Malaysian Obedient Wives Club publishes sex guide

A book published by Malaysia’s Obedient Wives Club urges husbands in polygamous marriages to engage in group sex with their wives, reports AFP.

The club, which was formed last year and has 1,000 members in and outside Malaysia, is no stranger to controversy as it has made radical suggestions on sex and marriage. Last year it called on women to sexually satisfy their husbands or risk losing them to other women.

The guide, called “Islamic Sex, Fighting Jews to Return Islamic Sex to the World,” seems to carry explicit anti-Jewish undertones.

AFP was not able to immediately obtain a copy of the book, which was published by Global Ikhwan, the Malaysian Islamic group that formed the wives’ club.

Global Ikhwan first shot to prominence in 2009 when it formed the equally controversial “Polygamy Club.”

An extract on the back cover of the book, photographed in the Malaysian newspaper Berita Harian, also doesn’t reveal many clues. However, The Wall Street Journal reported that the book states that “Allah has granted man the ability to have simultaneous sex with all his wives,” adding that the book describes how “spiritual sex” can be more enjoyable and easier to arrange.

A member of the Global Ikhwan, Maznah Taufik, told AFP that the book was exclusively for club members and declined to comment further.

Malaysia’s minister in charge of Islamic affairs, Jamil Khir Baharom, has promised to investigate the book’s contents reported The Daily Star newspaper.

One chapter, “How Sex Becomes Worship,” contains unusually explicit sexual descriptions on breast-fondling. Malaysia bans books deemed to be pornographic or insulting to Islam.

The club also traces its origins to al-Arqaam religious sect that flourished in the 1980s and 1990s and was banned in 1994 for its allegedly deviant teachings. A picture of the group’s polygamous leader, Asaari Muhammad, is prominently displayed on the cover of the new book.

Some analysts point to the Obedient Wives Club as an attempt to propagate Muhammad’s teachings who died in 2010, aged 73.

Polygamy is legal for Muslims, who make up more than 60 percent of Malaysia’s population. Men are allowed to take up to four wives but need the prior consent of their wife or wives.

A 2010 study by a Muslim activist group found that men in polygamous relationships struggled to meet the needs of all their wives and children, and that the result was often unhappy and cash-strapped families.

Maria Chin Abdullah, executive director of the women’s advocacy group Empower, called the book a “very backward, narrow way of presenting women’s role.”

“It’s really an affront to the women’s rights movement,” she said. “We have come forward so far to say women are not just sex objects.”