Muslim men have right to demand sex from wives: sheik

Sheik Shady Alsuleiman has preached men have the right to demand sex from their wives.

Sheik Shady Alsuleiman. Picture: James Croucher

Sheik Shady Alsuleiman, the lead signatory on a Muslim community letter condemning “all forms of intimidation and abuse targeting women”, has preached men have the right to demand sex from their wives and to control them when they leave the house.

Mr Alsuleiman, who has said gay men spread diseases and was caught in a furore after attending the Prime Minister’s iftar dinner last year, gave a multi-part lecture on the rights of the spouse around the same time in which he revealed the responsibilities each has to the other.

The president of the Australian National Imams Council argued an Islamic hadith that says men have “authority” over their wives should be interpreted as meaning they have a responsibility to care for them.

Nevertheless, he said, each have responsibilities to the other which, in the modern understanding of domestic violence, equates to abuse.

“When a husband calls his wife to bed and if she rejects him, the angels will continue to curse her until morning,” he told his followers at Lakemba.

“A husband has rights to fulfil his sexual desires from his wife; a man has that right.”

Mr Alsuleiman says this right is reciprocated and that women are permitted to have their desires filled, also.

What women cannot do, he says, is bring anyone — not even their own mother or father — into their husband’s house without his permission.

Nor can they leave it without consent.

Mr Alsuleiman, who as a sheik provides Islamic marriage counselling to couples, said one man asked if this applied to his wife “going into the backyard to collect the washing”.

“This person has lost the plot, but at the end of the day it is his right,” Mr Alsuleiman says.

The letter denouncing domestic violence is signed by more than 30 prominent Muslim figures including TV presenter Waleed Aly and campaigner against Islamophobia Mariam Veiszadeh.

“Islam categorically prohibits and denounces the abuse of women. There is absolutely no justification for men to demean, threaten or abuse women, whether symbolically or otherwise,” the note says.

“Domestic violence is a growing problem that cuts across all communities and it is everyone’s obligation to stand firmly against all forms of intimidation and abuse targeting women. Violence destroys lives; it profoundly harms women, harms children who witness it, destroys families and undermines the integrity and cohesion of the community.”