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Domestic violence can be problematic within the Muslim community. Some believe it occurs because shari’a law, a moral code and religious law of Islam, allows such behavior under certain conditions. But among Muslims, the uses and interpretations of shari’a lack consensus on this issue. And shari’a law itself can play a part in reducing domestic violence among Muslims

Different Interpretation of Qur’an

Conservative (traditional) view

According to Vijidi in Khan, the “book of Nature, the sciences and the philosophers of Europe have emphatically proclaimed that though woman may try her best…she cannot be the equal of man in physical and intellectual powers…Her natural functions oblige her to be subjected to man, by which alone she can have any meaningful identity.” From these, they infer that men and women are not only biologically different but also unequal. Male superiority is both ontological, since woman is said to have been created from/after man and for his pleasure, and moral-social, since God is alleged to have preferred men in “the completeness of mental ability, good counsel, complete power in the performance of duties and the carrying out of (divine) commands.” Woman is presented as a “tragic being [whose] sex functions and physiology make her unfit for any work or activity except child-bearing,” which is her “biological tragedy” But these misogynistic readings of Islam derive not from the Qur’an’s teachings, but from attempts by Muslim exegetes and Qur’an commentators “to legitimize actual usage of their own day by interpreting it in great detail into the Holy Book.” In order to examine the comparative study of [Qur’anic] interpretations such as those of Tabari (d.923), Zamakhashari (d. 1144), Baydawi (d. 1286), al-Suyuti (d. 1505), all of work that form part of the Sunni canon today, we need to examine “not just the methods by which Qur’anic exegesis and religious meaning have been and continue to be produced, but also the extratextual contexts of their production”

Feministic view

Barazangi claims that “this capacity [rereadings and reinterpretations of Qu’ran] for moral and rational derivation of a meaning from the eternal words and the immediate acting on the derived meaning to change one’s behavior is what qualifies a human being as a Muslim by choice, that is, a self-identified Muslim.” She approaches the interpretation from different angle and applying the nature of human being as a self-identified Muslim with the central question of “who has the authority to reread and interpret the Qur’anic text and how is it to be done?” She asserts that the widely held belief that only select elite males are authorized to interpret the text first and foremost should be changed.

Interpretation discrepancy view

Asma Barlas in her “Believing women in Islam” asserts her stance that as many recent studies reveal, women’s status and roles in Muslim societies, as well as patriarchal structures and gender relationships, are a function of multiple factors, most of which have nothing to do with religion. She argues, furthermore, that the history of Western civilization should tell us that there is nothing innately Islamic about misogyny, inequality, or patriarchy; and yet, all three often are justified by Muslim states and clerics in the name of Islam. El-Sohl and Mabro also support this position, saying the status of Muslim women “solely in terms of the Qur’an and/or other Islamic sources [are] all too often taken out of context.” Also, it is imperative to examine that a lot of inequality and discrimination derive not from the teachings of the Qur’an but from the secondary religious texts, the Tafsir(Qur’anic exegesis) and the Ahadith (s. hadith), which are narratives purportedly detailing the life and praxis of the Prophet Muhammad.

There is some deliberation about whether the Qur’an lawfully permits husbands to use physical force against his wife in the matrimonial home. Some Ulama (Islamic scholars) refers to the Qur’an in relation to passage on the social interaction between husbands and wives from verse 4:34 entitled Surah An-Nisa. Verse 4:34, in its English translation from Arabic, permits a form of marital ‘discipline’ by the husband and is translated by Taqi-ud-Din Al-Hilali and Muhsin Khan (2007): Men are the protectors, guardians and maintainers of women, because Allah has made the one of them to excel the other, and because they spend (to support them) from their means. Therefore the righteous women are devoutly obedient (to Allah and their husbands), and guard in the husband’s absence what Allah orders them to guard (e.g. their chastity, their husband’s property etc). As to those women on whose part you see ill-conduct (i.e. disobedience, rebellion, nashuz in Arabic) admonish them (first), (next), refuse to share their beds, (and last) beat them (lightly, if it is useful), but if they return to obedience, seek not against them means (of annoyance). Surely, Allah is Ever Most High, Most Great (emphasis added).

However, Ahmed Ali’s translation of the verse 4:34 is very different than the above, which proves that these various interpretations are potentially misleading in discussing the role of Qur’an in justifying domestic violence. …As for women you feel are averse, talk to them cursively; then leave them alone in bed (without molesting them), and go to bed with them (when they are willing) (emphasis added).

According to verse 4:34, Muslim husbands are permitted to act what is known in Arabic as Idribuhunna, which in English can be translated (or qualified by the majority of Islamic scholars) as the use of ‘light force.’ Although generally translated by Islamic scholars to mean as ‘strike’, ‘hit’, ‘chastise’, or ‘beat,’ the word Idribu is also translated by Ahmed Ali to mean ‘to forsake, to avoid, or to leave.’

There is no authority in the Qur’an for the type of regular and frequent acts of violence that women experience from their abusive husbands. Furthermore, the contradicting actions of many Muslim husbands that lacks the expected level of control in two elements from the verse, admonishment and separation. The separation dictates not only the physical separation, but also abstinence from marital sex. However, as Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) condemns as he says: ‘How loathsome (Ajeeb) it is that one of you should hit his wife as a slave is hit, and then sleep with her at the end of the day.’ He is noting that the Muslim husbands fail to exercise control over their own sexual desires that is required to remain separate, while practicing the admonition of women.

Solution

Lisa Hajjar in her article “Religion, State Power, and Domestic Violence in Muslim Societies: A Framework for Comparative Analysis” states that the use of shari’a as the legal framework for administering Muslims’ family relations (marriage, divorce, custody and inheritance) constitutes an important consideration as it functions both as specific legal rules and as a general religio-cultural framework for Islamic norms and values. Therefore, efforts to implement law reforms to enhance the rights and protection of women within the family are bound up in contestations over the role and the jurisprudence of religious law, and social acceptance of reforms is contingent on their perceived compatibility with religious beliefs. So in order to ascertain the practicing of protecting women’s rights across various countries, she proposes to ask a series of questions. Has the state signed and ratified the Convention to Eliminate All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), and if so, is this authority used effectively to prohibit and punish domestic violence? Are there national laws and/or administrative sanctions prohibiting domestic violence? What measures, if any, has the state taken or authorized to deal with domestic violence and the protection of victims (e.g., provision of social services and health care, education campagisn)? On the other hand, Barazangi argues that before taking specific actions to improve the women’s rights in Islamic countries, women’s involvement in decision making (that is, participating in the interpretation of the Qur’an as well as in discussing the human rights documents) is critically needed in many Muslim communities and societies, and second, self-identification with the Qur’an offers a way to eliminate the secondary status of women because it is based on defining the issues from within. She furthermore asserts that the attempt to transplant Western secular systems of education and Western feminists’ views into Muslim communities and societies through the academic institutionalization of the study of Muslim women ignores the spiritual and intellectual worldview of the people who identify with the Qur’an and will not lead to lasting “solutions” to the problem of the secondary status of women.

In Morocco, as elsewhere, the most common reason women seek to end a marriage is to extricate themselves from a situation in which they are vulnerable to domestic violence, as 28,000 acts of domestic violence was reported between 1984 and 1998. Most women’s rights activitists concede that while divorce can provide potential relief, it does not constitute an adequate protection or even an option for many women, with discouraging factors such as lack of resources or support to establish alternative domestic arrangements and social expectations and pressures.

Although the practicability of getting a divorce might be practiced differently in different regions, Allah (s.w.t.) has stated in the Qur’an: (2:231) And when you have divorced women and they have fulfilled the term of their prescribed period, either take them back on reasonable basis or set them free on reasonable basis. But do not take them back to hurt them, and whoever does that, then he has wronged himself. And treat not the Verses [i.e. Laws] of Allah as a jest, but remember Allah’s Favours on you [i.e. Islam], and that which He has sent down to you of the Book [i.e. the Qur’an] and Al-Hikmah [i.e. the Prophet’s Sunnah, legal ways, Islamic jurisprudence etc] whereby He instructs you. And fear Allah, and know that Allah is All-Aware of everything (emphasis added).

Legislature and law enforcement

In 1993 as a response to the women’s rights activism against aspects of Moroccan family law that are discriminatory or otherwise harmful to women, King Hassan II had instituted some modest reforms of the Mudawwana, and in 1998, he authorized Prime Minister El-Yousoufi to propose further changes. When the King Hassan died in 1999, the throne passed to his son, Muhammad VI, who committed to bolder reforms to improve the status of women. Opponents of the plan argued that this reform conflicted with women’s duties to their husbands and contravene their shari’a-based status as legal minors. However, the controversy marked by the huge competing demonstrations intimidated the government, which led to the withdrawal of the plan.