Driving and Women
Undoubtedly, for Muslim women to drive cars is contrary to the spirit and teaching of the Qur’aan and Sunnah. The Qur’aan Majeed commands Muslim females:
“And remain within your homes and make not a display (of yourselves) like the display of [the time] of jaahiliyyah.”
The Qur’aan and the Ahadeeth place restrictions on the emergence of females from the home. Islam exhorts and commands its female adherents to conceal themselves, hence Rasulullah (Sallallahu alaihi wasallam) said: “Woman is aurah (i.e. to be concealed). When she emerges (in the public), shaitaan casts surreptitious glances at her.”
Islam emphasises purdah – concealment – for women, but western culture in a variety of ways and means (of which women driving cars is one) emphasises ‘self-expression’, i.e. exhibitions of jaahiliyyah. Islam lays stress upon modesty and shame (hayaa), whereas driving destroys the hayaa of women. By means of driving, women place themselves at the forefront of exhibition. She barters away her hayaa by aping the ways and mannerisms of males in the driving seat.
Her place is not in the driving seat to wander around, putting herself up for public gaze and display. Her place is the home – to live in dignity, respect, hayaa and honour. The greater the self-exhibition, the greater the destruction she brings to her natural modesty. About this hayaa, Rasulullah (Sallallahu alaihi wasallam) said: “Hayaa is a branch of Imaan.”
It is virtually impossible for a woman who drives, to observe the Islamic Laws of Hijaab. Even if she is a bit conscious of Islamic purdah restrictions, her constant projection and exhibition which driving entails, corrode her hayaa and reduces her to utter shamelessness. She then qualifies for the Qur’aanic description of “tabarruje jaahiliyyah” (exhibitions of the time of ignorance).
The arguments advanced in favour of women driving are all fictitious and designed to appease the lowly nafs of a man. Those women who are observant of the Divine restrictions and prohibitions, those women who remain within the confines of Islamic hijaab will, Insha Allah, not be confronted with the fictitious ’emergencies’ and exigencies imagined and sometimes confronted with by the women of exhibition. Those who have tawakkul (trust) in Allah Ta’ala will be well cared for.
(Awake Archives)