We study the stability properties of Rayleigh unstable flows both in the purely hydrodynamic and magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) regimes for two different values of the shear $q=2.1, 4.2$ ($q = - d\ln\Omega / d\ln r$) and compare it with the Keplerian case $q=1.5$. The Rayleigh stability criterion states that hydrodynamic shear flows are stable for $q2$ regime as the volume averaged velocities ($k=0$ mode) are unstable in this regime but the advantage of using a pseudospectral code is that the $k=0$ mode is conserved. We find that the $q>2$ regime is unstable to turbulence both in the hydrodynamic and in the MHD limit (with an initially weak magnetic field). In the $q>2$ regime, the velocity fluctuations dominate the magnetic fluctuations whereas in the $q2$ regime the instability produces primarily velocity fluctuations that cause magnetic fluctuations, with the causality reversed for the $q