A JAIL sentence and fine imposed in 2004 on an imam in Spain for writing a book “infused with a tone of obsolete machismo”, has reported not deterred another Muslim religious leader from repeating the offence.

It was reported today that the unnamed imam in the city of Terrassa is under investigation for:

Disseminating discriminatory messages and violating the principle of equality and of women’s right to physical and moral integrity.

He allegedly called Muslim men to “discipline” errant wives using physical and psychological violence.

Local police said:

He provided concrete examples of the manner in which wives should be beaten, how to isolate them inside the family home and how to deny them sexual relations.

Some 1,500 people usually attend Friday sermons by this imam in Terrassa, a city of some 200,000 residents in Spain’s northeast, which is home to a large Muslim community.

The investigation comes eight years the arrest and conviction of Mohamed Kamal Mustafa, an imam in the southern Spanish town of Fuengirola.

In his 120-page book, Women in Islam, he urged husbands not to hit their wives on sensitive parts of the body or with force but, rather:

On hands and feet, using a light rod so that the blows don’t leave scars or bruises.

At his trial, Mustafa’s lawyer argued that the book, distributed in Islamic bookstores in Barcelona, merely rehashed versions of Islamic writings from the 13th to 19th centuries and did not represent the imam’s personal views.

See reports here, here and here.