A prominent Egyptian Salafist cleric, has caused a stir on Social Media, after he suggested Islam allows men to have sex with their has suggested Islam allows men to have sex with their illegitimate daughters and marry them.
Dailymail.co.uk reports that Mazen Al-Sersawi cites prominent Muslim scholar Imam Al-Shafi’i as saying because illegitimate daughters are not officially attributed to their fathers they can be married to them.
He makes the claims in a video which has gone viral and he has been widely criticized for the comments.
In the video, Al-Sersawi said Imam Al-Shafi’i is known for saying men may marry their own daughters that are born out of wedlock
Al-Sersawi, who teaches at the prestigious Egypt’s Al-Azhar University, claims Al-Shafi’I says a girl born in an adulterous relationship is ‘not really his daughter’.
Because an illegitimate daughter does not carry her father’s name, ‘she is not his daughter according to Sharia. She is not officially attributed to him’.
The video was made in 2012 but has recently resurfaced online.
In September footage emerged of a Saudi cleric claiming women should not be allowed to drive as they have a “quarter” of a man’s brain power.
Sheikh Saad al-Hajari said there were “evils of allowing women to drive”, saying it wasn’t their fault as they were “made that way”.
“Would you give a man with half an intellect a driving licence? So how would you give one to a woman when she has half an intellect?”
He then added: “If they go out to the market this gets halved again! So they now have a quarter of an intellect.”