Recently, my friend, Kaled, in Saudi Arabia sent me the following article: Saudi Jeans: Women's Driving: Do We Need Another King Faisal?   

At first, I thought, with war waging in Israel and Lebanon, Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere, so much I am already focused on, should I take the time to focus on this issue in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia? 

Then it hit me—this is central to the war. This is, as one Muslim put it, Saudi Arabia: Rethinking its Soul. 

Moreover, what goes on in SA commonly goes throughout the Muslim world community, the Ummah. 

(As is stated in the article “Rethinking its Soul,” many Saudis are asking the question, Is it reasonable for them to remain “a country that is economically in the twentieth century and intellectually in the fourteenth century.”

The author of that article stated, the House of Saud was ready to push for reform, and push away from Wahhabism—Wahhabism is nothing more than pure Islam.

The author even goes as far as suggesting, it was time for the Muslims to consider deviating from Wahhabism--which is, as I stated, nothing more than pure Islam.

My point is, many in the Islamic world want the West to lie to rest the lies on how peaceful, noble, and tolerant Islam is, as it is written and thereby as it is lived today.

Moreover, they wish we would shut down our terror sprouting houses here in the west. They wish, we would stop exporting fresh and devout keepers of the laws and orders from Allah, which many Muslim learn of here in Mosque across our nation, only to return to Islamic nations and impose the harsh rule of Allah there.

My friend Kaled tells me, the most avid jihadist today hail from the west. Are bred and reared in Western protected mosques. Saudis, as do all Muslims, know the sermons the imams preach at those mosques.

Because, unlike many in the West, most Muslim’s have read at least some of the exclusive books used for the sermons heard in those mosque. Those sermons all hail from the canonized books of Islam.

Allah was smart.

Thus, when the passages etched on the “date-palm, barks of trees, bones, ect. [1],” were lifted from the bag that held them, and then compiled orderly into book form; it was done, so that if all one read was the first two Surahs of the book [the Qur’an], there’d be perfect clarity on what it means to be a Muslim.

An Allah-approved Muslim--which, to Allah and all fellow Muslims, is the only kind of Muslim that counts.

Because of that, even those familiar with the first “few pages on Islam” know UBL is a good Muslim. They [any Muslim who is more than an illiterate Muslim] know when UBL orders the terror hits on our nation, he is, just as he claimed in his second televised speech to us, only doing that because “Carrying out terrorism against the oppressors is one of the tenets of our religion and Shari’ah.”

When the Ummah hears Mujahid Usamah Mohammad Bin Ladin of al-Madina, state, as he did in his 1996 interview with Nidal ‘Ul Islam, “Terrorizing the American occupiers is a religious and logical obligation,” the Ummah knows, as does anyone with an elementary grasp on Islam, Mujahid Usamah speaks nothing but the truth therein.

As I stated, anyone—Muslim or non-Muslim—who reads any of the canons of Islam knows, from Allah’s view, bin Ladin is 100% accurate in his actions.

I’ve no doubt, there are many illiterate Muslims, who know little of their religion, however, Usamah bin Ladin is no such Muslim. That is why, in all of his speeches, the word of Allah flows freely from his lips, as words that are in the man’s heart, mind, and soul.

As was the case with Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi.

Additionally, most Saudis and most Muslims know, when AMZ did all he did in Iraq, he did so fully Qur’an and Sunnah, and Shari’ah qualified. Just as USB stated their acts of terrorism were and are.

Saudis and Muslims know, just as sure as AMZ did his killing Allah-licensed to do so by the conical laws of the religion of Islam, so did the man who filled his shoes, when he, obeying Allah, recently slaughtered two of ours.

The Ummah knows the Iraqis that did those acts were just obeying Allah’s orders. In other words, all the above, as well as all those who have killed and will yet kill at the orders of the aforementioned devotees to Islam, did and do so simply exercising their Allah-issued license to kill.

What’s more, the Ummah also knows when Maliki, who like UBL and ABZ, is a versed and good Muslim; comes to the U.S. , speaks of the freedom of the rule of law in Iraq; the Ummah understands what the Iraqi constitution spells out: the rule of law Maliki speaks of is the rule of Allah’s Law.

[The same law, worth noting, Usama bin Ladin states give licenses to the mujahideen to carryout terrorism against the our nation.]

Likewise, when they heard the crowd applauding Maliki while he praised the book and the law that calls for and legalizes our being slain where ever we are found, though that applauding-crowd included our President, Vice President, Speaker of the House, and almost our entire Congress, the Ummah knows, with respect to Islam, the west largely remains sopped in ignorance.

They know, in Maliki’s masterful job of cunningly using the craft of deceit, he has only obeyed Allah.

Speaking of applauding, I’ve no doubt Allah is both thrilled with Maliki’s attentiveness to his religion, Islam, as well as stricken with our intelligence on it.

One more thing the Saudis know is under Maliki’s leadership and under the guidelines spelled out in the standing Iraqi constitution, this New Iraq will only usher in more repressiveness to their Mid East region.

Additionally, any one who knows the basics of Islam knows, in seeking to destroy Israel, Hezbollah is doing nothing more than Allah’s bidding.

What’s more, the same know, if Ahmadinejad gets his chance to shine, he too will please Allah greatly.)  

Because this article focuses on the root problem of this war--adherence to the rule of Allah--because the debate spoken of herein is directly tied to the reasonableness (or the absence of such) in obeying what is written in the canons of Islam (orders, central to both Saudi life and this war), I took time to for the article. 

A touch of groundwork—a quick aside: what makes a Muslim a Muslim?  

A Muslim is one who believes the Qur'an is from Allah, and that Allah is the Supreme Being. They believe, as Allah tells them to or pay dearly for disbelieving, they must--must, must--follow what is written in the Qur'an and other canons on Islam.  

It matters little to Allah if someone's name is Maliki, and the US Congress is applauding him, or if his followers’ name is Usama bin Ladin, or al-Sadr, or Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi--All that concerns Allah is that his followers read his words and obey those words. 

Thus, a Muslim, irrespective of what name they use, is one who obeys what is written in the "Sacred Books" on Islam. 

And, often, what is written there is chilling.  

With all the above in mind, to the article I went. 

At first, when I read the first few lines of the article, I thought, You’ve got to be kidding me? 

The issue at heart in the article is a statement that was released about one year ago in the Kingdom warning against the hidden “dangers of allowing women to drive.” 

The statement carried the signatures of the learned on Islam. (Islam is of course the only religion allowed in SA. Thus, it is the Law of Allah that is the ruling law in SA. This is the same law that guides the new “Democratic” Iraq, which is the law that gives life to the “closed door ruling” at the heart of this debate in the Saudi Kingdom.)  
 

When I read that the statement from the Learned on Islam stated, “women driving cars is not permissible because the ruling of the ‘closing doors that leads to corruption’ applies to it directly,” it seemed only reasonable to hear the author of the article point out, if the religious leaders were consistent in apply this rule, “we will do nothing.”  

Sound argument there notwithstanding, as I read on, I began to understand just why so many in the Kingdom are against granting their women the freedom to drive. Especially helpful to me in gaining that understanding, was one entry from a reader who commented, “Okay . . . if they do get the drive then what next? Go naked on the streets like the westerners do?” 

"Ah," I thought, "now I see what you mean."  

The Guy has a point there. 

I mean, you know how it is, right girls. Irrespective of the climate--I don’t care if I’ve got the kids, the dogs, or even, like, “mother” along for the ride--by the time we reach that first mile marker, for me, there aint nothing but skin in the wind. 

The truth is, once that ignition is hot, all bets placed on me staying ensconced in woman’s wear are off--those bets and more, so much more. 

I swear, it happens all the time.  

There is just something so liberating about at my command juice hits spark then spark hits fuel; pistons, compression, crank shafts jump to action, all come into play--and all, like I said, at my command.  

Oh, what power.  

Oh what freedom. And yes, as I have indicated, oh what reason to do just whatever I want to do. Including, as one concerned Saudi man stated, baring all. And “on the streets” no less. 

You see, it is because driving is far more then mere “driving.”  

Driving is me wanting to go from A to B from there to C and M, and then even to W, X, Y, P, and Z, if I have half a mind and a full will to, I do it. 

If that is not empowering, I don’t know what is.  

Moreover, think of it: a “license” to drive. “License,” I mean, use your imagination--everyone always says more in between the lines than they say outright. 

Thus, reading in between those lines on my “license,” I know that little document gives me a license to do a heck a lot more than, say . . . just drive.  

It gives me and every other woman out there who owns one the right to do almost anything we want to. 

There is no doubt about that.  

Go to work, School, play, or shopping mall, with driver’s license in purse, horsepower and carriage at my command, if I want to do that, I do it. 

Not so with our Saudi Sisters. 

For me, my “license” to do all is, like, the biggest black marker in the world. 

I guess the best way for me to make a Muslim grasp just how empowering it is for a woman to hold that license in her hand is for me to refer to how empowered the true Islamic believers get with the Qur’an in their hands. 

Knowing what I know of the Qur’an, Sunnah, Sira, and Shariah Law, knowing all Allah makes permissible therein that the rest of the world would call “criminal,” it’s fair to state, a license to drive in the hand of a woman is as empowering as is a license to kill is in the hands of the true Islamic believer.  

In my country, verified by my driver’s license, my country authorizes me to drive. 

In Islamic nations--according to Allah’s law, today, there is no nation on the face of this earth that meets the requirements to be ruled “non-Islamic” [2]--authorized by the “Sacred Books” on Islam, the true believer is as licensed to kill via those text as I am licensed to drive via my drivers license. 

Few, if any, fuels match the high-octane fuel of having a legal right as well as the same authorization to do an act--when “God” orders the act, fuel even more. 

Because of that fuel-cum-power, which is doubtlessly mine via my drivers’ license, to countless pages in my life where in a “No” was written, with marker in hand I go. Scribbling out the “No,” scratching in “did.” 

It’s helplessly empowering, this licensing to drive deal—it empowers one to think a thought, dream a dream, imagine an action, and do it. 

No more fencing me in. No more keeping me home bound with unseen chains.  

No, sir. I have my driver’s license now. And if you or anyone else thinks I fail to see and read the endless messages of my limitless freedom that is written in between the lines of my little document, you have grossly underestimated my ability to read in between the lines.  

What’s more, I know in many ways my Saudi sisters are no different from me. Like me, coarsening through their veins, they have vigor, verve, and hot blood. But unlike me, they are flowers in the waiting, buds pleading for the sunlight to shine on them, allowing them to blossom and shine.  

So be careful, Saudi men. Because, we—all female drivers, Saudi and western girls alike--we’re the girls your imans warned you about. And the Saudi brother was accurate to point out the naked truth: the two—driving and nakedness—are inseparably connected. 

(My husband hates seeing me “head for town.” Always warns me, about “the charges.”

To which I counter, “Yeah, but, you know, I haven’t been charged yet, for the countless times I’ve been picked up.”

Those “arrest,” stories in themselves, they are --and no, I don’t want to talk about them . . .)

In brief, I agree fully with the Saudi man’s concerns: repeatedly, driving does lead directly to “going naked in the streets.” 

It just happens.

Thus, my advice for the Saudi men is, with respect to the menace to society women behind the wheel pose: Boys, stick to your guns. Holdfast to the rule of Allah. Keep denying your women the right to drive. 

Because I’m afraid we can all bank on, once “A’ishah” and her sisters get a drivers license in hand, all bets on those hijabs staying in place are off—it will be those bets, those hijabs, and more, so much more, to the wind.
 

Notes

1. Introduction into the Qur’an, Abul A’la Mawdudi, p. XV.

2. Reliance of the Traveler, A Classic Manual of Islamic Sacred Law, Commentary and Appendices Edited and Translated by Nuh Ha Min Keller; pp. 946-7.