Conclusion
This chapter indicates the type of information available in sample texts from the Arab/Islamic canon on the subject of violence against women in the early Islamic period. Violence in the form of corporal punishment was inherent in the value systems designed to protect individuals and communities.
Disciplinary practices were prescribed by the exegetical religious tradition and endorsed by prevailing notions of appropriate domestic governance.The exegetical tradition on the Qur'anic verse 4:34 is copious. The commentaries on the verse distinguish between necessary retribution and unwarranted beatings in order to define acceptable and unacceptable levels of violence within the household. Beyond the rich exegetical tradition, the information tends to be otherwise scarce and fragmentary. One has to read through multivolume biographical dictionaries and adab anthologies in order to capture a handful of anecdotes that depict instances of violence against women. While we recognise the limitations of using literary sources as historical documents, literature can be used to show the possible dangers
feature of patriarchy.' In Against Our Will: Men, Women and Rape (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1975), pp. 14-15.
48 Al-Tanukhi, al-Faraj, vol. i, 355; Marc Helmuth Moebius, ‘Narrative Judgement: The Qadi al-Tanukhi and the Faraj Genre in Medieval Arabic Literature', unpublished PhD thesis, Princeton University, 2008, pp. 143-4.
49 Al-Tanukhi, Nishwar, vol. iii, p. 33.
that women faced, as well as implying perhaps the pervasiveness of violence against women in the culture at large. The anecdotes in the adab texts reported on violence that occurs in the household, in the private zone between spouses, as well as on violence against women in the public space. The anecdotes assume the necessity of ‘moderate' and ‘controlled' violence in maintaining social and familial structures. The violence could range in severity from ‘minor' acts of correction that both parties see as legitimate to extremely injurious assaults, or even death.
The anecdotes serve as illustrations of certain widespread conceptions in Muslim medieval literary approaches to violence against women. Although it is difficult to disentangle fact from fiction in such literary works, one is able to decipher certain aspects of the value system in which these works were comprehensible. The way these texts framed these episodes on violence is ultimately bound up with larger socio-cultural processes. The reality is of course difficult to capture but the material draws for us the social context in which the textual edifice was constructed.