By: Soraya Sepahpour-Ulrich

I wonder if Ayatollah Shirazi's wife has been disobedient.  Maybe the claim to fame these days is being outrageous.  I shudder to think how many times my husband would have the 'right' to hit me for being disobedient.  Thank God the powers of the fatwa don't extend to non-practicing Catholics!

Iran: Men can hit their wives, cleric says
The punishment, the leading cleric said, "must be light and considered an exceptional event, like surgery in case of a serious illness." Makarem Shirazi advised his readers against "physical punishment which leaves signs and wounds." Women, he axplained, "are masochistic and sometimes they have a crisis and need light physical punishment to get back to normal." -AKI

Moslem clerics have been making a real impact of late.  Shirazi with his fatwa on wife beating and Australia's top Muslim clergy, Sheikh Taj el-Din al-Hilali with his statement that that women who are not covered are like meat who invite rape.  And as women we are told that Islam is a religion that respects us!

While India passes a law to protect women from spousal abuse, Iran's Shirazi passes a fatwa encouraging abuse.  In India, under the new law, domestic violence includes "actual abuse or the threat of abuse whether physical, sexual, emotional or economic.  In contrast Shirazi, "advises a man to try and convince his wife to obey to him in a polite way and through advice, then by refusing to have sexual relations with her and, finally, if all this will have failed to make her reason, with physical punishment." The punishment, the leading cleric said, "must be light and considered an exceptional event, like surgery in case of a serious illness."

On the other hand, al-Hilali thinks women should stay inside their hejabs, in their homes so that they do not get raped.  I wonder if he endorses rape by their husbands since they will be 'uncovered meat' inside their homes.

I am curious how all those women who have fought for Iran with hejab or without it feel about Shirazi and his fatwa?   Although I fight for Iran in a different way, my husband is my tower of strength in spite of the fact that every single article I write is critical of his government's policies.  I wonder how many beatings Shirazi would recommend to my husband for arguing with him while defending Iran?