British Muslim women don't need male chaperones - this isn't 7th century Arabia

If you're a British Muslim woman living in Blackburn, you may no longer be allowed to travel alone - without a male chaperone.

Blackburn Muslim Association has deemed it “not permissible” for Muslim women to travel more than 48 miles - deemed to be equivalent to three days walk - without her husband or a male relative. Their reasoning - which appears in the question and answer section of the group’s site -  is taken from Sharia teaching, and ends with the catchphrase: “Allah knows best.”

Many have been quick to condemn the advice. Justine Greening, the International Development Secretary, called it “disgraceful”. While Dr Sheik Howjat Ramzy, a prominent adviser to the Muslim Council, says, the guidance isn’t just “medieval”, it's downright “offensive.”

Telling a British Muslim woman, in 2016, that she cannot visit a neighbouring town, city or even a country without a man by her side (and one she’s related to), is vile.

What does it say about the strong, successful Muslim women here in the UK right now?

Should Baroness Warsi drop out of politics because her husband isn’t there to escort her to a conference? Should Mishal Husain stop presenting the Today programme on Radio 4 in case it requires travelling alone? Perhaps comedian Shazia Mirza needs to cancel her latest stand-up tour because there’s no man to accompany her.

The whole notion is not only ludicrous, it’s also very sad.

Muslim women in the west already have it hard. Chances are they've faced some form of Islamophobia  in their lives – whether overt racism or prejudicial beliefs – especially if they wear a veil or headscarf that acts as a visible symbol of their religion.

Last year, MetPolice statistics showed that hate crimes against Muslims in London rose by 70 per cent that year. Tell MAMA, an organising that monitors Islamophobic attacks, believed women were the primary targets.

This week, it emerged that seven Muslim women are suing a café in California. They claim that the Urth Caffe in Laguna Beach asked them to leave for being “visibly Muslim”, using the fact that they’d outstayed their allocated table time as an excuse. The café has denied the claims - but one woman Sara Farsakh says she “truly believes” they were “singled out.”

I’m not Muslim but I have had personally experienced a slice of what it might be like as a Muslim woman in the west.

In 2013 wore a niqab for 24 hours in an attempt to better understand how Muslim women are treated. An airport official in Brussels told me “if you don’t want to show your face, don’t come to our country”. And on public transport in London, I felt like a ghost - as people averted their eyes whenever I walked past.

The whole experience was enough to make me want to cry - and I (a non-Muslim) only stepped into the shoes of a Muslim woman for 24 hours.

It was  in the days shortly before Islamic State dominated the news - and further impacted society's perceptions about Islam.  

Life in the west is clearly no easy ride for Muslim women – so why on earth are their own communities trying to make it even harder?

The fact that ‘Yusuf Shabbir’ of Blackburn answered a member’s question about a woman travelling alone by saying “it’s not permissible”, is shocking. His response, which says a woman cannot even travel alone on a religious pilgrimage to Hajj, has no place in modern Britain.

Justine Greening added: "I think the Blackburn Muslim Association should very clearly and publicly withdraw those comments.”

She’s right. No one has a right to tell women how to live their lives. As one Muslim woman on Twitter put it: “we’re not in seventh century Arabia”.