Is Saudi Arabia leading a reformation of the Muslim World?
By Tawfik Hamid
In the last few years especially after Sep 11 Saudi Arabia has been accused of promoting a radical form of Islam. It is hard to deny that the Wahabbi style of Islam promotes a value system that suppresses some of basic elements of human freedoms such as freedom of religion. In addition, it promotes suppression of women in different ways.
In one of my recent Op-Eds I raised the issue that the progressive elements within Saudi Arabia need to use the power of the religion itself to promote values of freedom and liberty as the Muslim on the street needs to have religious justification for these values to adopt them. I was both happy and surprised to see an active application of this principle -which is to use religion to bring the Muslim world to modernity- by the Saudi system.
For years the religious police in Saudi Arabia ("Haiat Al-Amr Bil-Maaroof Wa Al-nahei An Al-Munkar") was advocating separation between men and women in education and daily life activity. Many other parts of the Muslim world and Islamic societies have gradually adopted the same gender separation approach.
Since the most unexpected things often happen, last week Sheck Dr. Ahmed Ibn Khasem Al-Ghamdy the head of the religious police in Mecca (that used to punish people for mixing with the other gender) has announced that mixing between males and females is completely Islamic and permissible in the religion.
The Sheck actually accused those who promote a complete separation between different genders in education and in normal life activities for lack of correct knowledge about the true Islam.
It is important in this context to mention that, in traditional Islam a relative or a husband can be called Mahram and a stranger man is called Non-Mahram. A man and a Muslim woman can only mix together if he was a Maharam for her. This was the main Islamic theological reason for separating men and women in Education and in other activities.
Sheck Al-Ghamdy provided the following theological evidence to support his view that Muslim women can mix with Non-Mahram men. Al-Ghamdi's view was based on the following points:
1- Women (not men!) used to care for cleaning the hair of Prophet Mohamed.
2- The Hadith(s) (Non Quranic words of Prophet Mohamed) that forbids women from shaking hands with men or prevent mixing between men and women are weak Hadith(s) (i.e. neither accurate nor binding to Muslims)
3- Prophet Mohamed's disciples used to allow women to ride and sit with them on the back of the same hoarse or donkey (Note: This can be extended today to riding with a different gender on the same motor bike or a bike).
4- According to accurate (Sahih) Hadith any slave girl used to hold hands with the Prophet Mohamed and take him to where she wished.
5- Accurate Hadith supports that it is permitted for Muslim women to look to men.
(Note: In the above given examples men were considered Non-Mahram to the women.)
These revolutionary views of Sheck Al-Ghamdy are available (in Arabic) at the following Al-Arabia News website.
To understand the significance and the difficulty of making such a change in the Saudi society it is important to remember that Saudi Arabia's religious police stopped school girls from leaving a blazing building in March 2002 because they were not wearing correct Islamic dress, according to Saudi newspapers .
This novel approach -to allow the mixing of Muslim females and males- by some of the leading Saudi scholars gives evidence that Saudi Arabia is currently leading a gradual and progressive form of reformation of the Muslim world via providing fresh theology.
The initiative of interfaith dialogue by King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia and his very courageous decision to start the first University in the country that does not segregate students based on sex are two other steps taken by Saudi Arabia that must be applauded and encouraged as they can ultimately lead to a desperately needed reform in the Muslim world. I hope we will see more progressive steps by Saudi Arabia and other Islamic countries in the same direction of reform, freedom, and modernity.
tawfikhamid.com
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