Mick Hartley

From the Times:

A cleric who has said a wife “cannot” say she will not have sex with her husband was booked as a leading speaker at a British children’s summer camp.

Sayed Moustafa al-Qazwini made the remarks about sex in marriage in a podcast in February last year in which he described “companionship” as a husband’s right.

He said that if a woman was not ill, menstruating or suffering physically or psychologically, “she cannot say to her husband, ‘No, I don’t sleep with you’.”

Qazwini, an Iraqi-American, is based in Orange County, California. He had been given star billing at CampUK, a six-day residential event for children and families that was due to be held this month at Condover Hall, a Grade I-listed country house in Shropshire.

The event has now been cancelled after JCA, which operates Condover Hall, was approached by The Times. JCA said the event had already been under review “in accordance with JCA’s safeguarding responsibilities and procedures, as well as operational risk considerations at the venue”. It added: “Following that review, the camp is no longer taking place in August 2026.”

Well, good for them.

The event had advertised strict rules on women and girls. The hijab was to be compulsory in public and mixed areas and those who did not comply would have been asked to make “the necessary adjustments”. The event also required “strict gender segregation” and every camper would have had to attend prayers. Music was banned.

In the discussion, Qazwini said women were “susceptible to anxiety [and] depression” and that a husband must take that “into consideration”. However, he added: “But if she is OK physically, mentally, she’s not on her period, she cannot say no to him. She cannot. This is his right, natural right, because if he does not do it in the halal [within the marriage] way, he’s going to do it somewhere else.” 

Qazwini has also made a series of inflammatory statements about Jews, Israel and Hamas.

In a lecture published in March, he discussed an Arabic phrase meaning “the hand of a Jew”. He said it signified “a hand of treachery and dishonesty” and warned: “Such hand, you cannot trust it.”

He previously likened Hamas to the leaders of American independence. “The one who wants to free his country is not a terrorist,” he said. “If [they] are terrorist, then George Washington was the first terrorist. Abraham Lincoln was the first terrorist.”

The Hamas remarks were included in a 2024 report by George Washington University’s Program on Extremism. The report also cited a 2009 sermon in which he called Israelis “infidels”, “enemies of God” and “enemies of humanity”. Muslims had to be “tough and aggressive with them”, he said. 

In 2017, Qazwini falsely claimed: “Isis [Islamic State] is the production of the Israeli intelligence. Most of their officers were trained in Israel, including Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.” He later withdrew the allegation and apologised. His Islamic Educational Center of Orange County, in California, said he had reconsidered the reliability of Iraqi political and military sources, on which he had relied, and regretted the pain caused, particularly to Jewish friends. 

Qazwini also appeared at CampUK in 2022 and 2024 and at its spring retreat last year. Its website promotes talks, workshops and discussions for “all interests and age groups” as well as kayaking, climbing and other outdoor pursuits. 

So the cancellation this time was effectively a one-off – by an institution that, unusually, takes its safeguarding responsibilities seriously. No doubt CampUK can and will find an alternative location easily enough.