Last month, during a Saudi television show, Muslim author and religious leader Muhammad Al-Arifi advised young Muslim men how to deal with their new wives. Apparently in the shadow of Mecca, it is perfectly acceptable to beat your wife as long as you do not hit her in the face, so as not to “make her face ugly.”

Al-Arifi said: “Beating in the face is forbidden, even when it comes to animals. Even if you want your camel or donkey to start walking, you are not allowed to beat it in the face. If this is true for animals, it is all the more true when it comes to humans. So beatings should be light and not in the face.”

Al-Arifi went on to admonish the young would-be grooms: “If he beats her, the beatings must be light and must not make her face ugly. He must beat her where it will not leave marks. He should not beat her on the hand...He should beat her in some places where it will not cause any damage.  He should not beat her like he would beat an animal or a child--slapping them left and right.”

While this Muslim cleric’s words may be shocking to those of us who live in the civilized world, his advice is not new to the Muslim world.

In 2004 on Qatar television, a Muslim cleric declared the Quran to be an instructional book on how Muslim men should discipline their wives. “He said: We must know that [wife] beating is a punishment in Islamic religious law. No one should deny this because this was permitted by the Creator of Man, and because when you purchase an electric appliance or a car you get instructions--a catalogue, explaining how to use it. The Creator of Man has sent down this book [the Quran] in order to show which ways he must choose.”

He went on to explain that there are three types of women who must be beaten.

“[The Quran says:] ‘and beat them.’ This verse is of a wondrous nature. There are three types of women with whom a man cannot live unless he carries a rod on his shoulder. The first type is a girl who was brought up this way. Her parents ask her to go to school and she doesn’t--they beat her. ‘Eat’--’I don’t want to’--they beat her. So she became accustomed to beatings; she was brought up that way. We pray Allah will help her husband later. He will only get along with her if he practices wife beating.”

“The second type is a woman who is condescending toward her husband and ignores him. With her, too, only a rod will help. The third type is a twisted woman who will not obey her husband unless he oppresses her, beats her, uses force against her, and overpowers her with his voice.”

In 2005, Mohammed Kamal Mustafa, an imam of a mosque in the Spanish city of Fuengirola was given a jail sentence after being found guilty of incitement of violence, and told to spend six months studying Spain’s constitution. Mustafa had written and published a guide on how to beat your wife without leaving any marks. His book, “Women In Islam,” advised Muslim husbands to beat their wives “on the hands and feet, using a light rod so that the blows don’t leave scars or bruises.”

These Muslim monsters do not come to these boorish conclusions on their own. In fact the Muslim holy book, the Quran counsels Muslim men on the proper treatment of their wives. Quran verse 4:34 says: “Men are superior to women on account of the qualities with which Allah has gifted the one above the other, and on account of the quality they make from their substance for them. Virtuous women are obedient, careful, during the husband’s absence, because God has of them been careful. But chide those for whose stubborn disobedience you have cause to fear; remove them into beds apart, and scourge them; but if they are obedient to you, then seek not occasion against them. Allah is Great!”

Despite what the left says, there is no way that we can embrace the Muslim world and there is certainly no way that they will ever embrace we in the western world. Furthermore, despite President Bush’s claims that “Islam is a religion of peace,” Islam is neither peaceful nor is it a religion.

Islam is nothing more than an excuse for third century throwbacks to act upon their most base instincts.

Dave Gibson