IT’S a tough time to be a moderate Muslim. The word ‘Islam’ is beleaguered with strife, contention, fundamentalism and nonsensical Islamic rulings.

Now Saudi Arabia has decided that Saudi men are not allowed to marry Pakistani women.

They are also forbidden from marrying women from Bangladesh, Chad and Burma.

It’s a ruling stemming from a country that prides itself on upholding Islamic principle.

Just to clarify, there is nothing Islamic about this new rule. Just a socio cultural hierarchy.

But all is not lost. The law is relaxed (hurrah) if a Saudi man wishes to take a second wife from any of the above undesirable countries.

However, the bold Saudi man will have to prove that his first wife has cancer, is disabled or unable to have children.

And those cynics dare to think romance is dead.

Quite what the country hopes to achieve by imposing these ludicrous bans on nuptials still remains to be determined.

Saudi Arabia is a country renowned for its opulent wealth and of course its ban on female drivers.

One respected Saudi cleric went as far to say that driving would hurt a woman’s reproductive capacity.

Who can argue with such sound logic?

And speaking of profound statements, only last week the Turkish deputy PM announced that women should not be seen laughing in public.

A risible statement that was swiftly defied on social media with Turkish women taking to Twitter and Instagram to post photos of themselves doing the immoral, corrupt deed… laughing.

Who would have thought that a picture of a woman baring her teeth could be a political statement?

Whilst Muslim women are being patently discriminated against by, er, Muslims, it begs the question, why on earth would these women want to marry Saudi men and move to a country where they need a male guardian’s permission to leave the house, to work, to open a bank account or to travel?

There is no place in the world for this type of loaded sexism.

Yet this new ruling shows that this perennially misogynistic mind set shows no signs of abating.