No one seemed to mind this minor inconvenience. However, Sultaana Freeman did mind. Just prior to September 11, 2001 Sultaana had a photo taken for her driver's license. [top of page photo] All that showed were her dark blue eyes and a few square inches of skin. But now a full face photo was required. She refused to "Say Cheese" and provide such a photo. DMV even offered to make arrangements for the photo to be taken with only women present. No luck. As a devout Muslim, she claimed that to unveil her full face--- even before other women--- would defy Islamic law calling for female modesty. And so Sultaana refused to pose for a photo and the Florida Department of Motor Vehicles revoked her driver's license.

Sultaana filed a law suit. Enter the A.C.L.U. and their hand-picked (and fully funded) attorney, Howard Marks. The battle lines were now drawn. The Florida District Attorney's office claimed it was both a matter of law and a matter of national security that Sultaana comply. Her attorney, the A.C.L.U. backers and Ibrihim Hooper and his Council on American-Islamic Relations [CAIR] called it a matter of separation of Church and State... more specifically, separation of Mosque and State!

Inside the Orange County courthouse in Orlando, Florida, Sultaana outlined other measures her family uses to maintain their adherence to Islamic law. Her daughter's dolls, she testified, had no faces since images of the dolls' faces were considered taboo. Even the faces on cereal boxes were forbidden, said Freeman and so Freeman and her daughter blacked each one out carefully using black magic marker.

During her trial, Sultaana said, "It's a command from Allah. I veil to obey my Lord." We at Masada2000.org find it very interesting that Sultaana and her Islamic cheering squad claimed she was merely exercising her religious beliefs when, just a few months earlier, nineteen 9/11 Muslim hijackers were also exercising their religious beliefs and obeying Allah!

"She wants to drive. She needs to drive to take care of family needs," said Attorney Howard Marks. Sultaana added that, without a license, she could not drive to the store to buy diapers for her 6-month-old son or 2-year old daughter. The state's attorneys countered with the possibility that a future terrorist could use the excuse of religion to obtain a driver's license with his or her face covered.

Attorney Howard Marks, anticipating a battle over religious interpretation, called a local religious scholar, Safil Islam Abdul Ahad, an adjunct professor of history at the University of Central Florida, to discuss the role of the veil in Islam. "My opinion is that it is mandatory for a woman to wear a veil," said Ahad, reciting a passage from the religion's holy book, the Quran. Ahad, whose beard appeared to be partially dyed flaming reddish-orange, said only a life and death circumstance could justify the lifting of a Muslim woman's veil. On his cross-examination of Freeman, the Assistant District Attorney Vail pointed out at least one instance in which Freeman had been photographed without her veil after her conversion to Islam — for a mug shot!

It seems that before she became a Muslim, Sultaana Freeman was Sandra Keller, a nice Christian girl. The same year (1998) she married Abdul-Malik Freeman (who, before he converted to Islam, was simply Mark Freeman!), Sultaana was arrested in Illinois on a domestic battery of one of two foster children. Specifically, she beat the living s**t out of one of the two-year-old twin girls, even breaking the poor little kid's arm!  In 1999, Freeman pleaded guilty to aggravated battery and was sentenced to 18 months probation. The twins girls were subsequently removed from her care. And so Sultaana/Sandra forever became a convicted felon. But let's not be so hard on this convicted child-beating Muslim convert. Perhaps her husband, Abdul-Malik/Mark/Whatever, set a bad example for he enjoyed firing his handguns into the air in 'da hood' and was even caught selling fake ID's to other wannabe Muslims.

Any devout American Muslim women (even convicted child-beating Muslim converts like Sultaana)--- who claims that she must not transfix her kisser upon a driver's license--- might be interested in what is expected in Muslim countries. In Egypt, for example, women do not cover their faces in I.D. pictures. In the United Arab Emirates, women do not cover their faces in I.D. pictures. In Oman, women do not cover their faces in I.D. pictures. In Kuwait, women do not cover their faces in I.D. pictures. In Qatar, women do not cover their faces in I.D. pictures. In Bahrain, women do not cover their faces in I.D. pictures. [In Saudi Arabia women are not allowed to drive!]

Sultaana Freeman, né Sandra Keller, was born of an American on American soil, was raised in an American home, learned to drive on American roads and agreed to obey American rules of the road. Yet she had the nerve to tell the DMV to literally go screw themselves and then dragged the Florida legal system through the ringer. What Sandra/Sultaana was told was exactly what we were all told, namely, "Driving is a privilege, not a right."  And so to Sultaana and all the other Sultaanas out there, we say "Smile for the camera" or "Take a bus!"