It is no surprise to anyone with basic knowledge of religious traditions in Muslim majority countries that laws can be somewhat harsh towards women. Saudi Arabia is considered one of the strictest when it comes to implementing rules and laws that we in the west consider backward and barbaric, and rightly so. But a fatwa (a legal-religious ruling providing guidelines of behaviour) by Saudi Arabia’s head cleric Abdul Aziz bin Abdullah gave the word barbaric a new meaning outraging human rights campaigners. The fatwa which was made in 2016 allowed men to eat their wives if they suffered from hunger. Saudi Arabian grand mufti Sheikh Abdul Aziz bin Abdullah allegedly issued the guidelines to allow a husband to eat his wife’s body parts in extreme circumstances. “The fatwa is interpreted as evidence of the sacrifice of women and obedience to her husband and her desire for the two to become one”, the religious leader’s office said.