The Niqabi Paralegal

A story about a woman who wore her face veil for her driver's license photo is back in the news (thanks to reader Kobi Haron for the tip).

First of all, even scholars who consider the face veil to be obligatory (which is a minority of scholars) permit a woman to uncover her face in public when her identity needs to be verified. See for example this ruling by conservative Saudi scholar Shaykh Muhammad al-Munajjid. A similar view from a more moderate site is available here.

At the same time, I don't see why Sultana Freeman's license was revoked. Her ability to drive doesn't depend on her having a photo ID. Why not offer to give her a "paper" driver's license (i.e., no photo) that proves she's qualified to operate a motor vehicle? In situations where that's all that's at issue, she won't have to needlessly display a photo with her unveiled face when she pulls out her license. And she can get a separate photo ID for those situations when it's her identity not her qualification to drive that's at issue.

I think Freeman is wrongheaded to want to wear a face veil for photo ID, but I also think that the state of Florida is wrongheaded for denying her the right to drive (by revoking her license) because she wants what is in effect a non-photo driver's license.

In an interesting twist, Freeman formerly lived in Illinois. As it turns out, Illinois law permits people to get a non-photo driver's license for religious reasons (confirmed in this PDF document from the Illinois Secretary of State's office). Oddly enough, Illinois had issued Freeman a photo license in which she was wearing the face veil instead of asking her to claim the religious exemption and apply for a non-photo license, according to the article.

My research also found that the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration allows states to issue non-photo commercial driver's licenses if the driver has religious objections to a photo license. I'm looking to see what other jurisdictions allow non-photo driver's licenses for religious reasons.

Also, here's a lengthly article about driver's license integrity in the post-9/11 world. It generally argues against the trend to make driver's licenses serve as identity licenses.

Added: Aziz Poonawalla argues strongly against Freeman's case (May 20th entry). Also, the Florida branch of the ACLU has several pages about the case, from last year.