Wednesday, 20 October 2010

President of the Islamic Sharia Council in Britain: Rape within marriage is not really a rape but a husband's right

The cleric, Sheikh Maulana Abu Sayeed, said there under Sharia law, there is no such thing as rape within marriage. So what if infidel laws say it's illegal? Sharia trumps their laws.
(The Independent) A senior Muslim cleric who runs the country's largest network of sharia courts has sparked controversy by claiming that there is no such thing as rape within marriage.

Sheikh Maulana Abu Sayeed, president of the Islamic Sharia Council in Britain, said that men who rape their wives should not be prosecuted because "sex is part of marriage". And he claimed that many married women who alleged rape were lying.

His comments have angered senior police officers, who say that such statements undermine the work they do to encourage women to report rape, a notoriously under-reported crime.

Sheikh Sayeed made the comments in an interview with the blog The Samosa, before reiterating them later when contacted by The Independent.

He told the website: "Clearly there cannot be any rape within the marriage. Maybe aggression, maybe indecent activity... Because when they got married, the understanding was that sexual intercourse was part of the marriage, so there cannot be anything against sex in marriage. Of course, if it happened without her desire, that is no good, that is not desirable."

Later he told this newspaper: "In Islamic sharia, rape is adultery by force. So long as the woman is his wife, it cannot be termed as rape. It is reprehensible, but we do not call it rape."

British law was changed in 1991, making rape within marriage illegal.

Dave Whatton, Chief Constable of Cheshire and spokesman on rape for the Association of Chief Police Officers, said: "We know that the majority of rapes do not take place through strangers attacking women late at night but between acquaintances and within marriages and partnerships.

"It is a fundamental principle that sharia law should not replace the laws of the UK. Putting out views that rape can be dealt with in another way fundamentally undermines everything we are trying to do."

More...
Moderate UAE: Muslims Allowed to Beat Their Wives and Young Children As Long as They Don't Leave Marks

In the moderate Muslim country of the UAE, a man was found guilty of slapping his wife so hard that he damaged her bottom lip and teeth. He also slapped and kicked his 23-year-old daughter, so that she suffered bruises on her hand and knee.

He appealed claiming that even if he had intended to strike his wife and daughter, under Shariah law he had the right to do so.

This needs no comment.

Men ALLOWED to beat their wives and young children (as long as they don't leave any marks), rules UAE court Daily Mail (hat tip Pt C)

Husbands are allowed to beat their wives and children - as long as they don’t leave any physical marks, an Islamic court in the United Arab Emirates has ruled.

The astonishing legal ruling gives all husbands and fathers in the ultra-rich Gulf state the 'right to discipline' female family members if they have first attempted reconciliation.

The judgment was made by one of the UAE’s most senior judges, Chief Justic Falah al Hajeri, who made the ruling in the case of a man fined £85 for slapping his wife and kicking his daughter.

Permission to beat: The UAE's highest judicial body has ruled a man can assault his wife and young children as long as he leaves no physical marks

The Emirati man in the case was found guilty of slapping his wife so hard he damaged her bottom lip and teeth.

He also slapped and kicked his 23-year-old daughter so that she suffered bruises on her hand and knee.

While the defendant, who has not been named, initially claimed he hit the two women only by accident, he was found guilty of assault.

However, he appealed, claiming that even if he had intended to strike his wife and daughter, under Shariah law he had the right to do so if he had first exhausted all other ways of resolving the dispute.

Chief Justice Falah al Hajeri said: 'Although the law permits the husband to use his right to discipline, he has to abide by the limits of this right.

'If the husband abuses this right to discipline, he cannot be exempted from punishment.'

Mr al Hajeri went on to explain that one of the ways of determining whether a man had breached this limit was to look for physical traces of beating.

While the ruling was greeted with anger by many Arab world commentators, others claimed it is a ‘real-life compromise’ between the competing demands of the petro-state’s highly Westernised population and its conservative Muslim heritage.

Posted by Britannia Radio at 09:01