Women and bicycling in Islam

The first Western travelers with bicycles were documented in the Ottoman Empire starting in 1885,[1] including an American woman, Annie Londonderry, who made a bike trip around the world from 1894 to 1895.

[1] By 1906, bicycles had become part of the urban landscape of Istanbul, used by the police, postal workers, and the army as a means of transport, but also regarded as a vehicle for "sport".

[2] Orthodox scholars claimed that cycling would harm reproductive organs, embolden sexual permissiveness and lead to the destruction of the family.

[2] Raab reports that many Muslim religious authorities castigated women's cycling as bid’ah (any technical innovation deemed heretical).

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.

[15] In the winter of 2015–2016, the Clean Tuesday Project aimed to improve air quality in Iranian cities with a weekly car-free day.

This was published in the Vaghayeh Etefaghieh daily newspaper, tweeted by Shahindokht Molaverdi, the Presidential Advisor on Women and Family Affairs, and, in the last week of August, proclaimed on signs held up by activists on major cycle routes in Tehran.

Ayatollah Naser Makarem Shirazi commented in qualified support of this ruling, saying that there was nothing intrinsically wrong with women cycling, although individuals should evaluate the risk of danger or sinfullness raised by specific situations.

[15] On September 6, a "Clean Tuesday" ride in Tehran was broken up by police, despite the participation of government officials, on grounds that it did not have prior approval from the Municipal Security Council.

[15] On September 18,[12] Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei reversed his statement of some weeks before, saying in a written answer to an anonymous question[12] that women were not allowed to cycle in public, nor in the presence of strangers.

[14][13] In September 2018, Isfahan Friday Prayer Leader Ayatollah Yousef Tabatabaeinejad gave a sermon condemning women cycling, on the grounds that sinful glances at them would lead to moral corruption.