Dr. Mohammad T. Al-Rasheed

To put it mildly, Sultaana Freeman of Florida is wrong. Going to court to have a veiled picture of her on an official document such as a driver’s license is utter madness. She might as well ask for an exemption.

Picture-less driver’s licenses are available in the UK for example. But then we will have to get into passports and other documents. With all due respect, Sultaana, your charade is simply that: A charade.

Even before the world hit these troubled times, pictures on documents were an international must.

The Florida court, wisely, cited the terror threat that is possible under such circumstances for refusing Sultaana’s request.

But they need not have bothered: They could have sited the Islamic rules governing such cases to satisfy Sultaana.

Every Arab and/or Muslim woman has to have her picture on a passport or a DL where they are allowed to drive. Are these women un-Islamic?

When Sultaana faces God to pray in a public place (with strangers around) she has to unveil her face so her prayer can be legitimate.

She cannot perform a prayer with her face veiled. Hypothetically, since Sultaana is already married, she has to unveil her face to a prospective husband who might take a look and run away.

The would-be husband remains a stranger and Sultaana would have unveiled herself to him. I should think this is equal to unveiling her face to a traffic warden or a supermarket cashier who is accepting a personal check from her.

I don’t pretend to teach Sultaana the Islamic creed, but surely there are points that are obviously clear.

In Arabia, those who choose not to have their pictures taken remain in the country and never get issued passports. Sultaana should relinquish her right to drive if she feels the same way. Instead, she makes a fuss about something that is not entirely Islamic and feeds the fire some more wood on both sides of ignorance.

There was a time when Saudi women were exempt from having their pictures on their passports.

My grandmother, who liked to spend her summers in Lebanon, could not be bothered to have passports issued to all her maids. Since she only took two of them on her trips, she rotated those two passports forever and ever, regardless which maid accompanied her.

It was an offense — harmless, but an offense nonetheless.

Times have changed and none of us, Muslim or otherwise, would feel safe in a world without proper identity.

So those on this side who are taking this issue as “yet another example of anti-Islamic” whatever in the USA should really calm down and look at things with less antagonism and more common sense.

- Arab News Opinion 12 June 2003