U hav bcm my x-wyf, c u round

KUALA LUMPUR - Cowardly husbands can rejoice. In what sounds like the ultimate in quickie divorce, a Muslim cleric has caused controversy by saying the whole sticky mess can be sorted out with a mobile phone text message.

No cross words, no nasty scenes, just a single sentence tapped at one's leisure many miles away. The idea was floated by the Mufti of Kuala Lumpur, who startled his colleagues by suggesting that mobile phone text messages known as SMS were a valid way to complete the first, vital phase in divorce proceedings.

Under Islamic law, husbands were traditionally obliged to tell their wives to their faces that they wanted a divorce before it gained any religious recognition. The declaration is normally then repeated in court before a judge of religious law, who ratifies the declaration.

But Mufti Hashim Yahya said that under Shariah law a man could "say it directly on the telephone, through a letter [or] using SMS."

Interpreters of Islamic law say the Mufti is technically correct, though few are willing to back his idea.

Women's leaders are furious.

The Minister for Family Development, Sharizat Abdul Jalil, said the idea was an insult to marriage and demeaning to women.

She wants the Council of Muftis, Malaysia's supreme Islamic body, to forbid SMS messages in divorce cases.
- INDEPENDENT