Rudd condemns Islamic cleric over views on marital rape

The Australian prime minister has demanded a Melbourne Islamic cleric apologise for reportedly telling male followers they can force their wives to have sex, and hit them if they're disobedient.

Kevin Rudd said Samir Abu Hamza's comments had no place in modern Australia.

During a 2003 lecture also posted on the internet last year, Mr Hamza told followers that under Islamic law, men could demand sex from their wives, News Limited newspapers reported on Thursday.

Despite Australian laws requiring consent, it was impossible for a man to rape his wife even if she refused to have sex, he said.

He also said that Islamic law allowed men to hit their wives as a last resort, but were not allowed to leave them bruised or bloodied, News Limited reported.

Mr Rudd on Thursday said Mr Hamza should apologise.

"Under no circumstances is sexual violence permissible or acceptable in Australia – under no circumstances," he told reporters in Hobart.

"Under no circumstances are other forms of violence, physical violence, acceptable towards women in Australia nor are they acceptable in my view to main stream Muslim teachings.

". . . Australia will not tolerate these sort of remarks. They don't belong in modern Australia, and he should stand up, repudiate them and apologise."

In the lecture, titled The Keys to a Successful Marriage, Mr Hamza mocks Australia's sexual assault laws that require consent for sex between a man and his wife.

"Amazing, how can a man rape his wife?" he asks.

Mr Hamza, a cleric in the Melbourne suburb of Coburg, told News Limited a man could hit his wife on the hand or leg, but not on the head.

He did not respond to AAP's phone calls on Thursday.

A former president of the Islamic Council of Victoria (ICV), Yasser Soliman, said wife beating and marital rape were not condoned by the Islamic community.

"It is very much looked down upon," Mr Soliman told AAP.

"The prophet Mohammed never beat his wife or smacked the children.

"To claim this is Islamic, or that the Koran forces wives to do things such as (Mr Hamza's) lectures suggest, is quite insulting to most of the Muslim world."

He said Mr Hamza was a self-taught cleric and was popular with young Muslims in Melbourne's northern suburbs.

"He has no formal qualifications, he's not really a scholar by any means," Mr Soliman said.

He said Mr Hamza, a married man with several children, appeared to have moved into the mainstream since the 2003 lecture, giving evidence against Abdul Nacer Benbrika in last year's terrorism trial in Melbourne.

"That was seen as a positive stand against terrorism and a more mainstream view," Mr Soliman said.

Sherene Hassan, vice-president of the ICV, said she was organising workshops for Victorian Imams on the issue of domestic violence.

"There may be individuals who have interpreted this lecture as condoning violence against women – it's not the first time we have had this problem," she said.

She said Imams would meet next week to plan workshops to find ways of discouraging domestic violence among followers.

In his lecture, Mr Hamza said a man was entitled under Islamic law to demand sex from his wife.

"If the husband was to ask her for a sexual relationship and she is preparing the bread on the stove she must leave it and come and respond to her husband, she must respond," News Limited quoted him saying in his lecture.

He also said men could advise their wives they would be beaten if they were disobedient.

"First of all advise them," he said. "You beat them. . . but this is the last resort.

"After you have advised them (not to be disobedient) for a long, long time then you smack them, you beat them and, please, brothers, calm down, the beating the Mohammed showed is like the toothbrush that you use to brush your teeth.

"You are not allowed to bruise them, you are not allowed to make them bleed."

- AAP