RIYADH: Mohammed al-Zulfa’s mobile telephone has buzzed non-stop since he suggested Saudi Arabia lift a decades-old ban against women driving — the only prohibition of its kind in the world.
The step would be almost revolutionary for the kingdom’s conservative and segregated Muslim society, where women must be covered up and accompanied by a male relative in public.
Zulfa knew his proposal last month to Saudi Arabia’s appointed advisory council, of which he is a member, would stir controversy. Even so, he was taken aback by the reaction.
One caller prayed that Allah (God) would freeze his blood. Another made death threats against him and his family. Some people said he should be booted off the all-male Shura Council, which has the power to change old laws and draft new ones.
“It’s as if I am calling for women to take their clothes off on the street,” he told Reuters. “I was only asking a normal question, about a normal issue.”
Conservative Saudis say that allowing women to drive would expose them to strange men, and encourage young people to date — which would be anathema to the traditional practice of arranged, or at least closely supervised, marriage.
Those in favour of lifting the ban say the accepted practice of hiring foreign drivers to get around it is even less compatible with Islamic social norms. It also places a heavy burden on Saudi families who cannot afford such a luxury.
Zulfa says if the 150-member council does not vote on his proposal, it would be the first time it has not followed its own procedures. The laws have gone to an internal committee and when they return for a vote, he will find out if it can be included.
Regardless of the outcome, the issue he raised is being debated more openly than ever before in newspapers, by important officials and the public.
“I am still hoping and waiting. I think it’s the right place and time for this matter ... to be discussed and I hope my colleagues will be brave enough not to resist,” he said.
A top official and a senior cleric have made significant public comments on whether allowing women to drive is an act that breaks faith with Islam.
Interior Minister Prince Naif characterised the ban as a social rather than religious issue, which in theory means that if society wanted to see it lifted, there would be no obstacle.
The catch is whether Saudi society, which follows an austere doctrine of Islam, really does.
Sheikh Abdullah ibn Munee, a member of the Council of Senior Ulema — Saudi Arabia’s highest religious body — lent some support to Naif by saying scholars had not discussed the issue but that it was not religiously forbidden for women to drive.
“We never said it was haram (sinful) for women to drive. We do not say it is haram but we say that it is for the good of our daughters not to drive,” the Arab News quoted him as saying.
Such comments may have encouraged a member of a 1990 women’s driving protest that shocked the kingdom to speak out.
Fawziah al-Bakr, a 37-year-old university teacher spent a night in jail alongside 47 other women for taking part in the protest drive.
She said lifting the ban was a matter of conditioning people in a society where demonstrations are virtually unheard of and questioning religious tenets unthinkable.
“People had to get used to the idea of education for girls, they can get used to the idea of women driving. It is of course not the most important issue, but it is an important expression of freedom, mobility and access for women,” she told Reuters.
Local newspapers have been filled with debate and editorials on the issue. One flaunted a photograph of a Saudi woman driving her car in the desert. A piece in Arab News newspaper carried the headline: “Let Them Be at the Helm”.
Many among the country’s liberal minority hope the time could be right for Saudi authorities to lift the ban, which they believe is in the interests of the country’s economy.
Foreign drivers cost the kingdom more than 12 billion riyals ($3.2 billion) a year, according to Zulfa’s estimates.—Reuters
