Verses 17-28 of Sura 4, “Women,” continues with various regulations for marriage and the treatment of women. Verses 17-18 continue the call to repentance in v. 16 by warning that Allah will only accept repentance from those who sinned out of ignorance, and will not look kindly upon deathbed changes of heart. Then v. 19 forbids the inheriting of women against their will, and enjoins men not to treat them harshly in order to get them to forfeit part or all of their dowry – “unless they be guilty of flagrant lewdness.” Aisha, Muhammad’s favorite wife, recounts according to Mishkat al-Masabih that Muhammad said: “The best of you is he who is best towards his wife, and I am the best towards my wives.”
Verses 20-21 continue with these exhortations toward just treatment, telling men that if they have decided to “exchange one wife for another,” they must not take back the dowry they have given to the wife who is to be discarded. Verses 22-25 prohibit marriage with various women who are related by blood or marriage.
V. 23 refers to “foster mothers,” or more literally “mothers who suckled you,” as being among those with whom marriage is forbidden. Men and women who are not related are forbidden by Islamic law to be alone together, but a man and a woman who are forbidden to marry each other – i.e., who are related in some way – can be alone together. Once a woman came to Muhammad and told him that her husband, Abu Hadhaifa, was angry because a freed slave of his, a young man who had reached puberty, “enters our house freely.” Muhammad told her: “Suckle him and you would become unlawful for him, and (the rankling) which Abu Hudhaifa feels in his heart will disappear.” The woman later reported that it worked: “So I suckled him, and what (was there) in the heart of Abu Hudhaifa disappeared.” This directive gained worldwide attention recently when a cleric at Cairo’s Al-Azhar University, the most respected authority in Sunni Islam, recommended that this could solve a problem in the workplace: a man could be alone with, and work with, a woman with whom he was not related, if the woman suckled the man and thereby became his foster mother. After the story got out and Al-Azhar was subjected to international ridicule, the lecturer who recommended this was suspended. Left unaddressed, however, was the root of his recommendation in the words of Muhammad himself.
V. 24 forbids Muslims to marry women who are already married, except slave girls: according to Islamic law, once a woman is captured and enslaved, her marriage is immediately annulled (cf. ‘Umdat al-Salik o9.13). At one point, according to a hadith reported by Sahih Muslim, “the Companions of Allah’s Messenger seemed to refrain from having intercourse with captive women because of their husbands being polytheists.” So the Companions “asked the Prophet about this matter, and this Ayah [verse] was revealed…Consequently, we had sexual relations with these women.” Ibn Kathir says that this verse also prohibits temporary marriage – marriage with a predetermined expiration date, which Shi’ites believe was never prohibited. Meanwhile, men who don’t have the money to marry believing women should marry Muslim slave girls (v. 25).
Verses 29-33 contain general moral exhortations, including a prohibition of suicide (vv. 29-30). Is suicide bombing included in this prohibition? The Muslim leaders who justify it say that it isn’t, as the object of the action is not to kill oneself, but to kill infidels, and thus is the killing and being killed that is rewarded with Paradise according to Qur’an 9:111. More on that when we get to that verse. V. 31 tells Muslims to avoid the “major sins.” Hafidh Dhahabi lists 70 major sins in his Kitab ul-Kaba’ir, beginning with shirk, or associating partners with Allah (i.e., saying Jesus is God’s Son), and including black magic, adultery, desertion on the battlefield, drinking alcohol, lying, stealing, pride, misappropriating the booty, spying on others, harming Muslims and speaking ill of them, disobeying one’s husband, and making pictures. Other lists add more. Another book, Al Ashba wa al-Nadha’ir, lists offenses such as eating pork, dancing, castrating one’s slave, apostasy, playing chess, masturbation and drug use among the major sins.
Verse 34 tells men to beat their disobedient wives after first warning them and then sending them to sleep in separate beds. This is, of course, an extremely controversial verse, so it is worth noting how several translators render the key word here, وَاضْرِبُوهُنَّ, waidriboohunna.
Pickthall: “and scourge them”
Yusuf Ali: “(And last) beat them (lightly)”
Al-Hilali/Khan: “(and last) beat them (lightly, if it is useful)”
Shakir: “and beat them”
Sher Ali: “and chastise them”
Khalifa: “then you may (as a last alternative) beat them”
Arberry: “and beat them”
Rodwell: “and scourge them”
Sale: “and chastise them”
Asad: “then beat them”
Laleh Bakhtiar, in a new translation that has received wide publicity, translates it as “go away from them.” In light of this unanimity among the translators, both Muslim and non-Muslim, this seems difficult to sustain – all of these authorities got the passage wrong until Bakhtiar? But her impulse is understandable, as many Muslims today regard this verse with acute embarrassment. Asad adduces numerous traditions in which Muhammad “forbade the beating of any woman,” concluding that wife-beating is “barely permissible, and should preferably be avoided.”
Unfortunately, however, this is not a unanimous view. Sheikh Syed Mahmud Allusi in his commentary Ruhul Ma’ani gives four reasons that a man may beat his wife: “if she refuses to beautify herself for him,” if she refuses sex when he asks for it, if she refuses to pray or perform ritual ablutions, and “if she goes out of the house without a valid excuse.” Also, Muhammad’s example is normative for Muslims, since he is an “excellent example of conduct” (Qur’an 33:21) – and Aisha reports that Muhammad struck her. Once he went out at night after he thought she was asleep, and she followed him surreptitiously. Muhammad saw her, and, as Aisha recounts: “He struck me on the chest which caused me pain, and then said: Did you think that Allah and His Apostle would deal unjustly with you?”
Wife-beating exists in all cultures, but only in Islam does it enjoy divine sanction. Amnesty International reports that “according to the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences, over 90% of married women report being kicked, slapped, beaten or sexually abused when husbands were dissatisfied by their cooking or cleaning, or when the women had ‘failed’ to bear a child or had given birth to a girl instead of a boy.”
Aisha herself said it: “I have not seen any woman suffering as much as the believing women.”
Next week: What becomes of those whom Allah has cursed.
(Here you can find links to all the earlier "Blogging the Qur'an" segments. Here is a good Arabic Qur’an, with English translations available; here are two popular Muslim translations, those of Abdullah Yusuf Ali and Mohammed Marmaduke Pickthall, along with a third by M. H. Shakir. Here is another popular translation, that of Muhammad Asad. And here is an omnibus of ten Qur’an translations.)
There's no denying that, in its own time, Islam did raise the status of women far above what it had been. What Muslims fail to realize is that the religious injunctions of a seventh-century tribal desert people cannot, and should not, apply in a global 21st century world. The (somewhat) enlightened religion of back then fell into disrepair and stagnation many centuries ago. Time for a tune-up.
Aisha herself said it: “I have not seen any woman suffering as much as the believing women.”
That says it all
GetBornAgain,
Really? Mo's first wife was a promimate business woman well before Islam.
GetBornAgain-
Aisha herself said it: “I have not seen any woman suffering as much as the believing women.”
Don't you read that and realize that Aisha was saying that muslim women were WORSE OFF than other, non-muslim, women?
How can you read that and think anything else?
"Neither Jew or Greek, slave or free, male or female..."
Christianity broke down distinctions centuries before Mohammed, the jigolo-slave trading pedophile, came onto the scene.
004.029
YUSUFALI: O ye who believe! Eat not up your property among yourselves in vanities: But let there be amongst you Traffic and trade by mutual good-will: Nor kill (or destroy) yourselves: for verily Allah hath been to you Most Merciful!
PICKTHAL: O ye who believe! Squander not your wealth among yourselves in vanity, except it be a trade by mutual consent, and kill not one another. Lo! Allah is ever Merciful unto you.
SHAKIR: O you who believe! do not devour your property among yourselves falsely, except that it be trading by your mutual consent; and do not kill your people; surely Allah is Merciful to you.
There's a big difference between don't kill others and don't kill yourself.
"There's no denying that, in its own time, Islam did raise the status of women far above what it had been" poster, above.
If you read the chapter on the legal reforms of Justinian (Eastern Emperor, 527 - 565) you will find that the historian gives a quick run down on classical legal codes. It becomes obvious that the legal status of women in classical society fluctuated through the centuries, being at times liberal and at other times restrictive, Gibbon puts this down more or less to fashion although there were no doubt social and economic factors at work as well. What is clear was that their rights ere not enshrined for all time as a result of divine revelation and could be ameliorated - as they have been in Europe. Also, early dark age legal codes from the Celtic and Teutonic areas of Europe often grant considerable freedom to women. I wish people would stop saying that Islam improve women's lot at the time. It is pure hogwash.
Re: status of women, inside and outside of Islam, at the time of Mohammed and after.
One word, at least for the Jewish and Christian societies 1st century-6th century. Monogamy.
Despite the polygamous examples of Abraham, Jacob, David and Solomon the Jews, by the time of Christ (six hundred years before Mohammed), seem to be largely practising monogamy though they did not FORMALLY outlaw polygamy until the 11th century. (Isidore Epstein's 'Judaism' notes [p. 167] that the Jewish moral sense, 'already, in Talmudic times [3rd/4th century] felt a pronounced aversion to polygamous marriages', and that [p. 256] Rabbi Gershom of Mainz in the 10C 'forbade polygamy and ordained that no divorce could be effected without the wife's consent', which rulings came to be accepted across the board EXCEPT among a few Jewish communities 'in Mohammedan countries' - I wonder why?).
After all, the Hebrew scriptural accounts of polygamy do not gloss over its negative effects on women men and children, and may indeed be read as cautionary tales. (it should be noted that Moses seems to have had only one wife, and no concubines or hanky panky; likewise Joseph of the dreams is recorded as having only one wife; and Rebecca seems to have been more than enough wife for Isaac!).
Jesus interprets the foundational Genesis 1-2 story of the creation of man and woman, in a monogamous light.
The early Christians taught, and overwhelmingly practised, monogamy, and marital faithfulness.
So Jews had been mostly practising - and Christians both actively teaching and practising - monogamy for centuries, before Mohammed came along and absolutised and sacralised the polygamous pagan practices of Arabia.
For a study of what polygamy does to women - and men, and children, in contemporary Arab Muslim society - see Nonie Darwish, 'Now They Call Me Infidel'. To see a very similar account of the destructiveness and oppressiveness of polygamy, read Jung Chang, 'Wild Swans', first two chapters, to get an account of concubinage and polygamy in early 20th century China, in a taoist/ confucian milieu.
Simply by adopting monogamy as the gold standard, Jews and Christians did more for the status and psychological health of women than we can even begin to imagine. Everything else is icing on the cake.
Simply by choosing to permit and perpetuate polygamy, Islam 'locked in' the oppression of women, outweighing anything else it is supposed to have done.
(Later on Robert, blogging along, will come to the verses forbidding female infanticide - another item Muslims like to skite about. Big deal! Jews and Christians were well ahead of Muslims on that one - they'd been rearing their girl babies, and forbidding all infanticide, for centuries).
Any historical claim to moral superiority, in the treatment of women, that Islam makes, is negated by its having chosen polygamy - a practice far more repressive than the monogamy already prevalent among its contemporary Jewish and Byzantine neighbours.
But, of course, the real kicker is the verse under discussion, which commands the beating of wives. Neither the TaNaKh - anywhere at all - nor the Christian Scriptures ever command, or approve, or permit, or even describe (!) the beating of wives by husbands.
@dumbledoresarmy
Well written, concise and evenhanded. I don't have anything to add and it would only be a repeat in a less eloquent manner.
Mark 10:5-7
And they said, Moses suffered to write a bill of divorcement, and to put [her] away. And Jesus answered and said unto them, For the hardness of your heart he wrote you this precept. But from the beginning of the creation God made them male and female. For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and cleave to his wife. . .
مارك 10:5-7
وقالوا ان موسى عانى لكتابة الشرعه ديفوركيمينت ، ووضع [لها] بعيدا. وأجاب يسوع وقال جاءهم لقسوه قلوبكم كتب لكم هذا المبدأ. ولكن من بداية خلق الله جعلهم ذكورا واناثا. لهذا السبب يقوم يترك الرجل اباه وامه وشق زوجته. . .