Rowdha Yousef Unites Saudi Women Against Liberalization

Beyond the Veil | We must process fully what we’re reading before commenting. First off, we neglected to publish last week an important NYT article: Talk of Women’s Rights Divides Saudi Arabia. Rowdha Yousef has started a anti-liberalization of women’s rights campaign with 15 other women called “My Guardian Knows What’s Best for Me.”

Within two months, they had collected more than 5,400 signatures on a petition “rejecting the ignorant requests of those inciting liberty” and demanding “punishments for those who call for equality between men and women, mingling between men and women in mixed environments, and other unacceptable behaviors.” via NYT

Yousef’s agressive insistance that men know what’s best for Saudi women comes the same week that a rash of “fresh fatwas were issued out of Saudi Arabia, one of them highly sensational on breastfeeding men.

(On the subject of Saudi women driving ) …  Council of Senior Scholars Dr. Qais al-Mubarak said that the issue should be discussed by the scholars in a “purely legal” context. He stated: “Saying that women are not allowed to drive cars means that Allah would sanction them for doing that. However, this conclusion can only be reached through an explicit text in the Qoran or the Sunnah or through syllogism in one of them. In the absence of something of the sort, the ban is null.”  via Alarabiya

With regard to the fatwa on breastfeeding adult men, we’re not writing one word, except to say that it’s moved from AOL to The Frisky, which means it will be all over the Internet. AOL’s article reference on Gulf News is removed. The Alarabiya article also discusses the breastfeeding adult men fatwa.