An Australian Muslim cleric has come under fire for telling followers they can hit their wives and force them to have sex.
In a 2003 lecture given in either Sydney, Samir Abu Hamza speaks out against forced marriages but cites Koranic verse to justify the claim that it is "impossible" for a husband to rape his partner even if she refuses to have sex — and mocks Australian rape laws that contradict the teaching.
"If the husband was to ask her for a sexual relationship and she is preparing the bread on the stove, she must leave it and come and respond to her husband — she must respond," he says in the sermon Keys to a Successful Marriage.
"In this country if the husband wants to sleep with his wife and she does not want to and she hasn't got a sickness or whatever, there is nothing wrong with her she just does not feel like it, and he ends up sleeping with her by force ... it is known to be as rape.
"Amazing, how can a person rape his wife?"
Hamza also delivers contradictory teachings on domestic violence, initially telling followers not to hit their wives but later instructing them on how to do so.
"First of all advise them [then] you beat them … but this is the last resort," he says.
"After you have advised them for a long, long time then you smack them, you beat them and, please, brothers, calm down — the beating the Mohammed showed is like the toothbrush that you use to brush your teeth.
"You are not allowed to bruise them, you are not allowed to make them bleed."
When questioned about his claims by the Herald Sun, Mr Hamza said male or female partners should be able to demand or receive sex but refused to comment further.
But his interpretations have drawn criticism from prominent Muslim women, who say that no forms of family violence are acceptable under Islam.
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