Dear brother Ali Assalaam
Alaikum,
After going through your
article I felt that I should put some points which raised in my mind.
Firstly I want to make it
clear that religion covers almost all of the aspects of life i.e. Social,
Economic, Political, Industrial, Personal etc. etc. This issue is a long
discussed one in the community. In the light of current situation where you see,
if a lonely girl or a lady even with children awaiting a taxi, many private
cars bunk their horn first and stop at her to check the chances of taking her
with them. When women get on the driving seat you will see more problems on the
road. Leave the young people the aged ones will make more advances to the lady
driver. Naturally you need lady police officers to control in case of women
drivers. Also in case of traffic accidents it will be difficult to handle if a
lady driver is injured at any point. Either you have to wait till a lady cop
comes or you have to help the injured lady. Women's joblessness will be solved
to a certain extent but in police stations also you have to create a separate
cell for lady police officers. Wherever you find men and women mixed together
you will face social problems of all types. We cannot deny that there are good
and bad in every community and gender.
I think if you are
willing to allow women to drive you have to cover all related topics before
hand so that you will not be at the junction of problems. I agree that for
every problem there is a solution provided you are just in nature.
Hope the able advisers to
the authorities will give wise suggestions for a peaceful society.
Ghazi
From: islamcity@yahoogroups.com [mailto:islamcity@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Sunday, February 19, 2006
6:57 PM
To: islamcity@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [IslamCity] Women’s
Driving in Saudi Arabia
- Why Bring in Religion to the Debate
Women’s Driving: Why Bring in Religion to the Debate?
Ali Al-Khoshaiban, Arab News
http://www.arabnews.com/?page=7§ion=0&article=65849&d=24&m=6&y=2005
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Before you start a
dialogue with Arabs, laymen or scholar, you have to convince them that a
world outside their narrow perceptions exists, according to a Palestinian
writer. Keeping this in mind makes it easy to understand the conflicts and
differences in our society.
Islam,
as we know, has things which are clearly permitted and things which are not.
Unfortunately society has mixed these clear matters up with others that may
or may not be permitted. Many scholars will not even consider you a human
being because in their description, a human being is something totally
different from you. You must therefore prove to him t hat you are one of
those who live on this planet in the midst of the scholar and his idea of
human beings.
The heated exchanges
over the matter of permitting women to drive reveal a society incapable of
dealing with social realities and understanding change. It is alleged,
wrongly of course, that Islam breeds terrorism. But the ideas being advocated
by several Islamic scholars support these misconceptions. Their style of
thinking does not tolerate any dissenting voice on any matter. Such minds
understand only a monopoly and only a clear and inflexible truth.
Terrorism in all its
diverse forms is, undoubtedly, a temporary or permanent reaction to some
ideas, groups or methods springing from a narrow environment. It struggles
against all opposing views and differing thoughts and aims at a single
viewpoint and decision. A terrorist group that promotes murder and
destruction is dangerous. Even more dangerous is the intellectual terrorism
that targets killing the freedom of thought and _expression_ of both the
individual and society. Intellectual terrorism aims at the total destruction
of all social achievements. It is an irony that terrorism utilizes the
facilities, regulations and broad values of society to suppress those who
differ with the terrorists.
The controversy over
the issue of women’s driving is an example of the danger of mixing
social issues with religious ones. The motive is to ban women driving with
the help of a religious fatwa so that all discussion on the subject would be
conclusively ended. Driving, however, is only a worldly matter and is far
from religion. What is “halal” (lawful or permitted) and what is
“haraam” (unlawful or not permitted) are very clearly defined by
the Prophet (peace be upon him) who also said “You know better about
worldly matters.”
The debate about wo men
driving has crossed all reasonable limits. Society has found itself up
against the impossible task of solving the serious problems of modern life
with the instruments of traditional customs and traditional thinking. The
spread of globalization and accompanying developments are bringing in
revolutionary changes in the lifestyles of people in many societies.
Societies such as ours,
on the contrary, will continue to be unsuccessful in their quest for a way to
guarantee the preservation of their heritage and culture and the quest will
leave them finally in a state of constant conflict. A society which turns
away from modernization and accepts only the benefits of modern technologies
will find itself unable to ad just to change and will soon be gripped by the
fear of losing its social and intellectual status. In such a situation, our
society seeks the help of religion and relies on fatwas to protect its
interests.
The fear expressed by
those who wish to deny women the right to drive is ironically unrelated to
the technology that kills thousands of people annually; the denial is rooted
in the fear of women exploiting their rights. It is not logical to depend on
a religious edict that harms the interests of a considerable section of
society; on the other hand, society needs strict regulations to deal with
violators of regulations if the fear is about unscrupulous people.
Ours is a law-abiding
country where there is no reason to worry about women driving beside men who
are aware of religious values, conduct and manners, quite apart from the
punishments awaiting the violators. At the same time, the issue is basically
a widening gap between social customs and the realities of every day life.
The failure of society to
deal correctly with the issue of women driving has prompted it to seek the
help of religion to elevate what is purely a munda ne social issue to the
level of a serious religious one. If the matter is left as a social issue, it
will call for free discussion among supporters and opponents, apart from
setting out rules and regulations governing driving. Such discussions will
show that there is an incompatibility between social values and religious
values.
The
social values in the country permit a woman to be alone with a foreign
driver. Religion, on the other hand, does not permit women to be alone with
men. A foreign driver’s presence in the car with a woman is religiously
unjustifiable. The issue here is how a religiously untenable matter can be
socially justified if not acceptable. The complexes related to male
domination have led to the backwardness of women in our society.
Religious fatwas should
not be exploited to cover up the failure of society to keep pace with
modernity. A society that is not confident of its young men and women will
never make real progress. We should stop accusing our women and intellectuals
of immorality under the impression that the issue of women’s driving is
a matter that falls under the purview of religion.
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AB
"For
to us will be their return; then it will be for us to call them to
account." (Holy Quran 88:25-26)
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{Invite (mankind, O Muhammad ) to the Way of your Lord (i.e. Islam) with wisdom (i.e. with the Divine Inspiration and the Qur'an) and fair preaching, and argue with them in a way that is better. Truly, your Lord knows best who has gone astray from His Path, and He is the Best Aware of those who are guided.}
(Holy Quran-16:125)
{And who is better in speech than he who [says: "My Lord is Allah (believes in His Oneness)," and then stands straight (acts upon His Order), and] invites (men) to Allah's (Islamic Monotheism), and does righteous deeds, and says: "I am one of the Muslims."} (Holy Quran-41:33)
The prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) said: "By Allah, if Allah guides one person by you, it is better for you than the best types of camels." [al-Bukhaaree, Muslim]
The prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) also said, "Whoever calls to guidance will have a reward similar to the reward of the one who follows him, without the reward of either of them being lessened at all."
[Muslim, Ahmad, Aboo Daawood, an-Nasaa'ee, at-Tirmidhee, Ibn Maajah]
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