'End of virginity' if women drive, Saudi cleric warns

**User29123** · 12-03-2011

Salam,

A report in Saudi Arabia has warned that if Saudi women were given the right to drive, it would spell the end of virginity in the country.The report was prepared for Saudi Arabia's legislative assembly, the Shura Council, by a well-known conservative academic.
Though there is no formal ban on women driving in Saudi Arabia, if they get behind the wheel, they can be arrested.
Saudi women have mounted several campaigns to try to overturn the ban.
Aside from the practical difficulties it creates, they say it is also illogical as in trying to keep them under family control and away from men, it actually puts them in daily contact with a male driver.
The issue has received huge international attention.

This is going over the top, women should be allowed to drive in my case, they said it will increase, pornography, divorce, homosexuality, seriously? In what way? Women going to run away?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-16011926

**GuestFellow** · 12-04-2011

Now, one of their number - well-known academic Kamal Subhi - has presented a new report to the country's legislative assembly, the Shura.

Ah do these scholars ever consider men driving a women in a car? Hello? For a country that separates men and women quite a lot, some of the scholars have no problem for strangers driving women around the city. It just does not make sense. Their reasoning is so flawed.

**IslamicRevival** · 12-04-2011

Who are these Scholars? Banning women from driving is ridiculous and their reasoning for it is even more the ludicrous

**Ali_008** · 12-04-2011

Brothers and Sisters, come on, wake up! You're hearing this news from BBC, the half naked homosexual prostitute sibling of CNN. Are you just blindly gonna believe what she's saying and think our Ulema are so dumb? I'm sure it's being quoted out of context and possibly even being quoted wrong.

**GuestFellow** · 12-04-2011

Originally Posted by Ali_008

Brothers and Sisters, come on, wake up! You're hearing this news from BBC, the half naked homosexual prostitute sibling of CNN. Are you just blindly gonna believe what she's saying and think our Ulema are so dumb? I'm sure it's being quoted out of context and possibly even being quoted wrong.

Salaam,

What do you mean by half naked homosexual prostitute sibling of CNN? o_o

Yes, the mainstream media is biased at times but there is an element of truth in what they present.

No one here called the scholars dumb and I highly doubt that members are blindly following the mainstream media. Some members are saying that the scholars reasoning behind the ban does not make sense.

**جوري** · 12-04-2011

Do the scholars have names so we can verify this?
If someone wants pre-marital relations they don't need a car to fulfill that desire, also I highly doubt that pre-marital relations is a problem in KSA for the simple reason that most people (in that part of the world) fall into that type of sin because they can't afford marriage and Saudis at large don't strike me as having those restrictions least of which if their women have cars as it is already telling of social status, unlike problems in the poorer regions like Egypt where the average age for marriage is around 30 and many people have what is called 'zawaj 3orfi' where they profess that they're married but not legally so just so.

**Perseveranze** · 12-04-2011

Asalaamu Alaikum,

Any link of the full report, translated by reliable people? Point is, the scholars are alot more knowledgable in these things then we are, I'm sure they've given alot of detail to reasoning than what the "bbc" has shown.

And before we make any judgements, we should wait for the report to be out.

**crimsontide06** · 12-04-2011

This is so crazy...another example of people going to extremes in their religion and making the rest of us look bad :/

**Snowflake** · 12-04-2011

Saudi Arabia’s religious council has ruled that getting rid of the ban on women driving would spell the “end of virginity.” Britain’s Telegraph newspaper reports that conservative scholars at the Majlis al-Ifta’ al-A’ala, Saudi Arabia’s highest religious council, have warned that relaxing the ban would “provoke a surge in prostitution, pornography, homosexuality and divorce.

http://regator.com/p/254089278/saudi...ve_would_mean/

Rights activist Waleed Abu Alkhair said Saturday that the document by a well-known academic was sent to the all-male Shura Council, which advises the monarchy. The report by Kamal Subhi claims that allowing women to drive will threaten the country's traditions of virgin brides, he said.

Read more: http://www.qatarliving.com/node/2344936#ixzz1fbJ22Ck0

..................

**Ali_008** · 12-05-2011

We only have the UK or US media which is giving out details of this incident. So let's just evaluate what the Ulema could possibly mean by their statements. For once, their too cautious worries can stand true. I guess what they are trying to say is allowing women to drive will make them go wherever they want without any control. This can well, quite honestly, lead to pre-marital relationships. What I'm trying to say is (what I think the Ulema's possible reasoning is) that the law of "traveling with mahram" will be abolished if there are female drivers. Women will travel alone to all sorts of locations and we all know the fitna women carry with themselves. And as a possible consequence, all the mentioned iniquities might rise. And I think the rule was established primarily on this basis. It has worked really well so far too. Of all the countries I know, KSA is the only one where there's no "dating", at least on the outside.

All the members are open to disagree with me and throw rotten eggs at me. But let's just wait to hear the news from a reliable or Muslim source. Not some prostitute, please.

**Pygoscelis** · 12-05-2011

Women driving cars will end virginity in the country? LOL! They are saying that the sexual control of Saudies is really that weak? So much for being chaste for conservative or religious reasons if they can't resist the tiniest pretense of temptation?

Originally Posted by crimsontide06

This is so crazy...another example of people going to extremes in their religion and making the rest of us look bad :/

No kidding! I'm glad to see yourself and other muslims here posting how ridiculus it is.

**Abz2000** · 12-05-2011

this seems a very sensitive issue depending on what side of the spectrum you look at it,
i personally believe that women driving a car without a non-Mahram is not wrong in and of itself,
and i don't think the scholars do either,
their issues are different, it seems to be due to insecurity and i can understand the insecurity they would feel considering how Saudi Arabian tv is changing rapidly,
then there are instances of women riding camels or mules or donkeys, which was not prohibited,
the problem seems to be the privacy of the car and the valid fear that cases of rape etc would most likely increase due to a woman being alone outside with no mahram.
but does that give us an excuse to ban women from driving?
i don't know and refuse to comment as i'd hate to bear any responsibility for oppression or fitnah that may come either way.
the question of the scholars here seems to be about a conservative society going wild.
and about people feeling insecure when letting their daughters out alone in a decaying climate with no-one to report back what's happening
it's not the scholars' fault and it's not the women's fault, it's the fault of the decadent west paying to corrupt the people of the region through lewd media.

when the u.s government enforce irrational unconstitutional and tyrannical laws on the people, it seems easy for many to accept that it's unfair, but somehow justified because of someone else's wrong actions,

how hypocritical is it for the bbc to justify these ridiculous and tyrannical laws by their own politicians and then accuse the arabs of wrongdoing when it is obvious that the scholars have clearly stated that women driving is not un-Islamic in and of itself - but have their reservations due to external factors in which the western governments play an active part?

here's my source
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...ropaganda.html

**esperanza** · 12-06-2011

well i looked but could not find a report in any arab news...

but there are saudi scholars and ordinary people concerned that letting women drive will indeed lead to other unacceptable actions and behaVIOURS and things will only get worse....

**User29123** · 12-06-2011

Originally Posted by esperanza

well i looked but could not find a report in any arab news...

but there are saudi scholars and ordinary people concerned that letting women drive will indeed lead to other unacceptable actions and behaVIOURS and things will only get worse....

Yes things could go out of hand, but they should let women drive at least during daylight! At night they probably should not, however were are women going to go? They can't get out of the country unless they have a male guardian.

We are in the west so we don't see no problems, however people those scholars might have some really good things which could go wrong, we just heard random stuff on Western Media. Those scholars might have really great points.

And people this is not the worst rule every, many countries have RETARTED rules:

Some countries you can't chew!
China banned "future games" (Anything which is in the future)

But we don't know why they make these they might have good points.

**Insaanah** · 12-06-2011

Originally Posted by PoweredByGoogle

The report was prepared for Saudi Arabia's legislative assembly

No it wasn't. It was prepared for an online group of intellectuals and writers.

Originally Posted by PoweredByGoogle

End of virginity' if women drive, Saudi cleric warns

Originally Posted by Ali_008

So let's just evaluate what the Ulema could possibly mean by their statements.

Originally Posted by Tragic Typos

Ah do these scholars ever consider men driving a women in a car?

Originally Posted by Vision

Who are these Scholars?

Originally Posted by ßlµêßêll

Do the scholars have names

Who said it was a scholar? The report didn't mention the word scholar, though would have you believe it by putting the word "cleric" in the headline. It was not a scholar, but an academic.

by a well-known conservative academic.

well-known academic Kamal Subhi

Let's not jump to conclusions and malign the scholars; we've enough people to do that for us.

The Majlis Shura has made no ruling. A third party presented Dr al-Subhi's personal study to the Shura council, and one member has endorsed it in his personal capacity. That does not make it in any way, a national view, a Saudi view, a scholars view, a majlis shura view, but one persons personal findings that one person in the shura council has agreed with.

Subhi wrote this 16-page study for a like-minded online group of influential intellectuals and writers. A third party felt it was worthy of a national audience and so took it to the Shura Council, a government-appointed advisory body made up of 150 members. At the Shura Council, the study was not only received but a Shura member also personally endorsed it. It was later leaked to women's rights activists who scanned a copy and posted it for the whole world to see.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisf...?newsfeed=true

While women may not be allowed to drive there for whatever reason, to take one person's views and present it like that with international media attention is not normal.

If an academic presented his own personal views (let's say weird and whacky for argument's sake) to some committee in the UK, would it make UK headline news? No. Forget about it making international headlines. So why this? I can imagine it would suit some to malign Saudi (a Muslim country) and their "backward" ways.

The media is one of the most powerful insituitions in the world - it can influence how we see things, who we view in a negative light, who we view in a positive light, it can make us believe untruths as being complete truth. Yet we can't do without it either...

**GuestFellow** · 12-06-2011

Originally Posted by Insaanah

Who said it was a scholar? The report didn't mention the word scholar, though would have you believe it by putting the word "cleric" in the headline. It was not a scholar, but an academic.

Salaam,

Ah by scholar, I meant the academic in the quote (Kamal Subhi). I was not using the term scholar in a strict sense.

Anyway, there are Islamic scholars that support the ban on women driving.

watch?vt8KX1ADvclk - 'End of virginity' if women drive, Saudi cleric warns

watch?vt8KX1ADvclk - 'End of virginity' if women drive, Saudi cleric warns

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t8KX1ADvclk

^ I'm not sure the translation is accurate since it is from MEMRI (a very biased institution) but I think it contains an element of truth.

**Ali_008** · 12-07-2011

^^^ mashAllah, if only all of us had the same IQ as Sis Insaanah.

:clever:

**ariginality** · 12-07-2011

Imagine: thousands of women who have never driven before all jump on the road the same day. I wouldn't want to be in the country!

**ardianto** · 12-07-2011

Not the prohibition itself that made me concerned, but matters which related to this prohibition that made me concerned.

Driving is an activity which someone control a machine named car. This activity is halal as long as not for bad purpose. There is no any daleel, from Nash or from Aql, that can be used to prohibit women drive car.

But, can ulama prohibit ummah to do a halal activity ?. Yes, ulama can prohibit ummah do a halal activity, as non-shar'i prohibition. However, some people who support this prohibition have gone farther with make this prohibition as Shar'i Haram which individu who break this prohibition get sin.

Try to seek statements about it from those people, you will find statements like "In Islam women are haram to drive car".

This statement caused a controversy among Muslims. Many other Muslims were questioning, which daleel that they use to make this prohibition as Shar'i Haram ? Those people could not answer this question, but they replied with many fatawa complete with daleel from Qur'an and hadith that actually can not be used to forbid women to drive car.

Try to read those fatawa, you will find many daleel that can be used to prohibit women leave home without mahram, but you will never find any daleel that can be used to prohibit women drive car with their mahram. And I have read many question from other Muslims who ask, if they only want to protect women from evil men, why they still prohibit women drive car with their mahram inside the car ?.

But, what that made concerned are statements from people who support this prohibition. Full of prejudice and based on mysogyny. "End of virginity if women drive" just another version of their mysogyny statement. When I visited a Muslim website that run by people who support this prohibition I found a statement from a 'scholar'. He said, if women are allowed to drive, they will chase men on the road and 'drag' those men into zina.

Other statements are, women drive will increase divorce rate, women will cause danger on the road if they drive. And they said it while the world saw Saudi men doing crazy on the road with their illegal drifting.

Those are matters that make me concerned.

I do not stand with those who want western style freedom for women in Saudi. As a non-Saudi I don't have right to protest this prohibition. But as a Muslim I must criticize those who support this prohibition.

First, do not say "In Islam is Haram for women to drive car". There is no any daleel that can support this 'fatwa'. Their daleel are only about women who leave home without mahram and can not be used to prohibit women drive car with their mahram.

Second, stop making mysogyny comments regarding to this prohibition. Statements that issued by Muslim will be regarded as Islamic statements. Those statement will make Islam look bad as mysogyny religion that only for men.