Cairo: A recent call by Egyptian President Abdul Fattah Al Sissi for banning verbal divorce in the predominantly Muslim country has drawn backing from the parliament, but raised the ire of ultra-conservative Salafists.

Last week, Al Sissi voiced concerns over official figures that around 40 per cent of the nation’s annual 900,000 marriages end in break-up in the first five years.

He said in a public address that a law delegalising verbal divorce, pronounced by Muslim men to their wives often in a fit of anger, could help reduce high family break-up rates in the country of around 92 million people.

He suggested that the new law would make divorce only legal when it is declared in the presence of an official cleric — locally known as maazoun — who is in charge of handling marriage and divorce contracts in Egypt.

“This is to give people the chance to reconsider [verbal divorce] and protect the nation from turning into street children,” Al Sissi said in the presence of Ahmad Al Tayeb, the Grand Shaikh of Al Azhar, Egypt’s prestigious centre of Islamic learning.

There has been no Al Azhar comment on Al Sissi’s call that challenges an age-old Islamic tradition.

In a gesture of support, the parliament’s religious committee has said it is drafting a bill aimed at delegalising verbal divorce and will soon present to the legislature. The assembly is led by Al Sissi’s backers.

“This law is very important and there is no [religious] objection to it,” MP Amnah Nouseir, who is also a professor of Islamic creed at Al Azhar University, said. “With this law, the woman will no longer feel threatened by rashness of some men, who have the habit of uttering divorce for trivial reasons,” she told Gulf News. “This will help safeguard the family’s stability and protect children.”

Yasser Bu Rahmi, a prominent Salafist, has sharply criticised the debate.

“The argument about illegality of verbal divorce, because it is not documented by state agencies, is invalid,” Bu Rahmi said.

“No one among Muslim scholars has said this. Yes, documentation preserves rights, but it does not change what the Sharia [Islamic law] has established for centuries. If a man divorces his wife in unequivocal words, divorce takes effect,” he added in an online statement.

In Islam, the right to divorce is the husband’s prerogative. But the man can delegate this power to his wife.

“Divorce is purely a religious issue in which politicians should not interfere except by enacting laws that comply with the Sharia and its rules,” Bu Rahmi added.

Al Sissi, a Muslim, has repeatedly called on the country’s Islamic scholars to reform the religious discourse as part of efforts to confront radicalism.