Former president challenges traditionalists in Saudi Arabia speech
Posted: January 19, 2004
5:00 p.m. Eastern
© 2004 WorldNetDaily.com
Speaking at a conference in Saudi Arabia, former President Bill Clinton told a Muslim audience Islam's founder Muhammad would have let women drive if cars had been around 1,400 years ago.
 Former President Bill Clinton |
Clinton urged the Muslim kingdom, which follows the strict Wahhabi interpretation of Islam, to not resist the "tide of change" in the world and seek ways of broadening political participation "without compromising your faith and culture," Reuters reported.
Saudi Arabia bars women from driving and being seen in public with men other than family members.
A fatwa, or edict, issued by the head of the country's Department of Religious Research, Missionary Activities and Guidance in 1990 declared women should not be allowed to drive because Islam supports women's dignity.
Clinton said, however, Muhammad would have let his wife get behind the wheel.
"He probably would have made Saudi Arabia the first automobile producing nation on earth and put her in charge of the business," he said, according to Reuters.
The former president was speaking at a conference in the Red Sea port of Jeddah, where women delegates, covered in black robes, were separated in the meeting hall from the men by a screen.
In 1990, 47 Saudi women defied the fatwa and staged a "drive-in" in Riyadh, cruising around the capital for about 15 minutes. The women apparently were inspired by American female soldiers among the troops in the country during the 1991 Gulf War. As punishment, the Saudis lost their jobs and passports for two years, and religious groups distributed flyers denouncing them as "fallen women."
Clinton said Saudi policy "cannot be based in the long run on fighting change because you cannot fight the tide of change," Reuters reported.
Acknowledging a "tug-of-war" between "an old order and a new world" in Saudi Arabia, he called for education "which does not exclude religion but includes science, technology and political science."
The desert kingdom is facing a new wave of terrorist attacks by the al-Qaida network led by Saudi-born Osama bin Laden.
Clinton suggested Saudi Arabia could redirect aid channeled through religious
charities tied to terrorism and use it for humanitarian projects such as
providing drinking war in poor Islamic nations.
Behind an able man there are always other able men. - Chinese Proverb
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