RIYADH, July 18: More than 100 imams, religious scholars and teachers, judges and heads of several centres of Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice and a number of instructors at the Grand Mosque in Makkah and the Prophet’s Mosque in Madinah Munawwarah have warned against dangers of allowing women to drive. In a statement released on internet, and reported by the press on Monday, the signatories said the enemies of Islam were seeking to destroy (and possibly alter) the great role women have been assigned in Islam.

Saudi Interior Minister Prince Naif, it may be mentioned, recently called for restraint on the issue and not to discuss this rather frivolous issue as more compelling issues were at hand.

The statement by the scholars said the enemies of Islam had portrayed a wrong image of Muslim women as being without rights and that their homes were prisons, their husbands mistreated them and their hijab was a sign of backwardness.

The statement emphasized that foreigners spoke of “injustice meted out to women” in Saudi Arabia and had used the ban on women driving in the kingdom as a sign of injustice to women here.

They also said Islam urged its followers to “close all doors leading to corruption”. “Women driving cars is not permissible because the ruling of ‘closing doors that leads to corruption’ applies to it directly.”