Institutionalised Violence: Qur'an 4:34 and the Islamic Exegetical Tradition
Violence against women, in its domestic dimension, was a matter profusely discussed in early Islamic times in connection to a Qur'anic verse in Surat al- Nisa' (4:34) which gives the husband the right to correct a disobedient or recalcitrant wife: ‘As for those from whom ye fear rebellion (nushuz), admonish them and banish them to beds apart, and scourge them.
Then, if they obey you, seek not a way against them.' This verse has generated a massive exegetical literature. A chronological study of Qur'anic exegetical material pertaining to this verse indicates that prominent Muslim scholars from the second/eighth to the tenth/sixteenth century shared a common view of the social gender hierarchy, one that implied that men as guardians of women have the right to correct their wives in the case of nushuz (insubordination).[581] Any challenge to the hierarchy defined by male superiority and the domination of women could be taken as a sign of nushuz, and the verse has largely been understood to give husbands the authority to beat their disobedient wives.[582] Classical exegesis has no problem with the patriarchal nature of the Qur'anic discourse; the issue that bothered the Islamic exegetical tradition was that of ‘beating' as the ultimate resort for bringing a rebellious wife back to obedience. According to the occasion of revelation, the verse was meant to ease the consequences of the Prophet's retort to a woman who complained that her husband had slapped her on the face that ‘she must retaliate by slapping the husband back'.[583]The Jami‘ al-bayan ‘an ta'wil al-qur'an, a key early work of Islamic exegesis produced by Abu Ja‘far al-Tabari (d. 310/923), a major Abbasid scholar, was ‘the first major work in the development of traditional Qur'anic sciences'.[584] It quickly became a standard text upon which later commentators drew.
As the earliest complete Qur'an commentary, it contained ‘the compilation and material arrangement of the first two centuries and a half of Muslim exegesis'.[585] According to al-Tabari: a man slapped his wife. The Prophet wanted to apply retaliation. As they were in this situation, the verse was revealed. The Qur'an commentaries do notNADIA MARIA BL CHBIkH
dwell on the act of ‘correction' but focus instead on nushuz or the definition of rebellious wives. Al-Tabari states:
Al-nushuz means that the wife treats her husband with arrogance, refuses to join him in the marital bed; it is an expression of disobedience and an obvious unwillingness to any longer carry out what obedience to the husband requires. It is a way of showing hatred and opposition to the husband.[586] [587]
Women are either righteous (salihat) or rebellious (nashizat). While obedience was an essential characteristic of a righteous wife, nushuz has been interpreted to mean disobedience, sexual refusal, rising out of one's place, and hatred for one's husband.
The question of wife beating is closely associated with the notion of male supremacy, qiwama.11 In this connection al-Tabari confirmed: ‘The verse saying that “men are in charge of women” means that they can discipline them, put them in their place when it comes to matters pertaining to their duties toward God and toward their husband, and this is because Allah has given authority to some of you over others.'[588] [589]
The earliest extant Arabic/Islamic biographical dictionary, the Tabaqat of Muhammad ibn Sa‘d (d. 230/845), an Abbasid era scholar, includes a brief section entitled ‘On Beating Women'. This material is crucial given that the Prophet's actions and utterances provided criteria for what was lawful or forbidden for Muslims. There, the traditions emphasise that the Prophet himself never beat a woman and that he forbade men to beat their wives.
This prohibition was, however, mitigated when men told him that the women ‘have become wicked'. In a second type of tradition, the Prophet allows beating but points out that only the worst men in the community would mistreat their wives.13 That the Prophet's personal position with respect to this matter wavered, allowed the Qur'an exegetes a range of options in their interpretation of the verse.The Qur'anic verse presents three consecutive or gradual steps to the men who felt defied by their wives: first, admonition; second, refusing to share the wife's bed; and third, beating. The exegetes did not question the right of
Violence against Women in the Early Islamic Period husbands to discipline their wives physically but disagreed on how this right was to be exercised and the extent to which physical violence could be used. The religious discourse thus tried to come to terms with the phenomenon of violence within the conjugal relationship, introducing rules that, while maintaining the husband's domination over his wife, strove to control the most excessive manifestations of his rights.[590] The common agreement was that the hitting ought to be ghayr mubarrih (not extreme). Disciplinary punishment was legally acceptable as long as no limbs were broken and no permanent damage was done. The harm caused to a woman's pride or her fear of further beatings was not taken into consideration by the law.1[591] It is certainly noteworthy that husbands were not legally accountable for hitting their wives unless a beating resulted in broken bones, wounds or death.1[592]
The rules were elastic and evasive, and this is reflected in the divergences among the various legal schools as well as between the textual interpretations among theologians and jurisconsults.[593] The jurists used Q 4:34 to support the husband's right to hit his wife, devoting considerable energy to outlining the permissible extent of hitting, alongside the conditions under which a husband might be liable for excessive violence.
Legal scholars used Q 4:34 as a proof text for supporting the right of a husband to hit his wife but emphasised its procedural aspect, taking into account the husband's liability in the case of severe hitting. However, even here, divergences are noticeable. The jurists of the Hanafi legal school safeguarded the authority of husbands in marriage by protecting them from legal accountability in cases of excessive violence. Jurists of the Maliki legal school tried to protect wives from physical abuse by instituting social and judicial supervision over husbands, while Hanbali jurists denied wives clear legal recourse.[594] In her analysis of the legal tradition, Chaudhry concludes, however, that ‘despite the disparate motivations and concerns of [the four schools of jurisprudence]... in the end their stances on the right of husbands to physically discipline wives shared essential similarities'.19Narratives relating to prominent early companions of the Prophet Muhammad could serve to bolster the uses of this verse since they enjoy the position of al-salaf al-salih (the pious predecessors). Most notable is the behaviour of the companion of the Prophet, al-Zubayr, particularly his mistreatment of Asma', the daughter of the Prophet's companion and later first caliph, Abu Bakr. Ibn Sa‘d states that al-Zubayr was hard on her. When Asma' complained, her father Abu Bakr told her: ‘Be patient, child. When a woman is married to a good (salih) man, when he dies and she does not marry again, God will reunite them in Paradise.'[595] One anecdote illustrates an instance of al-Zubayr's harsh treatment: he arrived at his house and he ordered his wife Asma' and another of his wives to sweep the floor under his bed. Finding out that his orders had not been carried out, ‘he took both of us by our heads and beat us with his whip, hurting us'.[596]
Another anecdote implicates ‘Abdallah, the son of the Prophet's notable companion and second caliph, ‘Umar b.
al-Khattab. ‘Abdallah used to beat his wife, Safiyya bt. Abi ‘Ubayd, ‘to the point of causing her pain'. The implication is that this is why ‘the revelation was made in the Qur'an on beating women'.[597] As for her father-in-law, the second caliph ‘Umar b. al-Khattab, he is frequently described as a man of harsh character, not only in his private domestic space but also in the wider public one. Such an incident occurred when the Prophet's daughter Ruqayya died. When women wept for her, ‘Umar began to whip them. The Prophet had to intercede to restrain his anger and allow the women to express their grief freely.[598] Another tradition has the companion ‘Umar b. al-Khattab rebuking women of the Ansar for crying over a dead man. The Prophet is said to have intervened: ‘Leave them, O ‘Umar, the soul is stricken and the eye is tearful.'[599]The exegesis of the Qur'anic verse as well as stories about the Prophet and his companions provide a general ideological framework for understanding violence against women in the early Islamic context. Getting a sense of family history and the practices of violence in early Islamic societies is an especially difficult task due to the nature of the sources, which are literary and, as mentioned earlier, require a complex analytical reading. It is also important to note that marriage was polygamous and was not viewed as a permanent relationship; indeed, easy divorce could end it at any time. Moreover, unlike Christianity, Islam did not confine sex to marriage: legitimate sexual intercourse extended also to the institution of concubinage. This constitutes a fundamental distinction that affected the social fabric of society. The material in the next two sections includes anecdotes about women (as targets of violence) in different legal and social situations.