WOMEN AND DRIVING
Question
The Majlis has branded haraam driving for women on the basis of a Hadith in which it is mentioned that Allah Ta’ala curses women on horseback. However, a Mufti says that the Hadith is dhaeef (weak) and cannot be used as a basis for ruling that driving is haraam for women. There are several Saheeh Hadith narrations which confirm that women would ride horses during the time of Rasulullah (Sallallahu alayhi wasallam).
The Mufti says that they may drive on condition they observe purdah; that a female teaches them to drive, and to attend to needs. Emergencies also make it necessary for women to know how to drive. Is the Mufti right?
ANSWER
Rasulullah (Sallallahu alayhi wasallam) said: “Woman is Aurah”. That is an entity for total concealment. Many other Ahaadith enforce this Ruling of Rasulullah (Sallallahu alayhi wasallam).
No, the Mufti is not right. He is wrong. He is short-sighted and he lacks understanding, hence he recklessly opens an avenue for fitnah. His arguments are flaccid and baseless, devoid of Shar’i substance. The argument of some women having ridden horses during the era of Rasulullah (Sallallahu alayhi wasallam) is never a valid basis for proclaiming halaal driving for women in today’s era of zina and fitnah.
During the era of our Nabi (Sallallahu alayhi wasallam) women would also attend the Musjid, and in fact, in one Hadith it is mentioned that Rasulullah (Sallallahu alayhi wasallam) said that women should not be prevented from the Musjid. Despite this evidence based on Saheeh Ahaadith, the Sahaabah by consensus prohibited women from the Musaajid, and this prohibition became the Law which the Ummah observed down the long corridor of 14 centuries of Islam’s history. Only lewd fussaaq, zindeeqs and modernists of this age advocate female attendance at the Musjid. And now the liberal muftis have also clambered on this satanic wagon of the modernists.
As for the argument that the Hadith prohibiting women from horseback riding, is dhaeef, the Mufti did not apply his mind or he lacks sufficient Aql to understand the effect of his promotion of female driving. In all probability he is a Tablighi Jamaat molvi. When the Fuqaha cite a Hadith, it is daleel for its authenticity regardless of the status the Muhadditheen have classified it. The classification of the Muhadditheen may not be presented to dismiss the mustadal (basis of deduction) of the Fuqaha. Thus the Mufti’s dismissal of the Hadith on the basis of the classification of the Muhadditheen despite its acceptance by the Fuqaha, is invalid and smacks of deficiency in knowledge. It is abundantly clear that this Mufti has no affinity with Fiqh.
Furthermore, even on the assumption that the relevant Hadith is a total fabrication and that there is no Nass prohibiting women from driving, then too the Fatwa will be that it is haraam for them to drive. Driving for women involves them in many evils and sins.
Driving brings them into the public domain where their haya and pudah are ruined and ultimately eliminated.
We have seen with our own eyes, abaya-clad women standing for hours in long queues at traffic department offices for their licence paperwork. They rub shoulders, literally being touched, with fussaaq and kuffaar males. They sit alone in the car with a traffic officer who takes them for a ride to test their driving ability. They are involved in zina of the mind, of the eyes, and of even the limbs.
They have to make repeated calls at the premises of the traffic department for the obtainal of learner’s and driver’s licences. When these shameless women are not allowed to come to the Musjid to make Sajdah for Allah Ta’ala, how can any mufti whose brains are not copro-corrupted ever say that driving is permissible for them? How can any Mufti whose Aql has not been deranged by some nafsaani disease, ever say that it is permissible for a Muslim woman to stand in a queue along with kuffaar males and sit alone in a car with a traffic officer taking her out for a ride? This mufti needs to be debarred from issuing fatwas just as women have to be prohibited from driving cars which eliminates their Haya and violates all rules in the Divine Decree of Hijaab.
A woman driving a car is exposed to evil – fitnah and fasaad – of a variety of kinds. She is in violation of the Qur’aan’s command to remain indoors. A driving woman becomes shameless. She slips in behind the wheel at whim and fancy, drives off like a man, and goes visiting and prowling in malls and the like. It is her husband’s obligation to arrange for the needs of the house. Her obligation is to remain indoors, not to roam around the world.
At robots and intersections she stops alongside males driving. They look at her and she looks at them. They commit zina of the eyes and of the heart. We have some times observed Muslim women stuck on the road with punctured tyres and other engine problems. We have seen kuffaar men assisting them. They then are free with these males. They must then thank the kuffaar males with smiles and with nicety of expression greet them. They become women of the road, not of the home.
It is indeed scandalous for a Mufti to encourage women to drive and to issue the rubbish fatwa of driving being permissible for them if they observe purdah and there is no fitnah involved in the process of them learning to drive and in their emergence. Oblique vision is worse than blindness. How can a Mufti who is cognizant of the fitnah and fasaad and of the zina in the public domain in this era ever claim that driving is permissible for women? He must be dwelling in some dreamland hallucinating that the women of today are Sahaabiyaat and there is Taqwa and safety all around in the environment as it was during the days of the Sahaabah.
Furthermore, it was not the norm of the Sahaabiyaat to jump on to a horse or camel and go about prowling in the streets and malls, etc. as do these lewd women of today who issue into the public reeking of the stench of zina perfume. About such women, Rasulullah (Sallallahu alayhi wasallam) said:
“A perfumed woman who passes by a gathering is like an adulteress.”
Never will it be valid to claim that it is today permissible for women to prowl in the malls on the basis that some Sahaabiyaat had gone to the marketplace to procure necessities. Those marketplaces and the environment and the type of people are not the ingredients of todays malls and the like where only evil, sin and vice predominate.
The condition for permissibility averred by the Mufti is that the tutor who teaches women must be a female. Does this maajin mufti have the assurance that kuffaar females are teaching Muslim women to drive? Assuming that the teacher is a woman, then too, it is not permissible – it is haraam – for a Muslim woman to be subjugated to a kaafirah. And, if the teacher is a Muslim woman, then again, she will be a lesbian-type mal-oonah who has no regard for the Ahkaam of the Shariah. Then the aggravating factor is the hell the woman has to submit herself to for the acquisition of learner’s and driver’s licence.
Alone with a male traffic inspector in a car, she will have to captivate the rascal with her smiles and wiles to entice him to ensure that he does not fail her. Allah Ta’ala, Maut and the Qabar are the furthest from the minds of women in this type of scenario. When the Sahaabah banned women from the Musjid in that holiest and best of eras and when the women possessed a high calibre of Taqwa, and when necessity compelled their emergence, they would do so in the state of Tafilah (dressed shaggily and shabbily like old hags), what conclusion should we draw regarding the malfunctioning of the Aql of the Mufti who issues a copro-fatwa proclaiming the permissibility of driving for women in this era of supreme fitnah and zina?
The females during the time of Rasulullah (Sallallahu alayhi wasallam) were so cautious and so observant of purdah that when outside they would walk in the street literally scraping the walls of the buildings with their outer-garments (jilbaabs) as they walked for fear of bumping against men. But today, they audaciously scrape and rub shoulders with men in the public domain.
The argument of need – that sometimes there is a need for women to drive – is another putrid figment of hallucination. There are millions, no billions of men and women who do not drive and who do not own vehicles. What do they do in times of need and emergency? What will the driving woman who owns a car do in an emergency if her car malfunctions, or if she is indisposed and unable to attend to the emergency? What will she do in such circumstances? Her driving skills will not solve the problem.
Allah Ta’ala creates the circumstances for resolving the issues of need as these develop. On the basis of imagined or possible future needs and emergencies, it is never permissible for women to cast themselves into the environment of zina and fitnah.
The prohibition in this regard is not reliant on the Hadith, hence the dhaeef status of the Hadith does not in any way whatsoever detracts from the prohibition of women driving vehicles in this era of zina and fitnah. An act or practice can have several Asbaabul Hurmat (Factors of Prohibition). Sareeh Nass (explicit Aayat or Hadith) is not an imperative requisite for prohibition (hurmat). There are principles of the Shariah, prevailing factors and circumstances which all have to be taken into account when issuing Fatwa. It is not valid for a molvi to issue fatwa simply because he did a stint browsing through a couple of kitaabs taught to Ifta students.
Their fatwas are corrupt and destroy the masses who are already wallowing in fisq and fujoor with their Imaan dangling on threads. They stand on a precipice to fall into Jahannam with the preponderance of fisq and fujoor and even kufr.
IT IS HARAAM FOR WOMEN TO DRIVE. THERE IS NO DOUBT IN THE VALIDITY OF THIS PROHIBITION.
6 Muharram 1445 – 25 July 2023