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Wife Beating in Islamic Law: Difference between revisions
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===Islamic law=== | ===Islamic law=== | ||
Professor Jonathan Brown writes that jurists interpreted ''nushuz'' in Q. 4:34 in terms of disobedience: "If a wife exhibited egregious disobedience ('' | Professor Jonathan Brown writes that jurists interpreted ''nushuz'' in Q. 4:34 in terms of disobedience: "If a wife exhibited egregious disobedience (''nushūz'') such as uncharacteristically insulting behaviour, leaving the house against the husband's will and without valid excuse or denying her husband sex (without medical grounds), the husband should first admonish her to be conscious of God and proper etiquette. If she did not desists from her behaviour, he should cease sleeping with her in their bed. If she still continued with her ''nushūz'', he should then strike her to teach her the error of her ways." He further says that jurists generally attempted to mitigate the "beat them" command of Q. 4:34: "It became received opinion among Sunni ulama from Iberia to Iran that, though striking one's wife was permitted, other means of discipline and dispute were greatly preferred, more effective and better for the piety of both spouses." The hadith scholar Ibn Hajar (d. 1449 CE) went so far as to place beating wives in the sharia category of "strongly disliked" or "verging on prohibited".<ref>Jonathan A. C. Brown, ''Misquoting Muhammad'', London: Oneworld Publications, 2014, p. 276</ref> | ||
Some others were not uncomfortable and found it natural that God would grant such a right to husbands. For Ibn al-Faras (d. 1201 CE) it was "recommended" and saved the wife from her own irrational impulses. The Hanbali jurist Ibn al-Jawzi (d. 1116 CE) allowed a husband to give his wife up to three lashes with a whip.<ref>Jonathan A. C. Brown, ''Misquoting Muhammad'', p. 280-81</ref> Ayesha Chaudary writes that the Hanafi jurist Ibn al Numan (d. 1457 CE) set a limit of ten lashes.<ref>Ayesha Chaudhry, ''Domestic Violence and the Islamic Tradition.'', Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013, p. 106</ref> Brown says that the Shafi'i school allowed a husband only to strike his wife with his hand or wound up hankerchief, though not a whip or stick, and for the late Shafi'i school wife beating was not recommended. All schools agreed that | Some others were not uncomfortable and found it natural that God would grant such a right to husbands. For Ibn al-Faras (d. 1201 CE) it was "recommended" and saved the wife from her own irrational impulses. The Hanbali jurist Ibn al-Jawzi (d. 1116 CE) allowed a husband to give his wife up to three lashes with a whip.<ref>Jonathan A. C. Brown, ''Misquoting Muhammad'', p. 280-81</ref> Ayesha Chaudary writes that the Hanafi jurist Ibn al Numan (d. 1457 CE) set a limit of ten lashes.<ref>Ayesha Chaudhry, ''Domestic Violence and the Islamic Tradition.'', Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013, p. 106</ref> Brown says that the Shafi'i school allowed a husband only to strike his wife with his hand or wound up hankerchief, though not a whip or stick, and for the late Shafi'i school wife beating was not recommended. All schools agreed that striking the face or sensitive areas was prohibited.<ref>Jonathan A. C. Brown, ''Misquoting Muhammad'', p. 276, 278</ref> | ||
Ayesha Chaudhry explains that unlike Hanafi scholars, who simply adopted the farewell sermon terminology discussed above that men should beat their wives, but without severity (ghayra mubarrihin), Maliki jurists attempted to define more precisely the kind of hitting that was permitted. For them, it should not include punching, nor leave an impression or be fearsome, should not cause fractures nor break bones, nor cause disfiguring wounds.<ref>Ayesha Chaudhry, ''Domestic Violence and the Islamic Tradition.'', p. 111</ref> | Ayesha Chaudhry explains that unlike Hanafi scholars, who simply adopted the farewell sermon terminology discussed above that men should beat their wives, but without severity (ghayra mubarrihin), Maliki jurists attempted to define more precisely the kind of hitting that was permitted. For them, it should not include punching, nor leave an impression or be fearsome, should not cause fractures nor break bones, nor cause disfiguring wounds.<ref>Ayesha Chaudhry, ''Domestic Violence and the Islamic Tradition.'', p. 111</ref> | ||
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===Reformists=== | ===Reformists=== | ||
The Egyptian-American reformist jurist Abou El Fadl argues using {{Quran|4|128}} and the farewell sermon that | 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> This untenable interpretation of the Arabic word daraba is discussed in the article [[Wife Beating in the Qur'an]]. | ||
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 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 that the remedy in the verse is merely for when there is a "fear" of | 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. | ||
A common modernist or apologetic perspective today, at least in the West, is to appeal to the narration about tapping with a miswak (toothbrush stick), as discussed in the section on hadiths above. | A common modernist or apologetic perspective today, at least in the West, is to appeal to the narration about tapping with a miswak (toothbrush stick), as discussed in the section on hadiths above. | ||