While countering activists who are trying to end the
Islamic Kingdom’s male-only driving rules, one of Saudi Arabia’s top
conservative clerics has said women who drive risk damaging their ovaries and
bearing children with clinical problems. A campaign calling for women to defy
the ban in a protest drive on October 26 has spread rapidly online over the
past week and gained support from some prominent women activists. On Sunday the
campaign’s website was blocked inside the kingdom.
As one of the 21 members of the Senior Council of
Scholars, Sheikh Saleh al-Lohaidan can write fatwas, or religious edicts,
advise the government and has a large following among other influential
conservatives.
His comments have in the past played into debates in
Saudi society and he has been a vocal opponent of tentative reforms to increase
freedoms for women by King Abdullah, who sacked him as head of a top judiciary
council in 2009.
He said women aiming to overturn the ban on driving should put
“reason ahead of their hearts, emotions and passions”.
Although the council does not set Saudi policy,
which is ultimately decided by King Abdullah, it can slow government action in
a country where the ruling al-Saud family derives much of its legitimacy from
the clerical elite.
It is unclear whether Lohaidan’s strong endorsement
of the ban is shared by other members of the council, but his comments
demonstrate how entrenched the opposition is to women driving among some
conservative Saudis.
“If a woman drives a car, not out of pure necessity,
that could have negative physiological impacts as functional and physiological
medical studies show that it automatically affects the ovaries and pushes the
pelvis upwards,” he told Sabq.
“That is why we find those who regularly drive have
children with clinical problems of varying degrees,” he said.
A biography on his website does not list any
background in medicine and he did not cite any studies to back up his claims.
However, Lohaidan is described as “broadly viewed as an obstacle to
reform” and said that his “ill-considered remarks embarrassed the kingdom on
more than one occasion”.
The ban on women driving is not backed by a specific
law, but only men are granted driving licenses. Women can be fined for driving
without a license but have also been detained and put on trial in the past on
charges of political protest.
Sheikh Abdulatif Al al-Sheikh, the head of the
morality police, said that there was no text in the
documents making up sharia law which bars women from driving.
Abdullah has never addressed the issue of driving.
2 Comments
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