Obedient Wives Club
A newly-wed member of The Obedient Wives Club bows to her husband during a mass wedding ceremony in Kuala Lumpur, Jul 2011 Reuters

The controversial Obedient Wives Club in Malaysia has issued radical suggestions on sex and marital relations since it was formed last year.

The pocket-sized guide to Islamic sex suggests that Muslim men in polygamous marriages can engage in group sex with their wives. In Islamic law, a man is permitted to take up to four wives if he has the means to support them and if he receives the consent of his previous wife or wives.

The Wall Street Journal reported the book as saying that Allah has granted man the ability to have simultaneous sex with all his wives, adding that it describes how spiritual sex can be more enjoyable and easier to arrange.

According to the guide, sex is sanctioned by God as a pure act and is designed to create new life: You [God] have said all these acts are halal, pure, beautiful and like a prayer, it says.

The manual has been published by the controversial Obedient Wives Club, which claims to boast 1,000 members in Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia and Jordan. Since its founding in June, the club has angered feminists and moderate Muslims around the world by providing women with instructions on how to obey, serve and entertain their husbands.

Founder Maznah Taufik - who also set up the Polygamy Club in 2009 to encourage polygamy, a practice not common among Malaysian Muslims - says she believes marriage breakdowns are the result of women failing to satisfy their husbands' needs.

Domestic abuse happens because wives don't obey their husband's orders, said Mrs Maznah. A man must be responsible for his wife's well-being, but she must listen to her husband.

Malaysia's minister in charge of Islamic affairs, Jamil Khir Baharom, has promised to investigate the contents of the book. Under Malaysian law, any written material deemed to be pornographic or insulting to Islam can be banned.

Malaysia, a majority Muslim country, has distanced itself from the group in the past, and has denounced its views as those of a tiny and radical minority.