If Your Husband Slaps You, Slap Him Back,” Says Emir Sanusi to His Daughters

The 16th Emir of Kano, Muhammad Sanusi II, says he always tells his daughters when they are getting married that if their husbands slap them, he expects them to return the slap.

The emir said wife beating, domestic v!olence form 45 per cent of cases across nine Shari’a Courts of Kano in five years.

He made this known at the National Dialogue Conference on Gender-Based Violence (GBV) prevention from an Islamic perspective. Speaking at the conference, the monarch said

“Beating your wife or beating your daughter or beating a woman is prohibited. It is a crime. Let’s not even talk about handkerchief or chewing stick. It is just haram. It is prohibited. Allah says, All harm must be removed. And beating, gender-based violence is harm. And it must be removed.

“It just does not make sense. Now I said it before, and I know I’ve been attacked for it, and I’ll continue saying it. When my daughters are getting married, I say to them, if your husband slaps you, and you come home and tell me my husband slapped me, without slapping him back first, I will slap you myself because I did not send my daughter to marry somebody so he can slap her. If you do not like her, send her back to me. But don’t beat her.

“And we must teach our daughters not to take it. And also teach our sons that it is not allowed to happen. It is not acceptable. It cannot happen. We have to bring up our children to understand that violence against the body of another human being, whether it’s your brother, or your sister, or your son, or your daughter, or your wife, that violence against persons violates the basic dignity of a human being,” he said.