Where did they find Allah forbidding women to drive? No where.

They will use their so-called "Sunnah of the prophet" to find justification...like women should not show their faces, or should not be outside, their place is home, men's place is outside etc.

Oh yes, if you speak to the strict "Sunnah following" men, you would find that they are more for the ban on women driving in Saudi (and everywhere). This just goes to show where the root of the problem lies.

[Jamroll]

Originally Posted by AceOfHearts

If you ask them, they will say it is Islamic for women not to drive. Yet Saudi Arabia is considered the heart of Islam where Islam originated from, the Prophet himself lived there! how can they be wrong?

Where is the basis of this practice? It is in the Hadith books which spreads false teachings like women are deficient in their intelligence (Bukhari) etc. and the overall men better than women mentality concocted by anti-women arab society of the Prophet's time and centuries after him and have become spread in extra-Qur'anic Scriptures written in later periods.

The same question I always pose: Is it in the Qur'an (that women should not drive)? No. Where did they find Allah forbidding women to drive? No where.

They will use their so-called "Sunnah of the prophet" to find justification...like women should not show their faces, or should not be outside, their place is home, men's place is outside etc.

Oh yes, if you speak to the strict "Sunnah following" men, you would find that they are more for the ban on women driving in Saudi (and everywhere). This just goes to show where the root of the problem lies.

Um... not really. Most of the Muslim world use Hadiths as a source of knowledge about the Prophet (saw), and nowhere bans women driving except for Saudi. Your argument doesn't hold any water.

Also, even the Saudis will defend their strange law not by claiming that women are deficient in intelligence, but because a woman should not travel unaccompanied. I would suggest it might be better if you seek some more information on the situation before making such judgements.

[wheelworks]

Originally Posted by Jamroll

Also, even the Saudis will defend their strange law not by claiming that women are deficient in intelligence, but because a woman should not travel unaccompanied.

Das so weird yo! They can't drive cause they would be alone, but what about hired drivers. Driving alone with a non-Mahram?

I guess they prefer women driving alone with a non mahram rather than just driving alone

[ameen]

Originally Posted by Jamroll

Also, even the Saudis will defend their strange law not by claiming that women are deficient in intelligence, but because a woman should not travel unaccompanied. I would suggest it might be better if you seek some more information on the situation before making such judgements.

salam,

The Qur'an does not teach that women should not travel unaccompanied, the Qur'an does not teach that women should not drive; all these fake restrictions are a result of evil in your scholars and evil in your Hadith, (you can deny this all your life). Maybe you're the one who should 'seek some more information' FROM THE QUR'AN, before accusing others of making false judgements.

wasalam