Australia’s most powerful English-speaking Islamic sheikh has declared it sinful for a Muslim man to look at women.
Sheikh Shady Alsuleiman used the Arabic word for sin, haram, to warn that looking at someone of the opposite gender could lead to adultery or sex outside of marriage.
‘It’s haram for you to look at the opposite gender, whether a man looking at a woman or a woman looking at a man’,’ he said in his weekly Sydney lecture.
Australian National Imams Council president Sheikh Shady Alsuleiman says a man cannot look at another woman
‘What’s the problem with someone looking at the opposite gender?
‘The problem is what it’s going to lead to. Now the biggest sin is fornication or adultery.’
Sheikh Shady, who is also the president of the Australian National Imams Council, used Sharia law to justify the need for a restrained gaze.
‘That’s what the Sharia says: “If there’s no need for you to look at the opposite gender, we don’t look at the opposite gender”,’ he said.
Sheikh Shady Alsuleiman said it was against Sharia law for a man to look at another woman
Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull last year apologised for inviting Sheikh Shady to an Iftar dinner with prominent Muslims including Waleed Aly (left) and Yassmin Abdel-Magied (right)
The Sunni religious leader, who was last year invited to a Ramadan dinner with Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull at Sydney’s Kirribilli House, likened marital fidelity to sheep being kept away from grazing on a neighbour’s paddock.
‘You’ve got you own flock, you’ve got your own sheep and you’ve got your neighbour’s boundary,’ he said.
‘For you to make sure that none of your sheep go to your neighbour’s boundary, you’ll keep so far away from the boundary to make sure you don’t fall into that mistake.’
Mr Turnbull was forced to last year apologise for inviting Sheikh Shady to the Kirribilli House dinner with prominent Muslims, including The Project host Waleed Aly and Yassmin Abdel-Magied, after it was revealed he had made an anti-gay speech.
In 2013, the sheikh made an online video saying God had condemned ‘evil’ homosexuality by ‘sending diseases’ like HIV and AIDS.
Sheikh Shady Alsuleiman has previously described HIV and AIDS as punishment for gays
Last year he delivered a sermon at Lakemba, in Sydney’s southwest, arguing men reportedly had ‘authority’ over their wives.
‘When a husband calls his wife to bed and if she rejects him, the angels will continue to curse her until morning,’ he told his followers.
‘A husband has rights to fulfill his sexual desires from his wife; a man has that right.’
However, he has clarified his comments in an April Facebook post, arguing he had never said men had the right to ‘demand sex’.
Grand Mufti Ibrahim Abu Mohamed is the spiritual leader of Australia’s Muslims who doesn’t speak English fluently
‘I clearly mentioned that Islamically both husband and wife have the right to fulfill their sexual desires with one another,’ he said.
‘I do not condone any form of compulsion or force upon anyone.’
While the Grand Mufti, Ibrahim Abu Mohamed, is the spiritual leader of Australia’s Sunni Muslims, the Egyptian-born cleric is not fluent in English.
That makes Sheikh Shady, 39, the most powerful English-speaking Muslim leader in Australia.