On the road to equality
Leading scholars challenge Saudi women driving ban
Women in one of the world’s most conservative Islamic states have won the backing of leading clerics in their battle for greater rights.
The debate in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is not about granting fundamentals such as the right to vote or employment equality.
It is about whether or not women should be able to drive.
Saudi women are not allowed behind the wheel, for fear that they would come into contact with men who were not related to them — a taboo in Saudi Arabia, where women cannot travel without being accompanied by a close male relative such as a husband or brother.
It has only recently become acceptable for any woman to stay in a hotel by herself.
Contact between unrelated men and women attracts the attentions of the Mutaween — the religious police, the on-street representatives of The Committee for the Propagation of Virtue and Prevention of Vice.
But now two Saudi scholars have sparked a debate by ruling that there is nothing in Islamic law that prevents women from driving. The scholars are Abdel-Mohsin al-Obaikan — one of Saudi Arabia’s senior religious figures — and Mohsin Awaji. They warn, however, that there may be “road safety issues” if women are allowed to drive, and called for women to be protected from harassment by men. The English language daily newspaper Arab
News published an opinion poll of Saudi citizens, showing that a majority favor allowing women to drive.
But conservative clerics dispute that they are out of touch with public opinion. Senior Saudi government figures have previously issued muted support for the idea of women driving, although nothing has changed officially.
And there have been other hints from the Saudi royal family of a broader liberalization. In 2005 King Abdullah, took the throne saying he would implement reforms. But he faces a delicate task. Saudi Arabia is a U.S. ally in the Middle East — yet is it also home to the Wahhabist tenets of Islam, the region which produced the Bin Laden family.
Allowing women to drive would represent, for some Saudi conservatives, a concession to influences which have no place in their country.
Observers say the government seems intent on watching the debate between modernizers and the conservatives, without committing themselves.