BEIRUT (AFP) — Lebanon’s highest Sunni Muslim authority on Friday rejected a bill aimed at protecting women against domestic violence and marital rape, saying it would lead to the demise “of the family as in the West.”

“Islam is very aware of and concerned with . . . resolving problems of poor treatment . . . but this should not happen by cloning Western laws that encourage the breakdown of the family and do not suit our society,” said the influential Dar al-Fatwa in a statement on its website.

Dar al-Fatwa also slammed as “heresy” a clause in the bill that criminalises marital rape, accusing those behind the draft law of “inventing new types of crimes.”

“This will have a negative impact on Muslim children… who will see their mother threatening their father with prison, in defiance of patriarchal authority, which will in turn undermine the moral authority” of fathers, it said.

“We must continue to follow sharia (Islamic law) as concerns the Muslim family,” it added.

The bill, drafted by feminist organisations, lawyers and forensic experts, was approved by Lebanon’s cabinet in 2010 and is currently under study in parliament.