Islam and domestic violence

Variations in interpretation are due to different schools of Islamic jurisprudence, histories and politics of religious institutions, conversions, reforms, and education.

[1] Domestic violence among the Muslim community is considered a complicated human rights issue due to varying legal remedies for women by the nations where they live, the extent to which they have support or opportunities to divorce their husbands, cultural stigma to hide evidence of abuse, and inability to have abuse recognized by police or the judicial system in some Muslim nations.

According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary definition, domestic violence is: "the inflicting of physical injury by one family or household member on another; also: a repeated or habitual pattern of such behavior.

Some modern scholars argue that the term should be understood metaphorically or as a means of corrective discipline, rather than a literal command to inflict physical harm.

This divergence highlights the broader issues of cultural context, historical usage, and linguistic nuance in interpreting Quranic texts.

As to those women on whose part ye fear disloyalty and ill-conduct, admonish them (first), (Next), refuse to share their beds, (And last) strike them (lightly); but if they return to obedience, seek not against them Means (of annoyance): For Allah is Most High, great (above you all).Lisa Hajjar[7][8] claims Shari'a law encourages "domestic violence" against women when a husband suspects nushuz (disobedience, disloyalty, rebellion, ill conduct) in his wife.

[16] Ibn 'Abbas, The Cousin of the Prophet, is recorded in the Tafsir of al-Tabari for verse 4:34 as saying that beating without severity is using a siwak (small toothbrush) or a similar object.

[17] A translated passage by Taqi-ud-Din al-Hilali and Muhsin Khan in 2007 defines men as 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.

Upon seeing ill-conduct (i.e. disobedience, rebellion, nashuz in Arabic) by his wife, a man may 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.

[14][23] Abu Shaqqa refers to the edict of Hanafi scholar al-Jassas (d. 981) who notes that the reprimand should be "A non-violent blow with siwak [a small stick used to clean the teeth] or similar.

[5] The discussions in all four Sunni law schools institutionalised the viewpoint of the Quranic exegeses by turning wife-beating into a means of discipline against rebellious wives.

Their only condition is that the beating must not kill her; this view was taken from Hanafi scholar Al-Jassas and within this framework they emphasised the need of following the sequence of admonishment, abandonment and hitting.

[32] The Shafi'i scholars upheld the permissibility of wife beating but encouraged avoiding it and did not hold the imperative "wa-ḍribūhunna" to mean an obligatory command.

[30] Evidence of judicial records from the sixteenth century on wards show that Ottoman judges who followed the Hanafi school allowed divorce because of abuse.

[35] Jonathan A.C. Brown says: The vast majority of the ulama across the Sunni schools of law inherited the Prophet's unease over domestic violence and placed further restrictions on the evident meaning of the 'Wife Beating Verse'.

A leading Meccan scholar from the second generation of Muslims, Ata' bin Abi Rabah, counseled a husband not to beat his wife even if she ignored him but rather to express his anger in some other way.

Darimi, a teacher of both Tirmidhi and Muslim bin Hajjaj as well as a leading early scholar in Iran, collected all the Hadiths showing Muhammad's disapproval of beating in a chapter entitled 'The Prohibition on Striking Women'.

A thirteenth-century scholar from Granada, Ibn Faras, notes that one camp of ulama had staked out a stance forbidding striking a wife altogether, declaring it contrary to the Prophet's example and denying the authenticity of any Hadiths that seemed to permit beating.

Bahz bin Hakim reported on the authority of his father from his grandfather (Mu'awiyah ibn Haydah) as saying:[43][44] I said: Messenger of Allah, how should we approach our wives and how should we leave them?

"[48] Domestic violence is considered to be a problem in Muslim-majority cultures, where women face social pressures to submit to violent husbands and not file charges or flee.

[55] When asked why is beating a wife lightly permitted, the chairman of Pakistan's Council of Islamic Ideology, Mullah Maulana Sheerani said, "The recommendations are according to the Quran and Sunnah.

[56] In Lebanon, KAFA, an organization campaigning against violence and the exploitation of women, alleges that as many as three-quarters of all Lebanese females have suffered physically at the hands of husbands or male relatives at some point in their lives.

[57][58] Social workers claim failure of religious courts in addressing numerous instances of domestic abuse in Syria, Pakistan, Egypt, Palestine, Morocco, Iran, Yemen and Saudi Arabia.

[59] In 2013, Saudi Arabia approved a new law on domestic violence, which sets penalties for all types of sexual and physical abuse, in the workplace and at home.

[70] Bangladesh was found to be one of the countries with a high rate of domestic violence resulting in death during pregnancy by a United Nations study.

[75] One 17th century Muslim marriage contract from Surat, examined by Shireen Moosvi, contained a stipulation by the bride, Maryam, that her husband, Muhammad Jiu, would give her a specific amount of maintenance.

[82] According to the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences in 2002, over 90% of married Pakistani women surveyed reported being kicked, slapped, beaten or sexually abused by their husbands and in-laws.

[109] The Council of Islamic Ideology objected to the bill, claiming in its current form it would increase divorces and that it ignored adult male victims of domestic violence.

Representatives of Islamic organizations vowed resistance to the proposed bill, describing it as "anti-Islamic" and an attempt to promote "Western cultural values" in Pakistan.

[67][nb 11] Though some Muslim scholars, such as Ahmad Shafaat, contend that Islam permits women to be divorced in cases of domestic violence.