Imagine this… Senior Saudi cleric Abd Al-Muhsin Al-’Abikan has issued a fatwa banning (yes, you read that right, banning) Saudi men from marrying foreign women in the Kingdom. He does add that the marriage can only be done with a permit but again, that is also the law for any Saudi who wishes to marry a foreigner whether from within or outside the Kingdom. His words that trouble me though are that he says “marrying foreign women is for pleasure purposes only.” Now what exactly could he mean by that? I had always thought that Saudi men (and all men) who have relations to a woman outside of marriage was for pleasure purposes. Whereas marrying a woman is a sign of respect and commitment. Seems to me this is a fatwa based more on a play of words since approval has always been necessary (at least if the couple wish to live together legally in the Kingdom as husband and wife) and the insinuation I come away with is women are viewed as play things.
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I think this post is a powerful and accurate analysis of Abd Al-Muhsin Al-’Abikan’s words.
Well although it pisses me off too as the Prophet clearly said in Hadith it is best to marry forign women over local or relatives.
BUT in the cases of MOST Saudis not ALL I’d have to slightly agree with this that there should be more scrutiny as most of these MEN do just make temporary marriages or “pay off marriages” just to sleep with some Asian chick or “low cost” arab chick. The marraiges of Love and Such are the abnormal it seems and this is I guess what he’s attempting to go against…although I again AGREE his wording is messed up…..
Since when do governments and clerics get to decide whom people can marry. Does this man think he is God? Crazy!
what i have read was the banning of saudi marrying a non illegaly and there are some incidents of such things. But if he really meant that marrying a foreigner is for pleasure only, then he is fucked up in the head ( forry for the language ).
OH.
MY.
GAWD.
Can’t even form a comment.
Wait, yes I can:
WHAT THE HELL IS HE TALKING ABOUT?!!! “PLEASURE PURPOSES ONLY????!!!” Please someone explain that this was a mistranslation, before I get really angry.
While I can understand logic of the fatwa, if the ruler is just, then one assumes the laws he makes are just, but otherwise this kind of ruling is almost scandalous. If Islam is universal why should there be rulings about on particular nationality?
Wow… pleasure purposes only! I must’ve missed it when he was making house calls to determine if his opinion is actually correct.
MARRIAGE is for pleasure purposes only… lol… is this dude married?
i ‘ve not understood simple things!!
Once again, a great example of a cleric in Saudi going completely AGAINST Islam and making something haram that God has made halal. Do these men realise they are putting themselves before God?
I would hate to be one of these guys on the day of judgement!
Considering the whole purpose of marriage is to have halal sex…well then…marriage is for pleasure purposes only…all the rest is extra.
What a nut.
Glad Im not his wife…probably NOOOO pleasure at all.
that is so haram. They take what is halal and make it haram and take what is haram and make it halal.
Who do these people think they are playing with the religion with such flippancy!
I feel there may be different ways to read this fatwa. Perhaps something is lost in translation. Perhaps the cleric means that Saudi men are marrying foreign women for pleasure only and later deserting them, so now they can’t marry them unless they get a permit first. Seen from this angle, this may actually minimise the mishaps that take place in Saudi man-foreign woman marriges, because this fatwa requires the man to first get the marriage permit and then get married to foreign woman.
I am not trying to defend this fatwa and admit I may be wrong. Carol, please correct me if I am.
Of course the other perspective is the one that has been discussed here by many commentators – it is a way of controlling people’s personal lives, to the extent that the State decides whom a Saudi man should marry and whom he shouldn’t marry and makes foreign women as pleasure objects as opposed to Saudi women who may be “respectable” in the cleric’s mind, though that can be contested as well.
Looking at this post, it just crossed my mind that both readings are possible of this fatwa.
i hope that daisy is right.
but if she isnt … this is trully sad for saudi women as well as foreign women.
it gives a man a right to play outside of marrriage
and i say Oh eM Gee, What The Frakk?!?
Never mind the implication that there is no pleasure in marrying a Saudi woman…sheesh.
Really, you have to see this fatwa in the original Arabic.
i am retracting my comment/statement… you see, i took words from the context and didnt even read it.
after googling/reading it from The Memri Blog (http://www.thememriblog.org/blog_personal/en/23237.htm), i was enlightened…
Marrying a foreign woman who are not resident … i.e non-saudi living somewhere, without a permission frrom the authority would be only for pleasure as the guy wont be able to bring her home with him. foreign but saudi resident is different case. foreign with authority permission is ok, means he is serious about her not just for a ride.
I hate the word of ” marrying foreinger are only for pressure. !! ” What a silly idea! … I hope not all women are like the way he/ or they (saudis) thinks! ) ;((
I think that has to be one of the most racist comments I have read in a really long time. The weird thing about it is “national” racism vs. race racism. By reading this fatwa even Arab women from another country would be a problem…
Daisy could be right and the cleric used an unfortunate choice of words in his attempt to curb a really distasteful practice.
The word choices are very poor. Permission to marry is always required for a Saudi and non-Saudi if they wish to have a legally recognized marriage and if they wish to live in KSA. Even if they marry and live outside of KSA and did not have government permission, this would preclude the wife from rights and entitlements in the event of any accident or death of her husband.
Sorry, but I have a major problem with this fatwa as well as the Saudi requirement that any Saudi wishing to marry a foriegner must get permission.
This is NOT a requirement under Islam. More to the point, a negative response from the Saudi government would in effect mean that they are banning a marriage for one of their citizen when no religious reason stands for such a ban.
Once again, both this fatwa and the Saudi permission requirements fly in the face of Islam. They are seeking to put their laws and rules above those of God’s, which happens to be a grave sin in Islam.
If the Saudi government wishes to adhere to Islam they must abolish this requirement now and recognise ALL marriages between ALL people that adhere to the laws of Islam.
They have NO right to manufacture laws and requirements which flaut the laws of God and His prophet (pbuh).
Marriage is something between 2 people, govt /clerics etc., have no business talking about it or regulating it .
Just like religion, it’s between an individual and god.
All i can say is i hope saudi know their mind enough marry whom they want and live happily and if your home doesn’t support it.. too bad so sad, tie up the loose ends and live where you get the love and support you deserve .
sometimes these clerics need to be ignored, it’s just a clamor for attention and their poor grasp of english language that causes all these problems.
They can marry who they want but if they choose to do so without prior permission,the marriage won’t be recognized in Saudi.
Look at it this way is the US better? You can marry who you want, but the government can still deny visa or entry to your spouse.
The Saudi government does not stop a couple who wish to marry but if the couple wish to legally reside in the Kingdom and ensure all rights and entitlements are available then the approval is required.
I also do not like the approval process but I will say that the Saudi government does have many benefits for its citizens that many countries do not have. In addition, perhaps the approval process is an unsaid statement of the many challenges associated with bi-cultural marriages in Saudi. While I do not have the official statistics at my fingertip and doubt they’d be made publicly available anyway, it is my understanding that greater than 50 per cent of the bi-cultural marriages fail and that those which have not failed, probably greater than 50 per cent are unhappy. Under those circumstances, can’t blame one for trying to put some kind of oversight (not the best word but I’m sure you get my meaning).
Where do I begin? Come to think of it, where do I end in order to even begin………………
Pure and utter idiocy from a pure and utter idiotic society………..it CAN all end but there are people who don’t want it to end because there’s a huge loss for them, financially.
Everyone else (and that includes myself), well, they don’t really matter one bit!!!
This is just further crap that is a continuation of everything else……………nothing new!
This is NOT the same. Saudi is supposed to be a state governed by Islam. You can compare it to the US, but as a non Muslim country it kind of defeats the purpose doesn’t it?
The Saudi government actively discriminates against it’s citizens who marry non Saudis. Unlike the US, the Saudi government doesn’t have to supply any reason as to why permission is granted or not.
In the US the process is very transparent and open. In Saudi who you are, your name, your tribe, your money and how much money you have is directly and indirectly part of the process.
It isn’t just about living in Saudi Carol. It is about the basics of living life as a Saudi ANYWHERE in the world. If my wife wants to get her passport and other official documents taken care of she cannot do so on her own because she is considered by the Saudi government to be an infant.
As an infant she must get a male member of her family to do these things for her. Because Saudi has enacted unIslamic laws she has to go to an uncle whom she hasn’t seen in more than a decade. Now that her son is getting of age she will be able to get her son to do it. Imagine that…….a Saudi woman is so infantile that her son must do her papers for her?
It is really TOO much.
As to the “many benefits for it’s citizens that other countries do not have” I have to laugh. You have a country with no freedom of speech, no ability to choose who leads you, no freedom of religion, no freedom of association. They can take these “other benefits” and do something interesting with them. I cannot image why people will trade such monetary benefits, which are usually rather small unless you are part of the ruling elite and do not need them anyway, for the most very basic freedoms.
As to bi-cultural marriages failing, as the divorce rate in Saudi hovers around 50% for Saudi-Saudi marriages, that is HARDLY an excuse for these regulations.
Let’s be honest. It is all about controlling the people of Saudi, it isn’t about divorce, it isn’t about protecting anyone. It is also about controling the wealth of Saudi. The more Saudis marry non Saudis the more the money leaves the country.
For people who have wasta and connections I am sure don’t have any issues with these rules because they don’t apply equally to them. Those of us without wasta, connections, or money for bribes certainly do not share the ambivalent attitude about it.
I think it was Tariq Ramadan who once said that he traveled the world and in the West he saw Islam everywhere but no Muslims. In the Muslim world he saw Muslims everywhere but no Islam.
AMEEN!
Yes the US can deny spouse visa but it is rarely done, sure they’ll take a couple of yrs and make your life hell but there is no outright rejection – not in genuine cases . if you’re marrying fraudulently for a greencard then you deserve what you get.
but in most cases where an US citizen is marrying a foreigner, it’s much much much easier that the saudi process, more than anything they don’t look down or judge you morally for that.
It’s more a question of is it GC fraud, or are you here to cause harm that they verify .. where as in the saudi process it’s like they judge you and basically the saudi male marrying outside is shunned because there’s a saudi lady left behind , moral policing , and control , .. it’s a DIFFERENT scenario,
I have gone thru both countries immigration, believe me it’s much easier to get into US by marrying a citizen than it is to earn your citizenship thru the visa/greencard route . the marrying route takes about 1-1.5 yrs and if you were to immigrate come here study/work/get GC and citizenship it’s anywhere between 6-10 yrs.
can the same be said in saudi? absolutely not.. One has to go thru the approval process to truly understand the pain ( and i speak of pain even with wasta and influence etc ) .
This cleric is an idiot, the saudi women are much more capable and smart anddon’t require marriage to just saudi men, if they would open the doors a bit then saudi can truly see what the women can achieve, sometime reading these things makes me feel bad for my saudi friends, who are so smart,bright and capable and yet have 1/4 th oppurchunities/freedom that i have.
naughty art, carol. bravo.. hehe
radha, clearly you have been lucky with the US government. My husband and I recieved an outright rejection letter. The reasoning?? I dont make enough money (but HELLO, I am a college student) I had to choose between dropping out for the most part and working, or staying in school for 9 more months to graduate and not being able to see him for another year. The US system has just as many issues as the Saudi system.
Saudi has a really messed up system too (men have to be 30 to get the permission) but atleast you can pay your way though it.
Posted “but atleast you can pay your way though it.”
What a Saudi/Gulf attitude. Let merit or rules play no role. If you have the money, just pay your way through.
There is a very valid reason for requiring the person to make a certain amount of money. It wouldn’t work to have someone come to the US and instantly require welfare because they cannot support themselves.
The US way is open and transparent and everyone, no matter who they are, plays by the same rules. The same cannot be said for Saudi. Some people get their validation in a matter of days, other people never get it and dont have the right for any recourse or to even find out way.
Completely unfair at the very core.
@Radha,
It is this very fact that Saudi women are strong and capable which makes the men so afraid. All of these rules concerning women, most of them violate Islam, are done to protect the men.
So they can claim it is about the women all they want, it is about protecting the men!
Radha…
“I have gone thru both countries immigration, believe me it’s much easier to get into US by marrying a citizen than it is to earn your citizenship thru the visa/greencard route . the marrying route takes about 1-1.5 yrs and if you were to immigrate come here study/work/get GC and citizenship it’s anywhere between 6-10 yrs.”
Not quite so easy. I am a born US citizen, my husband is from India. He came here on a study visa with the intention of returning home. We met and got married. The TYPE of visa he was on determined the citizenship process…not the fact that I was a US Citizen. Because he came here on a student visa our marriage and my US citizenship had NO influence.(or very little). We applied immediately after marriage. 5 YEARS and one child later he got his green card…not citizenship…green card. To get to that point, we hired one of the best immigration lawyers in the country right out of Wshington D.C. which was a major hardship financially as he was a student making starvation wages. After seeing how long it took us ~about 4 years of waiting (and not only us but others in our situation) she suggested we apply in the home country as that is sometimes faster. We did that and within a year (I think) we got notification from India that they were ready to hear our case at the Embassy. We made the arrangements and flew to India with infant daughter in tow…I wanted proof it wasn’t just for the green card. LOL! We were there a month and the DAY BEFORE WE LEFT they finally heard our case.(talk about sweating bullets!) They called our names and we went to a window. Three stamps of the documents later and we were done. Just like that. Literally less than 5 minutes. We both just stood there looking at each other in disbelief… all those years of stress, waiting and worrying for that? It all boiled down to that few minutes. How about some balloons and a little band music?? Sheesh!
We got the green card and were told by the lawyer that there was a waiting period of 5 years before my husband could apply for citizenship. (The green card is valid for ten years.) Again we had to wait…but TEN YEARS LATER my husband finally completed the process and got his citizenship.
You know what the irony of all this was? He had Indian friends…NON citizens… who were able to go home, get married and get their wives into the US faster than I could get my husband in. And the REAL kick in the head is that I was told by the immigration lawyer that had I met my husband on vacation and brought him here or had he been here as a tourist the fact that I was a US citizen would have made all the difference in the world.
BTW, this was BEFORE 9/11…I can’t imagine how tough it must be now.
So the moral of this story is that it isn’t your citizenship that makes the difference it is the type of visa your intended entered the US on.
Oby,
I’m not questioning your story but something here does not make sense. Either there is more to the story, or you got really bad advice.
Did you petition for your husband’s green card as a spouse of a U.S. citizen? By law, for scenarios where green card is obtained through marriage to a U.S. citizen, the type of visa a non-citizen spouse is on is irrelevant. It makes a slight difference if the non-citizen spouse entered the country illegally, but by law, they cannot deny it EVEN if the spouse entered illegally or violated visa status prior to marriage.
Secondly, the waiting period to apply for citizenship after green card obtained through marriage is THREE years, not five. Again, by the book. It is five for everyone else, and immigrants through marriage only have to wait for three years. What your lawyer told is wrong. Tons of my girlfriends married Americans so I am very familiar with the process. Either something went wrong, or the advice you received was bad, or there is more to the story.
@Oby,
That is a flaw in the system, not a fundamental error with the entire process.
Imagine if you applied for your hubby to come and they wanted to know which state you were from, wanted a letter from your father making sure it was okay with him that you married a foreigner.
Then imagine if they wanted a letter making sure he was a good Christian and that you were both married completely in accordance to Christian law and had to provide certified copies of this proof okayed by the church of the government’s choosing.
Next imagine waitings years to hear anything. If you knew someone in the government you might have a chance. Or you could just skip the whole process and find out who you’d have to pay a $10,000-$20,000 bribe to and make the entire process run like clockwork?
Imagine waiting five years and still no word, whilst you knew others had been granted and denied before yours. Somewhere along the line you might get it granted, you might get it denied, or you might never hear anything at all.
What’s the best thing about it all? You might never be told why the decision was made because there is no clear cut set of rules for making the decision.
In the US system you can track it, minute by minute, on-line. At any point you can call a representitive and find out what is going on, if anything is needed.
Saudi is the complete opposite of the US system and at the end of the day they can just tell you know and dont even have to bother to tell you why.
Besides, lets not forget we are NOT talking about immigrating to Saudi here. The immigration process, once you get the marriage validated, is another process.
All we are talking about here is getting the Saudis to recognise your marriage. The US isnt even in the business of that. They dont care until you want to move here.
The Saudis want every Saudi in the world, no matter where they live, to get their marriages approved. For Saudi men it isnt that big of a deal if they live outside of Saudi, but for Saudi women who require someone with official status to do any business with the Saudi government, it is a HUGE issue.
The man is following the Quran.
For those who do not speak Arabic, the word Nikah only means marriage in official documents. Nikah means ”sex”, ”to f*ck”. Women are the ”tilth” of the men, to be ”plowed” whenever the man feels like it.
Islamic marriages are just that: halal pleasure for the men. And for women an opportunity to practise obedience to their husbands wishes. To be ”plowed” whenever he wishes so.
And to keep women in check there are the hadith. Angels will weep and curse her if a woman refuses to be ”plowed”. So no headaches, no excuses like being just sown together after childbirth, no choice.
Combine this with the ubiqutous racism rampant in the middle east, it was only to be expected that one of the deluded scholars would issue such a fatwa.
Don’t forget BinBaz had issued a fatwa that saudi students can marry a foreign girl for the period of their study. So they can have halal sex. And then they divorce them as they are finished. All perfectly halal and supported by fatwa.
What else do these men think marriage is for?
Only to satisfy their craving for sex.
Not for what we would consider a marriage. Not for love, companionship, trust, support, loyalty? All Kaffir bidah I suppose.
What will all the Saudi men do who want to buy cheap extra wives in Morrocco and india?
Or will they just have to pay more bribes to get them in?
All for pleasure of course.
NN…
Sorry for the confusion…I was trying to keep the saga as short and succinct as possible and still get my point across.
First I need to say we started this process on our own right after marriage but after a year and many phone calls to INS we were finally told that they couldn’t find his application and we would have to start the process all over again. Up to that point they had been telling us everything was fine and working it’s way through.That meant everything NEW. All paperwork, all documents from India, everything had to be redone…At this point we figured this was bigger than the both of us…enter the immigration lawyer.
My husband was on a J1 visa with a two year home requirement. In essence, he either had to find work in the USA in a medically under served area OR obtain a waiver of the return home requirement based on extreme hardship to the spouse(me) OR he would have had to return home for two years and then reapply to reenter the USA. I could go to India with him or stay in the USA, my choice. It didn’t influence the eventual outcome whether I stayed or went.
In order for him to get the waiver of the return home requirement based on work he had to work in a medically underserved area or governement facility …either rural, in a prison, on an Indian reservation, etc.
That meant we had to FIND one which meant I had to go to the library and pull out all the reference books with this info, copy page after page of phone numbers and addresses, contact names etc. This was when the internet was gaining ground but a lot of people didn’t have them yet and even libraries didn’t have them yet or at least ours didn’t. So it was a lot of work. There were hundreds and hundreds of numbers to call. Hubby had to be in school so that left the task to me as they had to be reached during work hours…no such thing as email.
Prior to this we went through “headhunters” to find work that would fit the bill with no results. so that left the job to me basically. I started all this in early December and his visa was up that coming June and he would have to leave if we could not find him work.
I quit my job and this actually became my job. For 6 to 8 hours a day 5 days per week I sat at the dining room table in our apartment and made call after call after call. Followed every lead possible and then called some more. I never counted how many calls I actually made-thousands with all the call backs and follow ups. In April I got a lucky break…I found a place in a little town in Georgia that was looking for someone. We flew there in May for an interview and he was offered the job…in the nick of time too as he would have had to leave at the end of June.
Whew! OK, we got the waiver we needed to proceed forward. He wouldn’t have to return to India. Now we had to get an H1-B visa which allowed him to work in the US rather than go to school which was the visa he entered the US on. Got that finally with the sponsorship of his job. Meanwhile the wheels were still turning slowly toward his eventual citizenship. Actually it took longer than 10 years probably closer to 12 with all the delays and extra steps.
The lawyer who got us to the Green card was fabulous. She knew her stuff. But she didn’t handle actual citizenships. The lawyer we consulted about that was local and there was a bit of confusion. We had heard 3 years and then 5 years. He elected to wait 5+ years just to be on the safe side. It had been an exhausting and stressful process so I think since he had a green card he didn’t mind waiting the 5 years anyway.
So as I said…the type of visa someone enters the US on is important.
Sorry this is so long… just trying to clear any confusion.
Abu Sinan…
I wasn’t trying to diminish the Saudi process. I know how hard and long our process was not to mention stressful and aggravating. And that is with the transparency of the INS and knowing that more or less everyone is treated equally (no Wasta) My heart goes out to anyone having to go through the Saudi process because it sounds like hell! I cannot imagine going through that. God Bless those that do!
@Aafke,
Well, sad fact is that the Indonesian, Sri Lankan or Philipino maids and nannies will likely be forced into taking up the slack.
Oby,
You really had to go through the grindmill. I knew the US process was tedious but I didn’t know it was this complex and absolutely intimidating. It shows the determination of both of you to get it done. You are right, Indians working in the US come back, get married and their wives just go after a few months when the visa is ready. Perhaps it would have been easier if your husband had come back, you had both got married while he was in India and then he had applied for a visa from India.
Sorry, that’s me.
Oby,
I completely indersatnad you sage, ys we went thru a few yrs of torture too, I don’t mean to undermine your difficulties, yes i know how hard it is to get a US visa, BUT if i am a woman or a man and i want to get US citizenship with or without marriage i CAn do it , school, work,GC, marrying a citizen etc., legally can be done . Is this possible in saudi ….especially if you are a foreign woman?
US visa has rule , yes not uniformly applied probably but still there’s a process, lawyers,appeal etc., etc., and yes i completely understand the serving in rural issue, My spouse did. We got additional residency tacked on to our education etc., etc., but STILL it is not the same, The saudi process is more erractic, more out of control, v frustrating especially if you don;t the right combination of luck, money and influence.
and this is if you are a man, if you are a saudi woman and chose to marry a foreigner and want to go to home .. ha good luck to you. maybe as we hindu’s say ” in your next birth maybe”.
For instance if My daughter half saudi in heritage , US citizen wants to go to saudi to just look around and meet family and just chill, can she ? where as if she wants to exercise her indian half of the heritage no problem. now imagine if she were to marry say a brazilian , and then want to settle in her dad,s land ????possible in theory but practicaly its a pipe dream. but she and her foreign spouse can live in the US , or even in INDIa .. there lies the problem.
We had no trouble whatsoever getting permission. and abu sinan is still struggling and i’m not even muslim, That should say something about the saudi system
Radha…
As I said to Abu Sinan God bless those who go through the Saudi process. It sounds like a deep , dark hole without any rules and little hope, or at least a crap shoot. It is amazing to me that people actually make it through and don’t crack under the pressure. We had our own US pressure but we didn’t have the frustration of watching others with a bigger wallet or a relative with influence dance passed us on the way to the immigration process.
I feel the pain, I really do, for anyone going through the Saudi process because I know how tough mine was. BUT I did know that at some point I would eventually get the situation resolved and it would be behind me.
to be honest it pisses me off because there is no reason to control people’s lives like that ESPECIALLY if they are not in Saudi. The fact that Manal has to look to her son for help is galling and only reinforces the misogynistic tone of KSA. Change can’t come too soon.
Daisy…
Thanks. Sadly the option you suggest was not possible since he was ALREADY in the country on the J1 visa. That trumped every other option. Believe me, if it could have been done I would have done it…
Abu Sinan is ine a vey difficult position, his wife is the Saudi one, and Saudies may have problems with Saudi men taking foreign wives, but a Saudi woman? The lawful property of Saudi Arabia marrying a foreign man? Impossible without the right wasta I think.
As Salaam Alaykom Carol:
This confirms my thoughts about Saudi Men, and Saudi Laws. While I am devout as a Muslimah, I thank Allah SWT that I am to old to face having a Saudi Husband, ever.
I have an adoptive daughter, who converted to Islam, she says, partly because of me! GAH! Men in general can be really dangerous, but when we place ourselves in the hands of a man and he takes us to Saudia, we better pray that things go well, because we will have no recourse at all.
She has been worrying me because she has one of those, um “temporary” Marriages to a very nice Saudi guy. He has much baggage, and I am really worried that he will take her there, get her preggers, and then she’ll be stuck.
I sent her the link to your column and she has been telling me about the horror stories she is reading. Inshallah, she will smarten up.
Ma Salaama
Hala
Salam Alaikum Hala,
My prayers go to your adoptive daughter and I hope that all will go well for her.
Thanks for sharing.
I remember this: “Marry somebody from far away’ (or something like that). I guess the real reason is to develop future generations (genetically speaking).
I do wish more marriages would be with someone far away for marrying within families continues in Saudi Arabia and with it are continued problems and birth defects.
Yesterday the german police raided mosques, bookshops and islamic centers
to hinder the distribution of a book ( in german ‘Frauen im Schutz des Islam’/ Women under the protection of Islam), the book originates from Saudi Arabia.
The reason is that the book contains advice on how to beat you wife.
@Niels,
I have read books from Saudi which contain such references. All the books I have said which say it is acceptable to beat ones wife for a wrongdoing usually also make it clear that if a wife is “beaten” it is to be with something soft that can not do bodily harm. The allowance for beating is more of making a statement and not meant to encourage abuse. All the same, I know that even allowance for such a term sounds archaic.
Tell that to Rania Al Baz.
In reality men usually know very well how to beat up their wives and cause pain and suffering. It’s a muslim man’s duty to beat up his wife.
With some women nothing helps but beatings…