This piece was written by Dawood Al-Shirian, a columnist, the Deputy General Manager of Al Arabiya, and Editor in Chief of alarabiya.net. This article was first published in al-Hayat on Sept. 26, 2011 and translated from Arabic by Sonia Farid.

Until yesterday, Saudi women were hopeful about the right to vote in municipal elections, but King Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz gave them their political rights all at once. Now, the Saudi woman is entitled to be a member of the Consultative (Shura) Assembly and can also vote and run in municipal elections. That is why we say that King Abdullah’s decision to grant Saudi women those rights is a historic precedent as far as the issue of Saudis dealing with the role of women in society and politics is concerned.

Women have still not been given full political rights in several Arab countries and even countries amongst them that have had parliaments since the early 20th century place restrictions on women’s full access to those rights. That is why the Saudi step did not really come late in comparison to the status of women in other Arab countries; rather it has served Arab women and the role they are to play in the future. King Abdullah’s decision did not only shorten women’s journey towards playing a leading role in their countries, but also resolved the ongoing debate about the issue when he expressed his objection to the marginalization of women as long as their work is in line with Islamic laws; he stressed that senior Islamic scholars endorsed this approach.

There is no doubt that the reluctance of several Arab and Muslim countries regarding the political role of women was for religious reasons and this had been the case for decades. However, when a country with Saudi’s religious stature takes such a historic step ─ after consulting with religious scholars ─ it opens the door for women’s political participation in an unprecedented way and makes it very hard for Islamist parties to argue otherwise. When King Abdullah stressed that women have played a role since the Prophet’s time and that this role cannot be overlooked, he eliminated any other arguments that might try to prove otherwise.

The fact that the king’s decision was backed by religious scholars is bound to garner support for women’s rights in the Arab and Islamic world. This will change the way society looks upon women, thus opening them to new horizons.