Scholar hails man who divorced wife “on air”

A prominent Saudi Islamic scholar who pushed a man to divorce his wife during a live radio programme for travelling without his permission praised the husband and said he made the “right” decision.

Sheikh Ghazi Al Shammari said his advice to the Saudi husband was intended for what he described as correction not destruction.

The Sheikh was reacting to angry public comments on social networks in the conservative Moslem Gulf Kingdom, accusing him of trying to undermine marital relations instead of cementing them.

“It was a successful divorce and the man took the right decision because there is no wise husband who accepts a wife of this type,” he said, quoted by the London-based Saudi Arabic language daily Alhayat.

“The man consulted me but he already had given her a choice either to stay at home and not travel or he would divorce her…I advised him to divorce her and my advise was for correction not destruction…there was no better solution because the problem is not a wife who keeps going to her parent’s house or is not preparing food for her husband…it is a much bigger problem as she travelled to another city 900 km away after leaving her children and a text message to her husband telling him she travelled.”

Newspapers said on Thursday the unnamed husband phoned the radio programme presenter Al Shammari and complained that his wife defied him and travelled to another Saudi city for a company business conference, saying she “offended his manhood.”

He told Al Shammari that when they married, he accepted his wife’s demand to work provided this would not interfere with their marital life.

The man said his wife defied him and went straight to the airport in the Western Red Sea port of Jeddah to travel to the capital Riyadh.

“He said his wife phoned him from the airport and told him she insists on travelling…he asked Shammari what to do,” Sabq newspaper said.

“Shammari told him to divorce her as a punitive measure for committing such a mistake against her home and husband…the husband quickly agreed and divorced her by telephone during the live programme although Shammari advised him to remarry her if she repents.”

In his comments to Al Hayat, Al Shammari described the wife’s travel as “a suspected act”, adding that she should never thought of leaving home.

“Before they blame me, I would like to ask where this woman’s brain was when she decided to travel without telling her husband…I only told him to divorce her so she would come to her senses….I said to him that if she does, then he can restore her…this means I was after rehabilitation because I showed him the right way to correct his wife.”

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