Islam & the Modern World · Men, Women & Gender

Q 4:34 explained properly

Handle with care. Handle with care: never present the minority "separate from her" reading as the mainstream one, and never use this card to argue that a woman may be struck.

In short

• 1.The verse gives a sequence: speak, separate in bed, and only then the disputed third step.
• 2.The Prophet, peace be upon him, defined it in the farewell sermon as ghayr mubarrih — leaving no mark and causing no harm.
• 3.His own practice was that he never struck a woman or a servant (Sahih Muslim 2328).

The claim being examined

Q 4:34 is the verse most often quoted to prove that Islam permits wife-beating.

The Islamic position

The verse describes a last-resort procedure for serious marital breakdown, was explained by the Prophet, peace be upon him, in his farewell sermon as non-injurious, and is contradicted in spirit by a man who never struck a woman in his life.

Analysis

This card must be handled with precision because sloppiness here does real damage. The verse addresses nushuz — usually rendered as serious disloyalty or marital rebellion, not ordinary disagreement — and gives three sequential steps: admonish, then separate in the sleeping place, then the verb daraba. On the third step, four things are established. First, the farewell sermon, reported in Sahih Muslim 1218 in the long narration of Jabir, restricts any such striking to darban ghayra mubarrih, a striking that leaves no mark and causes no harm, and pairs it with the command to treat women well. Second, the Prophet's own practice, reported by Aisha, may Allah be pleased with her, was that he never struck a woman or a servant (Sahih Muslim 2328), and he said the best of you do not strike (Sunan Abu Dawud 2146 and related reports). Third, classical jurists including al-Shafi'i regarded refraining as preferable, and Ata ibn Abi Rabah, a leading Meccan jurist of the generation after the Companions, held that a man should not strike his wife at all. Fourth, a minority of modern scholars — including Ahmad Ali al-Imam and, in a widely discussed reading, Abdulhamid Abusulayman — argue for alternative lexical senses of daraba such as to separate from. Present the mainstream reading with its restrictions honestly rather than substituting the minority reading for it, and state without qualification that abuse is haram and criminal.

From the Qur'an

From the Sunnah

Sources

Al-Qurtubi, al-Jami li-Ahkam al-Qur'an · Ibn Ashur, al-Tahrir wa al-Tanwir · Jonathan A. C. Brown, Misquoting Muhammad (2014) · Sahih Muslim 1218 (farewell sermon); Jonathan A. C. Brown, Misquoting Muhammad, ch. 7

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