A report produced for the Shura Council, Saudi Arabia’s legislative assembly, recently concluded that allowing women to drive would “provoke a surge in prostitution, pornography, homosexuality, and divorce.”
The report, composed by scholars of Majlis al-Ifta’ al-A’ala, Saudi Arabia’s highest religious council, in conjunction with Kamal Subhi, a former professor at the King Fahd University, warned that allowing women to drive would threaten Saudi Arabia’s virgin population. The study predicts that if the ban on women driving is lifted there will be an increase in the mixing of genders, which encourages premarital relations. In ten years time, Subhi claims, the Kingdom would be void of any virgins — directly affecting the country’s tradition of virgin brides.
Saudi women get into back seat of car |
Saudi Arabia is the only country that bans both native and foreign women from driving, attracting numerous protests over the years from Saudi women against the ban. While King Abdullah has recently promised reforms for women, the Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice continuously pushes back. Last month, it was reported that women with eyes deemed too “tempting” may now be forced to cover them. And this week, an Islamic cleric in Europe proposed that women should not be allowed to touch bananas, cucumbers, and other similarly shaped fruits and veggies unless sliced into pieces to avoid “sexual thoughts.”
It doesn’t get more ridiculous than this.
