Following are excerpts from an address by Egyptian cleric Sheik Masoud Anwar, which aired on Al-Rahma TV on March 13, 2009. 
 

Sheik Masoud Anwar: Some Arab governments [have decided] to forbid polygamy. Take Turkey, for example – look what happened there, at the hand of that idol, Ataturk. In 1926, Ataturk issued several diabolical decrees: first, the abolishment of the Islamic hijab, second, the prevention and criminalization of polygamy, third, he abolished the hijra calendar, fourth, he ordered the use of the Gregorian calendar, and fifth, he declared the weekly day of rest throughout Islamic Turkey to be Sunday, rather than Friday. 
 

Turkey... This is Egypt, not Turkey. We are the country of Al-Azhar, of knowledge. 
 

[...] 
 

In Tunisia, they banned and criminalized polygamy. A man is allowed to be intimate and fornicate on one condition: that his lover agrees to this. That’s in Tunisia. But if he’s caught in the “crime” of marriage to another woman – he is sent to prison. In God we place our trust. If a man is caught with his lover, and it was with her consent, they say: “Forgive us, sir.” We have freedom. But if he says: “This is my second wife” – there is hell to pay. 
 

[...] 
 

Non-Muslims in Europe and the US say to you: “You people worship the sexual urges. You marry four wives?!” They deny us polygamy, but they do not deny themselves their multiple lovers. Rarely do you find someone in Europe or the US who makes do with a single woman. They marry one wife, but fornicate with a hundred women. The same goes for the Western woman. She sees her husband befriending and getting intimate with other women, and she cannot deter him, so she sinks into the same decay. She dances with whoever she wants, she sleeps with whoever she wants, and she has sex with whoever she wants, and usually, this is with her husband’s knowledge and his blessing. They follow the principle: Allow me, and I will allow you. Let me be, and I will let you be too. My question is: Is there among them a man of honor, who can lift his head high with pride and say: “I have never once committed adultery”? 
 

In France, today or yesterday, I heard that they promised 10,000 euros to any fiancé who refrains from having sex with his fiancée. I cannot forget the picture I saw in a newspaper of a famous soccer player from Latin America. He was shown at his wedding, with his two children, aged 8 and 9 years. What was the caption? “The wedding of international soccer player so-and-so...” And who were the children? They were the children he had with his fiancée, before he married her. He had them before he got married. Who among them can raise his head high with pride and say: All my life, I have known no woman other than my wife. 
 

Have you forgotten the Clinton-Monica affair? US President Clinton and Monica, who brought him disgrace. Have you forgotten the affair of Kennedy with the blonde Marilyn Monroe? Another US president... There are many more like them – and these are the nation’s great leaders, and the people follow in the footsteps of their leaders. 
 

Brothers, the strangest thing is that the Orientalists and the ignorant and stupid from among the Muslims consider polygamy to be a disgrace and a catastrophe. In Europe, nobody criticizes the multitude of lovers. They say: People have personal liberties. Europe... America... All we see there are whores and prostitutes. That is the culture of promiscuity – the culture of sex magazines, porn films, and homosexuality. Britain has a law permitting a man to marry another man. That’s homosexuality, shameful intercourse, rape! 
 

Just listen to this – according to the Society magazine, in Italy, one million Italian women work as professional prostitutes. They have a professional license. This is without all the amateurs. One million prostitutes! The French magazine Le Nouvel Observateur published, on December 16, 1980, that prostitution in France provides jobs for some 30,000 girls. The trade produces great profits, most of which reach the state. 
 

[...] 
 

Let’s take a barren woman, who cannot have children, and her husband longs for a child. What is he to do? Must he divorce her because of the law that criminalizes polygamy? Must he divorce her, throw her out on the street? What if she’s a good woman? What if she’s an orphan? What if she has no other place to stay? What should he do? Are we to deny him the happiness of having a child? What’s a guy to do? Should he take a child from a shelter and raise him, even though he is able to father a child of his own seed? Isn’t it better that he marry another wife, as long as he treats them equally? 
 

[...] 
 

Let’s take a woman who is afflicted with an illness that prevents her from fulfilling the marital rights. What is her husband to do? Should he suffer and be deprived, in times of many temptations, which arouse desires? Or should he fall prey to sin, God forbid? Or maybe he should marry a second wife, who will preserve his honor. Which solution is better? You tell me. Let’s take a man whose wife has grown old and abstains from sex. There are such women. It is well known that men’s fertility is greater than that of women, and so is their appetite. What should we do with such a man? Slaughter him?! That’s how God created him. 
 

[...] 
 

Sometimes, a woman cannot fulfill her marital obligations, for reasons beyond her control, such as menstruation or the postpartum period of abstinence. There are women whose period lasts for 15 days and more, and her husband can’t wait that long. So what are we to do with him? He has financial means, he has money, he is healthy – let him get married, brother. Are we supposed to forbid him what Allah has permitted? 
 

A man may want to marry a second or third wife in order to spread his seed. Brother, I have money. I’d like to have 30 children of my own seed, and I will raise them properly. Who’s to stop me? 
 

[...] 
 

Can we blame a man in the prime of life, at the height of his virility, if he is not satisfied with one woman? What’s wrong with that? We live in times of lesser masculinity, in times of pills that are meant to raise manhood, and yet you complain about a man at the height of virility? It’s a good thing.