Imam Ahmed Shehab, is a Toronto imam who served as the President of Um-Al-Qurra Islamic School and was a candidate for Mayor of Toronto in 2003.
On February 4, 2018 a video entitled “Wife BEAT husband” was published on Ahmad Shehab’s YouTube channel.
The following is a full transcription of the short video:
Peace be unto you and Allah’s mercy and blessings. Welcome to this reminder on the go, with today’s reminder about this important issue – domestic violence. A husband shook my hand and he was so strong I almost fell in the ground, and he said: I want to complain about my wife. I said: What’s up? What’s happening? He said: She beat me up. I said: Glory (be) to Allah. He gave me a strong hand, shake, truly almost fall, how strong it was, squeezing my hand, and he’s complaining that his wife beat him up. I said: That for real? He said: Yes, she beat me up.
And here my message today to the sisters. Sisters, refrain from violence. You supposed to be fragile. You supposed to be soft, nice, gentle, wonderful. You supposed to be a female. Yes, strong in your will power, strong in your determination to raise a wonderful family, strong in your wisdom, strong in your persistence to be the best, strong in many ways to achieve your degree and much more success, but you need to be a female.
By you beating your husband, for sure, you are beating your happiness, for sure, you are destroying the happiness for your children. Sooner or later you will have that graduation, not a certificate from the university, a certificated of divorce or you may go to jail. So, this life when it reached to a point where you lose your tranquility (سكينة) then no need to stay together. ِAfter bringing people to try to make peace between both of you to extinguish the fire, if this keep[s] going and growing, the beating, then let go of each other because it could lead to a drama and trauma guaranteed.
Sister, be wise, stop beating your husband.
In a previous video published on his YouTube channel on February 24, 2017, Ahmad Shehab also discussed the issue of domestic violence within the Muslim community. The following is the transcription of the video “He is beating up his wife to leaving the FAITH”:
May the peace, mercy, and blessings of Allah be upon you. Welcome to another episode of “On the Go” with today’s terrible story. A person called me saying that his wife wants to leave Islam and become Christian.
So I told: Well, there’s lots of goodness in the Christian people and Allah doesn’t need us and Islam is not short of numbers. But basically while you’re saying that, – are you a person who’s treating her good? Are you a person who was really taking care of her? Most likely you are a person who pushed her to that, a person who are bullying her and beating her up, where we forgot what the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessing be upon him, said: Be gentle, be delicate with the vase, the lady, means a vase, and the vase you put something beautiful like roses. The Messenger of Allah, peace and blessing be upon him, said: You are indeed generous when your are generous with them.
So therefore, my dear brothers and sisters, we have to realize that some of these tools of bullying, some of our brothers that are using as a baseball bat or a stick or a belt to whip his wife or using her as a punching bag, and then later you say that she’s going to leave Islam. Well, you left humanity and you left the Islamic ethics when you’re treating her like that.And there’s so much of goodness in the Christian ethics and so much of goodness in Judaism ethics and so much of goodness in the Christian and Muslim ethics, but when we strip ourselves out of these ethics we should no longer wonder if your spouse is leaving whatever she is leaving, because you pushed her to that. You stripped her of her humanity and integrity.
So therefore, we have to realize that we are not innocent when it comes to a person backfiring or a person really doing things that super weird or super strange or something not normal for us to hear or something for us we think it’s a big deal that, you know, somebody no longer practicing Islam. Well, we see some of our brothers and sisters, there are praying May Allah help us to pray and to practice our prayers, May Allah help us to pray and to practice our Islamic ethics. But when you see a person who’s really praying but totally against the ethics and the teaching of Islam, then wonder no longer that the other half of you really backfiring and turning into person that me and you never expected to hear things from them or certain moves from them.
So therefore just stop pointing the finger at her and remember when you’re using the stick when you’re bullying when you’re beating up your wife and you are using her as a punching bag and cursing her and degrading her, realize that there is a price for that. And there is Allah Glorified and Exalted be He, is watching us. So watch yourself, may Allah help us to deal in a good manners. Another episode of On the Go. May the peace, mercy, and blessings of Allah be upon you.