Islamic apologists in the West routinely claim that Islam doesn’t condone wife-beating. Yet here is a Muslim cleric who didn’t get the memo.

“‘Beat her in a way that doesn’t turn her skin red’: Visiting Islamic preacher from Iran tells Sydney mosque audience it’s OK for a husband to bash his wife,” by Stephen Johnson, Daily Mail Australia, October 17, 2017:

A visiting Islamic preacher from Iran told a Sydney mosque it is okay for a husband to beat his wife as long as he doesn’t leave any red marks.

Sheikh Taleb al-Khozaei, a Shia cleric aligned with the Iranian theocracy, was a guest lecturer at the Hussainayet Ale Yassin Mosque at Sefton, in Sydney’s west.

In an Arabic language sermon, he said it was permissible for husbands to lightly beat their wives ‘as a last resort’ if they had been disobedient.

The western Sydney mosque which organised the visit has condemned that sermon promoting domestic violence and has vowed to bar him from returning.

Citing verse 4.34 of the Koran, Sheikh al-Khozaei said husbands could abandon their wives if they had been disobedient.

‘He must beat her only enough to bring her back home if she leaves,’ he said in a June sermon that was live streamed.

‘He must beat her in a way that doesn’t turn the skin red or dark.’

He then proceeded to explain how husbands could abandon their wives in the bedroom.

‘The first method is through advice, the second method is by abandoning them in the bedroom by turning his back towards her at night or sleeping in another place,’ he said.

‘The woman has honour, therefore by abandoning her you are humiliating her by making her feel that she has made a mistake by not serving her husband’s rights.’

Sheikh Taleb al-Khozaei’s fundamentalist sermon also described the method of beating ‘as a last resort’.

‘Here, beating takes place. But which type of beating? Don’t get me wrong,’ he said.

‘Islam is not a terrorist religion. The beating that doesn’t cause an affect and is not a beating for revenge.’

His sermon was based on section 4.34 of the Koran which advises husbands to abandon their disobedient wives.

‘Admonish them, and leave them alone in the sleeping-places and beat them,’ it says….