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Wife Beating in Islamic Law: Difference between revisions
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The word "lightly" does not appear in the original Arabic version, but is added in some translations. | The word "lightly" does not appear in the original Arabic version, but is added in some translations. | ||
Professor Jonathan Brown says that Quran commentaries from the 9th century include a narration about the occasion of revelation of Q 4:34, with a chain considered too weak for the canonical hadith collections. In the various versions of this story, a man complains to Muhammad about his son-in-law beating his wife, the man's daughter. Muhammad grants him permission for reprisal, whereupon the verse is immediately sent down. It ends with Muhammad saying, "I wanted one thing and God wanted another. And God wants what is best."<ref>Jonathan A. C. Brown, ''Misquoting Muhammad'', London: Oneworld Publications, 2014, p. 275</ref> See the section on Azbab an-Nazuul in the article [[Wife Beating in the Qur'an]] for quotes from the sira literature of this narration | Professor Jonathan Brown says that Quran commentaries from the 9th century include a narration about the occasion of revelation of Q 4:34, with a chain considered too weak for the canonical hadith collections. In the various versions of this story, a man complains to Muhammad about his son-in-law beating his wife, the man's daughter. Muhammad grants him permission for reprisal, whereupon the verse is immediately sent down. It ends with Muhammad saying, "I wanted one thing and God wanted another. And God wants what is best."<ref>Jonathan A. C. Brown, ''Misquoting Muhammad'', London: Oneworld Publications, 2014, p. 275</ref> See the section on Azbab an-Nazuul in the article [[Wife Beating in the Qur'an]] for quotes from the sira literature of this narration. A hadith collected by Abu Dawud (see below) in which 'Umar influenced Muhammad to permit wife beating, may suggest an alternative background to the verse. | ||
====(38:44) Job beats his wife==== | ====(38:44) Job beats his wife==== | ||
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====Muhammad's companions striking women==== | ====Muhammad's companions striking women==== | ||
Unlike the traditional occasion of revelation for Q. 4:34 which appeared in commentaries from the 9th century CE (discussed above), there is some hadith evidence that the wife beating verse may have been a result of pressure from 'Umar, | Unlike the traditional occasion of revelation for Q. 4:34 which appeared in commentaries from the 9th century CE (discussed above), there is some hadith evidence that the wife beating verse may have been a result of pressure from 'Umar, as Muhammad is portrayed as reluctantly agreeing to permit wife beating. 'Umar, who would became the second rightly guided Caliph, is also recorded slapping Muhammad's wife Hafsa and striking his own wife, and on yet another occasion telling a man to beat his wife after she tried to stop him having intercourse with (raping) a slave girl. Hadiths suggest a general pattern of 'Umar's violence towards and interest in controlling women. The revelation of the Verse of Hijab ({{Quran|33|53}} is even more explicitly linked to pressure from 'Umar (see the article [[Hijab]]). | ||
Multiple hadiths in the authoritative ''[[Sahih Bukhari]]'' report that Abu Bakr (the first Rightly-Guided [[Caliph]] of Islam and Muhammad's best friend) also struck (his daughter) Aisha violently with his fist. | Multiple hadiths in the authoritative ''[[Sahih Bukhari]]'' report that Abu Bakr (the first Rightly-Guided [[Caliph]] of Islam and Muhammad's best friend) also struck (his daughter) Aisha violently with his fist. | ||
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Critics have also noted what they describe as the sheer absurdity of the qualification found in the report and suggest that it could hardly be that God would leave out such an important qualification from the verse which, read in isolation, simply instructs men to beat their wives. To do so, critics suggest, would be a serious lack of judgement on God's part. Critics have also ridiculed the absurdity of the practice itself - what is the purpose, they ask, of tapping one's wife with a twig? And why would ''this'' prove effective if admonition of one's wife and abandoning her in bed had proven ineffective - surely tapping someone with a twig cannot be more compelling than either of these measures? Such a practice, critics conclude, is, at worst, a humiliating and patronizing symbolic gesture (having no place in polite society), or, at best, a fiction generated in the minds of later Muslims (that is, 7th, 8th, or 9th century Muslims attributing this idea, retroactively, back to Ibn Abbas) who were having a hard time reconciling the conflicting imperatives of an early Islamic tradition which at once taught Muslims to be kind to one another - and to beat their wives. | Critics have also noted what they describe as the sheer absurdity of the qualification found in the report and suggest that it could hardly be that God would leave out such an important qualification from the verse which, read in isolation, simply instructs men to beat their wives. To do so, critics suggest, would be a serious lack of judgement on God's part. Critics have also ridiculed the absurdity of the practice itself - what is the purpose, they ask, of tapping one's wife with a twig? And why would ''this'' prove effective if admonition of one's wife and abandoning her in bed had proven ineffective - surely tapping someone with a twig cannot be more compelling than either of these measures? Such a practice, critics conclude, is, at worst, a humiliating and patronizing symbolic gesture (having no place in polite society), or, at best, a fiction generated in the minds of later Muslims (that is, 7th, 8th, or 9th century Muslims attributing this idea, retroactively, back to Ibn Abbas) who were having a hard time reconciling the conflicting imperatives of an early Islamic tradition which at once taught Muslims to be kind to one another - and to beat their wives. | ||
== | ==Islamic law and Quranic exegesis on wife beating== | ||
Classical Muslim scholars have written abundant [[Tafsir|commentary]] and jurisprudential material regarding {{Quran|4|34}} and instruction to beat wives. A few of these classical sources are quoted below, alongside some modern authorities. It is important to note that a number of Islamic modernists (a small sub-group of modern Islamic scholars in general) [[Wife Beating in Islamic Law#The objections of Islamic modernists|have advocated]] an interpretation of {{Quran|4|34}} that militates against traditional understanding and takes the beating instructed to be purely 'symbolic' in nature. The influence of these few, albeit vocal, modernists has resulted in some recent English translations of the Quran opting to replace the word ''daraba'', which is found in the Arabic text and which means 'beat', with alternative words that more readily evoke the modernist interpretation. | Classical Muslim scholars have written abundant [[Tafsir|commentary]] and jurisprudential material regarding {{Quran|4|34}} and instruction to beat wives. A few of these classical sources are quoted below, alongside some modern authorities. It is important to note that a number of Islamic modernists (a small sub-group of modern Islamic scholars in general) [[Wife Beating in Islamic Law#The objections of Islamic modernists|have advocated]] an interpretation of {{Quran|4|34}} that militates against traditional understanding and takes the beating instructed to be purely 'symbolic' in nature. The influence of these few, albeit vocal, modernists has resulted in some recent English translations of the Quran opting to replace the word ''daraba'', which is found in the Arabic text and which means 'beat', with alternative words that more readily evoke the modernist interpretation. | ||
===Quran commentaries=== | ===Quran commentaries=== | ||
A couple of important tafsirs are available in English. See also the discussion on al-Tabari's tafsir above. | |||
{{Quote|1=[http://www.qtafsir.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=672 Tafsir of Ibn Kathir for Qur'an 4:34]|2=(beat them) means, if advice and ignoring her in the bed do not produce the desired results, you are allowed to discipline the wife, without severe beating. Muslim recorded that Jabir said that during the Farewell Hajj, the Prophet said; | {{Quote|1=[http://www.qtafsir.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=672 Tafsir of Ibn Kathir for Qur'an 4:34]|2=(beat them) means, if advice and ignoring her in the bed do not produce the desired results, you are allowed to discipline the wife, without severe beating. Muslim recorded that Jabir said that during the Farewell Hajj, the Prophet said; | ||
(Fear Allah regarding women, for they are your assistants. You have the right on them that they do not allow any person whom you dislike to step on your mat. However, if they do that, you are allowed to discipline them lightly. They have a right on you that you provide them with their provision and clothes, in a reasonable manner.) Ibn `Abbas and several others said that the Ayah refers to a beating that is not violent. Al-Hasan Al-Basri said that it means, a beating that is not severe.}} | (Fear Allah regarding women, for they are your assistants. You have the right on them that they do not allow any person whom you dislike to step on your mat. However, if they do that, you are allowed to discipline them lightly. They have a right on you that you provide them with their provision and clothes, in a reasonable manner.) Ibn `Abbas and several others said that the Ayah refers to a beating that is not violent. Al-Hasan Al-Basri said that it means, a beating that is not severe.}} | ||
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===Reformists=== | ===Reformists=== | ||
The Egyptian-American reformist jurist Abou El Fadl argues using {{Quran|4|128}} and the farewell sermon that nushūz refers to sexual betrayal and that striking a wife is limited to that scenario, while the Saudi scholar Abd al-Hamid Abu Sulayman (d. 2021) claimed daraba in Q. 4:34 means to leave, withdraw, abandon her. He acknowledged that this was a break with 1400 years of Islamic tradition.<ref>Jonathan A. C. Brown, ''Misquoting Muhammad'', p. 271, 277-78</ref> | The Egyptian-American reformist jurist Abou El Fadl argues using {{Quran|4|128}} and the farewell sermon that nushūz refers to sexual betrayal and that striking a wife is limited to that scenario, while the Saudi scholar Abd al-Hamid Abu Sulayman (d. 2021) claimed daraba in Q. 4:34 means to leave, withdraw, abandon her. He acknowledged that this was a break with 1400 years of Islamic tradition.<ref>Jonathan A. C. Brown, ''Misquoting Muhammad'', p. 271, 277-78</ref> While El Fadl's interpretation of nushūz may be credible, Abu Sulayman's untenable interpretation of the Arabic word daraba (beat) as it is used in Q. 4:34 is discussed in the article [[The Meaning of Daraba]]. | ||
In mid 20th century Tunisia at a time of secularization, Ibn Ashur (d. 1975) claimed that Q. 4:34-35 was entirely addressed as an instruction to the court authorities. His view was based on sharia procedural analogy that only rarely can a party in a case act as judge and mete out punishment, as well as general experience that a man could not be trusted to restrain himself in private and will likely transgress limits.<ref>Jonathan A. C. Brown, ''Misquoting Muhammad'', p. 279-80</ref> Critics would note this as an obviously implausible interpretation of verse 34 since husbands are directly instructed in that verse, most obviously when it tells them to forsake their wives in bed and given that the remedy in the verse is merely for when there is a "fear" of nushūz. | In mid 20th century Tunisia at a time of secularization, Ibn Ashur (d. 1975) claimed that Q. 4:34-35 was entirely addressed as an instruction to the court authorities. His view was based on sharia procedural analogy that only rarely can a party in a case act as judge and mete out punishment, as well as general experience that a man could not be trusted to restrain himself in private and will likely transgress limits.<ref>Jonathan A. C. Brown, ''Misquoting Muhammad'', p. 279-80</ref> Critics would note this as an obviously implausible interpretation of verse 34 since husbands are directly instructed in that verse, most obviously when it tells them to forsake their wives in bed and given that the remedy in the verse is merely for when there is a "fear" of nushūz. | ||