Have You Stopped Beating Your Wife?

Peace Be Unto Those Who Follow Right Guidance.

Check out the following important article by Usama Hasan which points out certain problems with Laleh Bakhtiar's interpretation of daraba in (4:34) as "to go away" (i.e. "to separate"), presenting instead a gradualist argument for the abolition of domestic violence, analogous to gradualist approaches in respect of the abolition of slavery and the prohibition of alcohol/intoxicant consumption:

Have You Stopped Beating Your Wife? The Plain Truth About Domestic Violence and The "Wife-Beating" Verse Of The Qur'an, Including A Holistic Study Of Important But Rarely-Qupted Hadiths On The Subject.

On p.13 of the above article, Hasan states that

Over the last few decades, many scholars and thinkers, including Muslim feminists, have recognised the issues raised by the ayah of wife-beating, especially in Islam's encounter with the Western world, where ideas of gender-equality are sacrosanct. [However], the wife-beating ayah and the associated hadiths can be understood in a holistic way in the light of history, sociology and the higher, universal objectives [or Maqasid] of Islamic law.

An alternative approach is championed by some writers, especially those who are very suspicious or ignorant of hadiths in general and/or are unfamiliar with Maqasid theory. This approach points out that daraba (to beat) has many meanings in Arabic, and advocates adopting an alternative meaning that is devoid of the usual, violent words such as hit, strike, beat, smite, smack, spank, etc. Examples of alternative interpretations are:

The verse means, "separate from them," since daraba 'anhu means, "to turn away from" someone or leave them. Proponents of this view include ProgressiveMuslims.org, whose "Modern Literal Translation of the Quran" called The Message (New York: iUniverse, 2003) renders the verse as above. Dr. Laleh Bakhtiar renders the verse as "… go away from them," based on the same usage of daraba 'anhu in Lane's Lexicon. According to Daisy Khan, Dr. Bakhtiar also chose this translation based on the notion that every verse of the Qur'an was embodied by the Prophet, Peace be upon him. Since he never struck any of his wives but separated from them all for a month during a domestic dispute, Dr. Bakhtiar argued that this must be his illustration of what the verse means.

However well-intentioned, this interpretation is grammatically incorrect since it requires the preposition 'an, which is missing from the wife-beating ayah. Lane's Lexicon itself makes this clear, since it cites Qur'an (43:5) as an example of this usage of daraba, and certainly not (4:34). Lane also points out that this meaning of "to turn something or someone away from" is based on the literal meaning of striking or hitting, from the action of a rider when he strikes an animal to change its direction.

However, this criticism of Bakhtiar's rendering of daraba is not as watertight as it may at first appear. According to Jeffrey Lang, author of Losing My Religion: A Call for Help (Maryland: Amana, 2004),

The verb daraba, whose command form udribu appears in this verse [4:34], is rich in meaning. Lane's discussion of it spans several folios in his famous lexicon. Among the scores of connotations listed are "to beat", "to strike", "to hit", "to shoot", "to make music", "to separate", "to part", "to impose", "to turn away from", "to leave", "to avoid", "to shun", "to sting", "to disregard", "to ignore", and "to pay no attention to". Nevertheless, narrowing its meaning in a given instance is not as difficult as it may first seem, because in Arabic verbs acquire various connotations only in combination with specific propositions. For instance, daraba acquires the meaning of "to separate" in combination with baina, and the meanings of "to turn away from", "to leave", "to avoid", and "to shun" in combination with 'an. In the passage in question, daraba is not combined with either of these propositions. (pp.428-429)

So far, so good for Hasan, and so far, so bad for Bakhtiar. However, Lang goes on to state the following:

Yet Lane points out that the command form of the verb, udribu, with or without 'an, can mean "ignore", "pay no attention to", or "turn away from them", as well as "hit", "beat", or "strike them", or alternatively, "turn them away", "ignore them", or "shun them" [emphasis added]. (p.429)

Which interpretation is rationally preferable and more consistent with the progressive context of (4:34-35) from the perspective of Shari'a viewed as process, viz. what Khaled Abou El Fadl describes as "the search for Beauty in Islam": beating or silent treatment?

I stand with Lang (and Bakhtiar and AbdulHamid AbuSulayman) on this one - and by appeal to the Maqasid (objectives), paramount of which must be a concern for huqooq al-'ibaad (The Rights of The Servants/Slaves of God) which are, ultimately, founded on justice ('adl wa qisth').

Peace