CAIRO: Egypt’s top Islamic authority has rejected the president’s suggestion for legislation that would invalidate the practice of men verbally divorcing their wives.

Al-Azhar’s Council of Grand Clerics said Sunday that verbal divorce, when appropriately declared by husbands with sound minds, has been an undisputed practice since the days of the seventh-century Prophet Mohammad. As a compromise, it proposed harsher penalties for those who don’t swiftly document such divorces.

Alarmed by high divorce rates, Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi last month suggested that legislation be adopted so a divorce would be legal only in the presence of a state-authorized preacher.

Sisi has spoken in the past of reforming Islamic teachings in order to combat extremism.