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Twitter users in Saudi Arabia have lashed out at Sheikh after a short of him making derogatory comments about women went viral.

"Be grateful to whoever marries your daughter. They have taken a burden off your shoulders and relieved you of a disgrace," Makli said on a programme on Bedaya TV.

Social media users across the kingdom were quick to respond using the Arabic-language hashtag , and clarify that the sheikh stands alone with his outrageous comment.

"If Ali al-Malki thinks that women are a disgrace then my mother, sisters, wife and daughter will be the most beautiful disgraces in my life until I die," MBC's managing editor Mohammed al-Enzi.

Stand-up comedian Thamer al-Meshari : "We call our daughters disgraces, when in fact we are the disgraces. The only thing wrong with our daughters is us!"

Computer scientist Adi al-Hudhaif : "Pretty soon we'll be going back to killing infant girls."

Blogger Mohammad al-Dughayyim Egyptian Nobel prize laureate Naguib Hafouz: "I hope that whoever underestimates the abilities of women, re-lives his childhood without a mother."

Last month, Saudi women headed to polling stations as they were allowed to vote and stand as candidates in the country's municipal elections for the first time ever, a small step forward in the deeply conservative kingdom.