WIfe beating

[Mughal1]

Re: WIfe beating

@psyah

Peace All

What has been written by Mughal1 is not to be considered the consensus view on this matter. Although much of it is accurate, but where it counts it is a distortion and apologetic made to be palatable to a modern audience. We don’t need to be this way Al-Qur’an takes care of itself.

Context is important always:

The verse talks about a wife who guards her husbands things of right ordained by Allah (SWT). This guarding refers to his property and her own chastity. So if she gives his money, property away to someone without his knowledge or allows men to enter his house or for her to be cheating on him in his absence in any way, and he suspects her, what is he supposed to do?

a) Remind her of his rights
b) On proof, sleep away from her
c) If it continues, say an argument breaks out or it becomes more blatant then (hit to symbolically represent that stage) The hitting is in hadith restricted to something of small size, once without leaving a mark. It is supposed to be the fear of being hit rather than the hitting that is advocated.

At each point like Mughal1 stated the options are to look for signs of the situation resolving itself.

If however before doing any of these things and you fear that even sleeping separately or warning verbally may actually worsen the situation not mend it then none of these things are done, but to start arbitration and marriage counselling. After hitting once then the next course of action will be divorce hence domestic violence is being curtailed in the Qur’an. If a man is taken to the extent of hitting then he cannot continue in that state to force obedience or loyalty from his wife. Once that symbolic hitting occurs then he will need to consider the break up, which he probably does not want to consider, hence will prevent himself from going to that extent.

My problem with Mughal1’s version is that it is totally blind to the hitting word. He jumps to the next ayat and if people do that with Al-Qur’an because they are unable to reason with it then this is what causes problems, and people will make fun of us being selective with out scriptures. The word for hit is there we need to deal with it not avoid it.

NOTE: The conditions for all this are only for disloyalty and ill-conduct with property and her chastity in his absence. There are many things arguments break out for but the majority of them do not fall in this category so would be completely not applicable.

Salaam dear psyah, thank you for sharing your thoughts. You are saying that I ignored word DARABA but I thought that I made it clear as to what it may mean in the context of the verses stated. I stated the meanings of the word in dictionary to show that word daraba does have other meanings as well beside beating. I also brought in wider context in which if the verse is interpreted will make better sense. Particulalrly if we look at 4.158 where in sane word is should for husband as is used for the wife.

The context may well be that husband and wife are no longer much interested in each and to find out this may be a process to see if they still love each other and need each other not. This becomes obvious once man and wife separate.

I very strongly believe that word beat here is out of context for the reasons explained, it is not for making people happy who think it is uncivilised, islam is islam and islam is whatever makes beter sense. It is not about pleasing one mindset or the other. Islam is about whatever is appropriate and right. So if the interpretation goes in favour of those who think things this way, why would there be anything wrong with that?

Of course my word is not final, it is just an opinion that I am sharing the way it makes sense to me. So discussions only helps us to try and see what makes better sense.

So please continue sharing your thoughts because may end up with yet beter ideas.

regards and all the best.