“GREET your husband with a smile when he comes and a smile when he goes.” So says a new magazine aimed at women in the Middle East. “Don’t dabble in his work,” it continues, and certainly don’t hector him. “Can you imagine all the bloodshed and bones he sees every day? Your fussing only increases the pressure.”

The magazine, launched in December, is called Beituki (“Your Home”). The publisher is al-Qaeda, which seems fed up with the way other jihadists empower their women. Al-Qaeda’s scribes tell female members to stay indoors and be good brides. “Make your house a paradise on earth,” it advises. “Prepare the food your husband loves, prepare his bed after that and do what he wants.”

The magazine appears, in part, to be a reaction to Islamic State (IS), which has called women to the front lines. IS has trained jihadistas to use weapons and given women a role in spreading propaganda online. Before the group lost Mosul, waves of female suicide-bombers threw themselves at Iraqi forces.

“Al-Qaeda fears the conflict has made women too vocal, active and empowered,” says Elisabeth Kendall of Oxford University. “It would rather they focused on etiquette indoors.” Beituki is crammed with tips for getting your holy warrior’s attention. “Stealing is legal,” it teases, “when you’re stealing your man’s heart.” Flirt “like a butterfly”, it suggests, and wear dashing clothes.

Unlike a women’s magazine published by the Taliban, Beituki does not feature gun-toting women. Instead it shows designer homes furnished with mahogany chairs and neat stacks of dishes. Love letters from “Um Abdullah” to her husband, an unnamed jihadist, are decorated with cherubs’ wings and hearts. It even runs an agony-aunt column for frustrated jihadist brides.

In addition, al-Qaeda is rolling out women’s institutes to spread domesticity. Its Syrian offshoot, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, runs “Daughters of Islam” centres, which advertise on pink billboards. They have distributed tens of thousands of black abayas, or full-body coverings.

The history of Islam is full of strong women. Nusaybah bint Ka’ab fought alongside the Prophet Muhammad. Aisha, the Prophet’s favourite wife, rode to war on a camel. Al-Khansa’a, a 7th-century poet, claimed to be “the greatest poet among those with testicles, too”. That seems a far cry from Beituki’s vision of women confined to the home. “Weren’t you thrilled when your husband told you he was going to join the jihad for God,” it asks, “even though you knew that perhaps he might never return?”