Saudi Women Can Drive. Just Let Them.

By Wajeha Al-Huwaider

DHAHRAN, Saudi Arabia Who is that woman who returns day after day to the border crossing, seeking to pass from Saudi Arabia to Bahrain, only to be turned away? She is me.

Who am I? A native of the city of Hufuf in eastern Saudi Arabia, where the world's best dates are grown, a 47-year-old divorced mother of two teenage sons,

I am not a dangerous person, so why do they turn me away? Because I refuse to present a document signed by my male "guardian," giving his permission for me to travel. And why do I do that?

I possess such a document, but it is humiliating to have to produce it, and I am tired of being humiliated solely because I am a woman.

So I have decided to try to leave my country without following the rules. I have urged other Saudi women to do likewise, and in recent weeks several have.

Everyone knows that women are denied rights in Saudi Arabia.

And you may think that our fate is the same one that women in some other developing countries face, only a little worse. In truth, we endure a status that most Americans can scarcely imagine.

The guardianship rules are only part of a bigger system of subjugating women.

Even with the permission of a guardian, a woman may not drive a car (except in some isolated rural areas and within the compounds that are home to many workers from Western countries).

Obviously, there is nothing in the Koran that forbids driving.

No, the reason we are not allowed to drive is that the power to transport ourselves would give men much less control over us.

So, one of my other campaigns has been for the right to drive. Last year on International Women's Day I posted a video on YouTube of myself driving a car.

It was filmed by another woman sitting in the passenger's seat. I explained that many Saudi women who have lived abroad have driver's licenses from other countries and would be happy to volunteer to teach our sisters how to drive. (That way they would not have to be alone in a car with a male driving instructor, lest terrible things happen.) This video has received more than 181,000 hits.

Earlier this year, while visiting my two sons at boarding school in Virginia (I send them there because I do not want them to grow up to be typical Saudi men), I staged a demonstration in front of a car dealership in Woodbridge.

I addressed a message to U.S. automakers: Saudi women want to buy your cars (and many can afford to). But first, you must support our fight for the right to drive.

Women in Saudi Arabia may not go out without an abaya, an ugly black cloak that we have to wear on top of our regular clothes.

You can imagine how great that feels in 100-degree heat. Saudi men, on the other hand, always wear white.

In 2006, I dressed in pink when I staged a one-person protest march. It was the anniversary of the ascent of King Abdullah to the throne. By Saudi standards, Abdullah is a liberal, but he has not done nearly enough to change our situation. So I made a simple sign: "Give women their rights."

I started in Bahrain. I had a taxi drive me to the border. After crossing to the Saudi side I pulled out my sign and marched along the causeway from the island nation to the Saudi mainland.

After 20 minutes, a police car pulled up and officers arrested me. After a day of interrogation in the police station, the cops were prepared to release me.

But of course they couldn't release me into my own custody. I had to phone my younger brother to come act as my guardian.

Women are not allowed to participate in sports. How could you in an abaya? When I was very young, I was a tomboy. I loved to ride a bike, which my mother allowed, although most girls are forbidden because this activity might cost them their "virginity" by rupturing the hymen.

When I was 7, my teacher tied my legs and beat me with a stick when she learned that I had been playing soccer with boys.

Then she made me sit at my desk all day, without going to the bathroom or getting a drink of water.

While women are forced to be entirely dependent on men, men are allowed to follow their whims.

A woman can get a divorce, but only by going through a laborious legal procedure in religious court.

However, a man can divorce his wife merely by saying "I divorce you" three times.

Although this is an ancient practice, these days the clerical authorities are debating whether the man has to say this in person, or if a text message will suffice.

Already a judge in Jiddah has approved the first case of text-message divorce. The man was in Iraq to participate in jihad.

It's also legal for men to marry girls as young as 7 and 8 years old.

I have campaigned on behalf of an 8-year-old girl who was married off to a 50-year-old man.

I posted a video on YouTube against child marriages, showing little girls and teenagers voicing their refusal to be child brides. The video was covered by local female writers, then picked up by CNN.

This campaign terminated that marriage, and the little girl is free.

Several months ago, the Saudi minister of justice announced plans to ban child marriages, but nothing has happened.

A few days ago a 70-year-old man married a 9-year-old girl in Jiddah.

Her father technically sold his daughter for $4,000.

The day after the wedding night, the little girl was missing. She was found by her brother in a candy shop where she used to go to buy sweets.

Then there's polygamy. Saudi men are allowed to marry as many as four wives. Polygamy has destroyed many families. In my campaigns, I often feel that I am fighting for my mom.

After she married my father, she was informed by his mother that he already had another wife.

When my mother confronted him, he assured her that she was his favorite and promised to divorce the first woman.

For a time my mom was happy. But after a few years, she learned that my father had taken another wife. Now, my mom was no longer the favorite.

I was luckier than many. I married for love, and my former husband still holds a place in my heart, but we are no longer together.

After the attacks on America in 2001, the Saudi government was embarrassed by the role of its citizens in this violence.

To try to improve our country's image, the government liberalized slightly.

I had been posting comments about women's rights on various Web sites, and I was invited to write a weekly column in al Watan, the nation's largest newspaper. Then, the English-language Arab News also wanted my work.

My husband chafed at my high profile, and he complained about the demands on my time.

One day he announced that he was marrying a second wife.

Although he swore that I was the most important one, I had watched my mother waste her life. I demanded a divorce.

My time in the limelight lasted only a year before the Saudi censors banned me.

The authorities never communicated this to me directly, but one by one the editors of each publication rejected my pieces.

There are many Saudi women whose lives are marred far more than mine.

Fatima Al-Azaz, for example, was lucky enough to marry for love, but her half-brothers decided that her husband's social standing was too low, so they persuaded a religious court to divorce them.

The couple cannot ignore the divorce order because here people can be whipped, imprisoned and even executed for contact with someone of the opposite sex who is not their spouse or a relative.

Still, Al-Azaz tried to return to her husband.

To prevent that, she was first imprisoned for nine months together with her infant, then released to a women's shelter where her movements are restricted.

Or consider the story of Jamila, a wife of a relative. The eldest of 18 children by four wives of a poor date-farmer, Jamila completed high school with outstanding grades. Soon after graduation, her father agreed to marry her to a man from the city.

Jamila traveled with her mother to the city, where she met her husband for the first time on their wedding night.

He turned out to be mentally disturbed.

She pleaded with her mother to take her back home. Then Jamila was pushed into a room with her new "guardian," who consummated their union forcefully, while she screamed and pled for mercy.

One of my protest-video campaigns that did not succeed was a plan to post filmed testimony by women like Jamila.

We were able to make one or two videos, but I found that even with their faces hidden, most Saudi women who have suffered are afraid to speak about it publicly.

There are women who don't support our cause -- rich ones whose husbands benefit from the system, and ones who just don't believe in change.

Why am I different? I am not sure. Perhaps because I have always been somewhat marginalized.

Perhaps because my mother, unlike most others, allowed me to play soccer with the boys, and I've always felt equal to them.

Perhaps because I went to college in America and got to experience a life in which women are treated as people, not property.

Wajeha Al-Huwaider, a writer and an activist, is a co-founder of the Society for Defending Women's Rights in Saudi Arabia

 

 

FW: Exploring Islam in a New Light: A View from the Quranic Perspective - Dr Abdur Rab

About The Book

 

The book, a culmination of more than four years of research effort, is a bold new attempt to provide a comprehensive, in-depth description of the message of Islam, based on the Quran alone. It seeks to promote a new way of thinking about Islam that can reconcile all Muslims and create the civil, moral Islam the Quran dictates. It is intended to serve as not just a strong retort to Islam’s usual stereotyping by the Western world (as fanatic and militant), but a marked departure from traditionally practiced Islam - a powerful voice against “Islamic fundamentalism,” and an agenda for much-needed, fundamental reform of the traditional faith. It applies a rational, thoughtful approach the Quran encourages, keeping in view the social, political, and economic demands of the modern world. The book presents a persuasive logic against accepting the much-revered Hadith as religious authority. It contends that the Hadith rather seriously misrepresents, undermines, and enormously distorts the true meaning of Islam. Islam is best understood if one focuses on the Quran alone and sincerely strives to grasp its complete, easy, and straightforward message. The book scrutinizes numerous misconceptions that have crept into the practiced faith, and calls for its essential, overdue reform.

The book’s central focus is on how humankind can achieve its overall moral, ethical, and spiritual progress. Islam is a spiritual, humane, and intellectual practice – one that emphasizes righteousness on the part of all human beings. Righteousness on one's part includes cultivation of appropriate and progressive mindset attitudes, and just and decent behavior to fellow human beings. Islam promotes living in peace and harmony with others, being tolerant, good, just, and compassionate to them with special kindness to parents, orphans, the poor, and the needy, and service to humanity at large. Contrary to what many scientists would have us believe, God exists, and we have a special purpose to fulfill in life. This book’s focal point is that we, human beings, are here to serve only God Who really is the supreme Ideal for us. Serving Him really amounts to emulating Him in all of our thoughts and deeds. Prayer to God has a special meaning. Prayer is nothing but sincere endeavor on one’s part to upgrade oneself into a better self. It helps us keep away from indecency and evil (29:45). It serves to accelerate the process of human evolution, which is taking place anyway inescapably. God is ever present in all of our work. God helps those who help themselves. We accelerate our progress by seeking God’s help (2:45, 107, 153, 286; 1:4–7; 3:147, 160; 17:19; 72:22). This is the real meaning of salat or prayer.

People generally overlook the fact that to follow the path of religion is essentially a spiritual quest to understand God and His attributes, and understand how He creates or acts. They overlook that it is a spiritual quest to understand one’s own purpose in life, and the latent potential self-development. Religiosity is really one’s sincere endeavor to attain self-purification, and acquire spiritual wisdom to lead a flawless, enriched, progressive, and blissful life, and enjoy a still better afterlife.

The book cites some fundamental building blocks of spiritual progress or evolution: Ego, Love, Will, and Knowledge. These factors or faculties underlie all creative action or evolution. Ego refers to the individual self or personality, not egotism, that can think, decide, and act. Love is a major propelling factor. At the same time, one needs to develop one's Will, and increase one's Knowledge to go forward spiritually. Love and Knowledge are two most precious gifts with which God’s righteous believers are blessed (19:96; 2:269).

The book also calls for understanding Heaven and Hell in a new light. This might appear to be a very radical thought, but the Quranic ideas as analyzed in the book do suggest that God does not really create any Heaven or Hell for us; it is we who create them by our own deeds. It is through our deeds that we can transform this troubled, dull, and dreary earth into a Heaven, and create a still better afterlife. On close reflection, this might be construed as the real purpose of religion.

The most emphasized, recurrent theme of the Quran is that righteousness is the key to success. True righteousness or religion consists in emulating the virtues and qualities that define God. To be righteous, just observing some liturgies is not enough; one needs also to be morally and ethically fully upright. One needs to have a right iman or mindset, which involves much more than a mere belief in One God and His Messenger Muhammad. The process involves embracing various elements of beliefs and thoughts, and nurturing the right attitudes of modesty and tolerance, as well as getting rid of wrong attitudes such as fatalism, intolerance, greed, fear, etc. The Quran wants us to be right, just, and kind to all. The true image of Islam countenances neither intolerance nor violence nor harsh punishments. The Quran condemns violence and terrorist acts in the strongest possible terms. The rigid application of the so-called shariah (traditional Islamic) law is also not justified in the light of the Quran.

The book also represents an attempt to effectively respond to the social, political, and economic challenges of modern time. The ideal relationship between husband and wife, according to the Quran, is one of equality and complementarity, characterized by mutual love, respect, and understanding. God is gender-neutral. So the status of women in Islam cannot be subordinate to that of men. The book delves at some length into the question of the deplorable status of women in Muslim countries, and how we can elevate it to that of men. Monogamous relationship is to be normally preferred. Polygamy can be seen as permissible only as a safety device in exceptional circumstances. Divorce, according to the Quran, is only a gradual process with a human face. The system that requires a divorced wife to marry another person in order to remarry her former husband after taking divorce from the second husband often found to be practiced in some Muslim societies is a despicable practice. Such a practice is not really sanctioned by the Quran. Islam condemns slavery and modern-day slavery-like practices in unequivocal terms. A good Muslim will never enslave a person, but will rather free him or her, or keep him or her as an equal member of his family.

In fact, God never discriminates between human beings, whether male or female, by any criterion whatsoever – race or ethnicity, color, gender, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property or wealth, manpower, birth or name any other similar status – except righteousness. To Him, the only thing that really counts for a man or a woman is righteousness, i.e., right or good conduct (7:26; 49:13; 2:62; 5:69). The Quran demands utmost tolerance on the part of all men and women toward all their fellow beings, ignoring differences in race or ethnicity, color, gender, language, religion, etc., as mentioned above.

Reformed Islam, according to this book, calls for an efficient and dignified way of ridding the world of the problems that create poverty. This includes embracing a free competitive capitalistic system with socialistic overtones – free and competitive because restrictions and controls on the movement of capital, goods and services, and monopolistic practices create inefficiencies and injustices in an economy and stifle economic growth. One important implication of the Quranic directions is that there should be an equitable distribution of economic resources, especially land, if these are found to be starkly unequal in a society. An important message of Islam is that none should fully enjoy his own fruits of labor, but should share them with his fellow beings through an appropriate distribution system. Such a system must necessarily encompass public welfare and development expenditures. Spending in God’s way (zakat or sadaqa) must be understood in a much broader sense than is generally being understood by Muslims. The purpose of such spending should be to alleviate poverty, help people stand on their own feet, and bring about other human and social development. And it should embrace in a significant way public taxation and spending.

Contrary to what is generally believed among Muslims, the Quran does not really condemn interest per se that is being universally used for lending and borrowing purposes, and also as a monetary policy instrument, and an essential device for efficient allocation of productive resources. What it condemns is interest that is charged to people who deserve humanitarian treatment. So-called Islamic interest-free banking is a misnomer, an unsound institution, and a drag on the development of Muslim countries.

The book details how the Hadith has perpetuated the harsh, extremist version of Islam, and created the fanaticism, violence, strife, and inequality seen so often in western portrayals of Islam. Using theological, historical and objective arguments, it persuasively challenges the authority and reliability of the Hadith, denouncing it as a major distraction from the spiritual goodness of the “Quran-only” Islam. It demonstrates that there are serious problems with the so-called prophetic traditions. Numerous texts in the so-called Sahih Hadith are found that contradict the Quran, science, or reason, or send conflicting, confusing messages. The criteria used to authenticate the Hadith are inherently flawed, and simply inadequate. The Hadith and sunnah, falsely attributed to the Prophet's holy name, has long been misguiding Muslims in their mindset attitudes, beliefs and practices, and in their approaches to many issues such as the status of women relative to that of men, marriage and divorce, dispensation of criminal justice, and maintenance of justice, peace, and harmony in society. The ideas that seriously distort religious conceptions and practices, insult and at the same time idolize the Prophet of Islam, demonize and weaken women’s position in society, encourage fanaticism and fatalism, encourage archaic, barbaric, or harsh punishments, block progress and modernization, encourage intolerance, violence, and terrorism, and extol the virtues of aggressive jihad against other communities—all come from the Hadith.

The book also calls attention to the ominous rise of religious fanaticism and extremism among some Muslims, who are shamelessly responsible for orchestrating violent and terrorist acts, and crimes against humanity in the name of "Islam", and are thereby tarnishing the image of Islam in the Western world. To combat this menacing problem, the book calls for a thorough reform of religious education in the Muslim world – for remodeling of the madrasah education on the pattern of modern education, retaining reformed religious education after stripping out spurious teachings of traditions as an additional subject. It maintains that the true revival of Islam can come only when Muslims return to, and understand, their only Holy Book, the Quran.