Women and bicycling in Islam: Difference between revisions

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{{Short description|Women biking or bicycling in Muslim world}}
{{Short description|Women biking or bicycling in Muslim world}}


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'''Bicycling in Islam''' is a topic of discussion in Islam, primarily in regard to its use by [[Women in Islam|Muslim women]]. Religious scholars are worried in particular about the effects of cycling on women's [[Modesty#Islam|modesty]] (not revealing the body) and mobility (social control).
'''Bicycling in Islam''' is a topic of discussion in Islam, primarily in regard to its use by [[Women in Islam|Muslim women]]. Religious scholars are worried in particular about the effects of cycling on women's [[Modesty#Islam|modesty]] (not revealing the body) and mobility (social control).


Revision as of 16:03, 6 March 2023

Bicycling in Islam is a topic of discussion in Islam, primarily in regard to its use by Muslim women. Religious scholars are worried in particular about the effects of cycling on women's modesty (not revealing the body) and mobility (social control).

In some parts of the Ottoman Empire, bicycling was taken up by women in the early 1900s. Women have fought against opposition from orthodox religious scholars and conservatives, while moderates maintain that there is textual evidence that Muslim women should be allowed, and even encouraged, to cycle. Regardless, increasing numbers of Muslim women have participated in cycle rallies and international competitions in recent years.

History

Cycling was likely first introduced to the Islamic world by Western travelers such as William Sachtelben in the early 1890's, including several women, like American Annie Londonderry in her bike trip around the world from 1894 to 1895.[1][2]

According to Alon Raab, a professor of Religious Studies at UC Davis, opposition to cycling in the Ottoman Empire was quick to form from conservatives and religious fundamentalists who frequently criticized bicycles as the Devil’s Chariot.[3] Orthodox scholars claimed that cycling would harm reproductive organs, embolden sexual permissiveness and lead to the destruction of the family.[3] Raab additionally notes that their unmentioned objective was to keep women in their homes and to restrict non supervised contact between men and women.[3] Raab reports that many Muslim religious authorities castigated women's cycling as bid’ah (any technical innovation deemed heretical).[3] He points out that women's cycling was not only criticized in the media and by law but in some places female cyclists faced physical assaults. He reports nevertheless, that despite opposition, in the early 20th-century women in the Ottoman Empire went on to adopt cycling for varied purposes with a new sense of freedom.[2] Feminist activists' efforts to expand the political rights of women, like those of Fatma Aliye Topuz, were helped along by the bicycle.[2][3]

Current attitudes and legal status

Ebtissam Zayed Ahmed Mohamed is an Egyptian road and track cyclist.

Conservative perspectives

The primary concern of religious scholars is that bicycling, especially in public spaces, could lead to increased sexual promiscuity.[4] This belief is based on the Quran's requirement that women should protect their chastity. It initially led to the prohibition of horseback riding and was later extended to cycling.[5]

The 1977 book Women in the Arab World by the Egyptian feminist Nawal El Saadawi, reports that Arab culture used to place undue importance on female virginity. For example, a girl whose hymen was damaged as a result of sports activities like cycling or horse riding had to face negative consequences in her family life and social stature.[6]

Critical response

Critics condemn bicycle bans and the proposed Iranian prohibition as tools of oppression.[7][8] Traditions record that Muhammad encouraged parents to teach their children swimming, riding and archery.[9][10] There is a commonly shared hadith that recounts a race between Muhammad and his wife, Aisha.[11] Persian miniatures show Muslim women playing polo with men in the same field.[12]

Legal status

In Yemen, many remain hostile to the idea of women cyclists, with statements such as "Women riding bicycles is far worse than the current war."[13]

In Saudi Arabia, women are banned from cycling for transportation purposes. Cycling may only be used for recreation and is subject to various religious restrictions.[14]

In Iran, cycling in public spaces has been banned under a fatwa since 2016, despite widespread resistance amongst Iranian women.[15] To address modesty concerns, a proposed Iranian version of a women's bicycle would have a "boxy contraption that hides a woman's lower body".[16] Advocates of women cyclists have been attacked by vigilantes.[17]

In Turkey, as of 2015, only 0.06% of adult women ride bikes to go shopping or to go to work.[18]

Cycling events and competitions

Süslü Kadınlar Bisiklet Turu @ -Urla

In May 2008, Queen Rania Al Abdullah of Jordan along with Syrian First Lady Asma Akras Al Asad took part in the fourth annual "Follow the Women" bicycle tour from Beirut to Bethlehem, which involved 250 women cyclists from 26 countries.[19] That year, Iran was the country with the largest number of tour participants,[20] while Turkey entered 20 cyclists, sponsored by Turkish First Lady Emine Erdoğan.[21] The 350-mile cycle ride for peace was organised to promote solidarity between Middle Eastern and western nations.[20]

Fancy Women Bike Ride (Turkish: Süslü Kadinlar Bisiklet Turu ) was started by Sema Gur, a high school teacher from Turkey.[22] In 2013, three hundred women from Izmir, Turkey, participated in a Chic Women Bike Ride, which in subsequent years grew as an annual international event known as the Fancy Women Bike Ride on Car-Free Days.[23] For the Fancy Women Bike Ride, women decorate their bikes and instead of wearing sporty biking gear, they dress and make themselves up as colorfully and fancifully as they like.[22][23]

Female cyclists

Masomah Ali Zada

Fatehah Mustapa is a Malaysian track cyclist.[24] She competed in the keirin race at the 2012 Summer Olympics, where she placed 15th.[25]

Faced with threats from the Taliban, in 2016 the Afghan road cyclist Masomah Ali Zada fled Afghanistan and claimed asylum in France under a humanitarian visa.[26] She took part in the 2020 Olympic Games as part of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) Refugee Olympic Team.[22]

In popular culture

Roozi ke zan shodam (The Day I Became a Woman) is a 2000 award-winning Iranian drama film; one of three female character is Ahoo a married woman who strives to escape contraints of being woman by participating in a cycling race against wishes of her husband, family and the clergy.[27]

Wadjda is a feature film, directed by directed by Haifaa al-Mansour, first one shot entirely in Saudi Arabia[28][29][30][31] The feature film story revolves around dream of a 10 year old girl named Wadjda to own a green bicycle. According to Bruce Bennett, senior lecturer at Lancaster Institute for the Contemporary Arts, Movies about women and girls on bicycle frequently depict potential of bicycles in enabling female agency by making the riders mobile and move.[32] Bennett says both the movies Wadjda and The Day I Became a Woman use bicycle as formidable metaphor for independence.[32]

See also

Bibliography

  • White, Nóra. 'Cycling as Resistance: Women living under Islamic Authoritarianism', Vol. 5 No. 1 (2021-12-06): Trinity Women & Gender Minorities Review V Link PDF
  • Lily Song, Mariel Kirschen and John Taylor. Gender and cycling in Solo, Indonesia. Singapore Journal of Tropical Geography Volume 40, Issue 1 p. 140-157 (13 July 2018) https://doi.org/10.1111/sjtg.12257
  • Hossain Mohiuddin, Shaila Jamal, Md Musfiqur Rahman Bhuiya, To bike or not to bike: Exploring cycling for commuting and non-commuting in Bangladesh, Transportation Research Interdisciplinary Perspectives, Volume 14, 2022, ISSN 2590-1982, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.trip.2022.100614
  • Raab Alon, Women cycling in the Middle East url=https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9781003142041-52/wheels-fire-alon-raab work=Routledge Companion to Cycling doi=10.4324/9781003142041-52/wheels-fire-alon-raab

References

  1. ^ Allen, Thomas Gaskell; Sachtleben, William Lewis (1894). Across Asia on a Bicycle. p. 14. ISBN 978-1587420207.
  2. ^ a b c Raab, Alon (31 October 2022), "Wheels of Fire", Routledge Companion to Cycling (1 ed.), London: Routledge, pp. 396–398, doi:10.4324/9781003142041-52, ISBN 978-1-003-14204-1, retrieved 7 February 2023, ".. Fatma Aliye Topuz's struggle for liberation was aided by the bicycle, ..., and for many other women across the Ottoman Middle East, .. . Bicycles were an important part of the emerging feminist movement in the region. The first cyclists in the region were western travellers, starting in the 1880s, including several women, notably globe-trotting American Annie Londonderry in 1894–95. Bicycles elicited curiosity and a desire by many to participate. .. As cost went down, .. Cyclists soon appeared in other large regional urban centers and in eastern Mediterranean port cities ..., ... . ... Still, women cyclists persisted. . ..., the bicycle offered Ottoman women cyclists a new sense of freedom of mobility that extended to other areas of life. ... .
  3. ^ a b c d e Raab, Alon (31 October 2022), "Wheels of Fire", Routledge Companion to Cycling (1 ed.), London: Routledge, pp. 396–398, doi:10.4324/9781003142041-52, ISBN 978-1-003-14204-1, retrieved 7 February 2023, ... . As in other lands, opposition to cycling was quick to appear, mostly from conservative elements and religious fundamentalists who often labeled it the Devil's Chariot. Several Muslim religious authorities designated it as bid'ah (any technological innovation deemed heretical) with bans on cycling in Yemen and Saudi Arabia. In other places most of the attacks – expressed in the press but also in laws and physical assaults on riders – were directed at women cyclists. Claims that cycling harms reproductive organs, encourages sexual permissiveness and the destruction of the family were common. Unstated was the desire to confine women to their homes and to prevent unsupervised meetings between men and women. Still, women cyclists persisted. . ...
  4. ^ Mehrabi, Ehsan (22 October 2020). "مخالفت با دوچرخه سواری زنان در ایران؛ "دختر تهرانی مثل دختر چینی نیست"". BBC News Persian (in Persian). Retrieved 9 February 2023.
  5. ^ Backer, Larry Catá (2007). Harmonizing Law in an Era of Globalization Convergence, Divergence, and Resistance. Carolina Academic Press. p. 285. ISBN 978-0-89089-585-6.
  6. ^ Saʻdāwī, Nawāl. (2007). The very fine membrane called 'honour' (New ed.). London: Bloomsbury Academic. p. 38. ISBN 978-1-84277-874-6. OCLC 81453459. .. No girl can suffer a worst fate than she whom nature has forgotten to provide with a hymen, or whose hymen is so delicate that it is torn away and lost by repeated riding on a bicycle or a horse, or by masturbation, or one of those minor accidents that happen so often in childhood .. {{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help)
  7. ^ Milani, Farzaneh (28 June 2007). "'Islamic Bicycle' Can't Slow Iranian Women". USA Today. McLean, Virginia. Archived from the original on 24 February 2020. Retrieved 2 June 2020.
  8. ^ Lloyd, Sophie (25 October 2016). "A Woman's Right to Bike". Ms. Retrieved 2 June 2020.
  9. ^ Al-Hassani, Salim (Spring 2012). "A 1000 Years Amnesia: Sports in Muslim Heritage". MuslimHeritage.com. Foundation for Science, Technology and Civilisation. Retrieved 30 June 2015.
  10. ^ Muslim women and sport. Tansin Benn, Gertrud Pfister, H. A. Jawad. London: Routledge. 2011. p. 32. ISBN 0-415-49076-6. OCLC 1086928918. .. There is nothing in the Quran or Hadith that explicitly precludes men's or women's participation in physical activities provided it does not take precedence over faith (Daiman 1994). Hence, the 'Accept and Respect' declaration claims that 'Islam is an enabling religion that does not preclude women's participation in physical activities'. The Hadith texts contain some examples from Prophet's life that can be used to support the participation and equality of opportunity for girls and boys. Examples of the time describe children persuing swimming shooting and horse-riding (Hadith- Caliph 634-44 H, 20-21). ..{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: others (link)
  11. ^ Kipnis, Hillary; Caudwell, Jayne (2015). "The Boxers of Kabul: Women, Boxing and Islam". In Channon, Alex (ed.). Global Perspectives on Women in Combat Sports: Women Warriors around the World. Palgrave Macmillan. p. 45. ISBN 9781137439369.
  12. ^ Al-Hassani, Salim (Spring 2012). "A 1000 Years Amnesia: Sports in Muslim Heritage". MuslimHeritage.com. Foundation for Science, Technology and Civilisation. Retrieved 30 June 2015.
  13. ^ "Yemen: Women get on their bikes for their rights". Oxfam International. 25 May 2022. Retrieved 9 February 2023.
  14. ^ "Saudi Arabian Women Get Their First-Ever Bike Race". Bicycling. 23 April 2018. Retrieved 9 February 2023.
  15. ^ Cockburn, Paige (21 September 2016). "Iranian women hit the pedals to protest against fatwa banning female cycling". ABC News Australia. Retrieved 9 February 2023.
  16. ^ Slackman, Michael (9 September 2007). "Molding the Ideal Islamic Citizen". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 13 June 2015. Retrieved 2 June 2020.
  17. ^ Theodoulou, Michael (24 October 2010). "Women Cyclists Face Jail, Warns Iranian Police Chief". The National. Abu Dhabi. Retrieved 8 March 2014.
  18. ^ "Pedal power gets Turkish makeover - Al-Monitor: Independent, trusted coverage of the Middle East". www.al-monitor.com. Retrieved 10 February 2023.
  19. ^ Madden, Steve, ed. (August 2008). "Pedaling for peace". Bicycling. Vol. 44, No. 7. USA: Rodale Inc. p. 34. ISSN 0006-2073.
  20. ^ a b Ferguson, Keith (8 May 2008). "Cyclists trek through Middle East to promote peace". Times Advocate. Wicked Local. Retrieved 26 February 2023.
  21. ^ Azzi, Iman (12 May 2008). "Women on two wheels: A Middle East dialogue tour". Christian Science Monitor. Retrieved 26 February 2023.
  22. ^ a b c "Tokyo Olympics: Cyclist Masomah Ali Zada is a symbol of hope and inspiration". BBC. Retrieved 29 March 2022.
  23. ^ a b Johnson, Ron (15 September 2022). "Fancy Women Bike Ride celebrates 10 glorious years". Retrieved 10 February 2023.
  24. ^ "BBC Sport – London 2012 Olympics". BBC. 13 August 2012. Retrieved 13 November 2013.
  25. ^ "Women's Keirin Standings". London2012.com. LOCOG. Archived from the original on 8 December 2012. Retrieved 12 November 2012.
  26. ^ "Masomah Ali Zada: The Female Afghan Cyclist Competing On The Olympic Refugee Team | PEP UNLIMITED LLC". Retrieved 29 March 2022.
  27. ^ "About the Film". Official site. Archived from the original on 17 January 2008. Retrieved 8 March 2008.
  28. ^ "Cannes 2012: Saudi Arabia's First Female Director Brings 'Wadjda' to Fest". The Hollywood Reporter. 15 May 2012. Retrieved 8 September 2012.
  29. ^ "Saudi's first female director seeks to break gender taboos". TimesLIVE. Retrieved 8 September 2012.
  30. ^ Macnab, Geoffrey (15 May 2012). "Al Mansour reveals struggles of directing Wadjda". Screen Daily. Retrieved 8 September 2012.
  31. ^ "First film shot in Saudi to debut at Cannes". Arabian Business. Retrieved 8 September 2012.
  32. ^ a b Bennett, Bruce (31 October 2022), "Cycling and cinema", Routledge Companion to Cycling, London: Routledge, pp. 28, 115, ISBN 978-1-003-14204-1, retrieved 13 February 2023

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