Don’t get mad, get even, ou enfin une fatwa que j’aime

Ce n’est pas tous les jours que je salue les fatwas de nos jurisconsultes, mais il faut un début à tout:

Egypt sheikh backs women’s right to beat husbands
Published: October 27, 2008

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 has reported.

CAIRO (AFP) 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.
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.

« 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.

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.

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

Hear, hear!