Until June 2018, women were not allowed to drive in Saudi Arabia, the only country in the world at the time with such a restriction. On 26 September 2017, King Salman decreed that women would be allowed to gain driver's licenses in the Kingdom, which would effectively grant women the right to drive, within the next year. Salman's decision was backed by a majority of the Council of Senior Religious Scholars. Salman's orders gave responsible departments 30 days to prepare reports for implementation of this, with the target of removing the ban on women's drivers licenses by June 2018. Newspaper editorials in support of the decree claimed that women were allowed to ride camels in the time of Muhammad. The ban was lifted on 24 June 2018, with more than 120,000 women applying for licenses on that day.