Women Should Give Two Blows for Each Received: Egypt Sheikh's Stand on Domestic Violence

Sunni Islam's highest authority has approved a woman's right to fight back if her husband uses violence against her, Egypt's Al-Masry al-Youm newspaper reported on Monday.

Defying an age-old tradition of domestic violence and the tide of criticism that he might have to face, Sunni Islam's highest authority has approved a woman's right to use force and fight back if her husband physically tortures her. The report was carried in Egypt's Al-Masry al-Youm newspaper on Monday.

The declaration by Sheikh Abdel Hamid al-Atrash, who heads Al-Azhar University's committee for fatwas or religious rulings, comes after similar rulings by religious leaders in Saudi Arabia and Turkey.

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"A wife has the legitimate right to hit her husband in order to defend herself," Atrash was quoted as saying.

"Everyone has the right to defend themselves, whether they are a man or a woman... because all human beings are equal before God," he said.

Over the last few days, Saudi Sheikh Abdel Mohsen al-Abyakan stressed the fact that a wife should resort to "the same kind of violence" as her husband used against her, whether it be with a leather strap or a wire cable, the paper said.

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Prominent Turkish Muslim preacher and writer Fethullah Gulen went one step further and ruled that a woman should return the violence with interest.

"She should give back two blows for each one received," the paper quoted him as saying.

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Rights groups quoted by Amnesty International say that 35 percent of Egyptian women killed each year die as a result of domestic violence.

Source-AFP
TAN/L

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