I argued in the previous article to prove that the doctrinal doctrinal tradition in the issue of disobedient wife beating is a coherent system governed by moral values ​​that were in harmony with the system of pre-modern societies, meaning that the interpretation of the doctrinal position on beating as mere masculine thinking reflects shortcomings and reduction.

In this article, I argue to prove that wife beating was a problematic behavior from the beginning, whether by the Prophet - may God bless him and grant him peace - or during the time of revelation;

That is, the problem of multiplication - in terms of its origin - is not just a modern idea, but we can distinguish between multiple aspects of the problem that reflect different social and ethical perspectives on the one hand, and the methods of dealing with texts and their interpretation tools on the other hand, and here we can distinguish between two types of confusion:

  • The first is an epistemological problem

    , which is at the core of knowledge, and accordingly, there is no objection to rethinking the constantly researched issues and addressing the problems that arise in them, in search of more consistency and filling the voids that may be caused by social and value transformations.

  • The second is an ideological

    form, in which the text is nothing but an obstacle or a follower that is circumvented and circumvented.

    Just because it is not consistent with a system or reference that was formed in isolation from it or under the constraints of reality.

The Messenger of God - may God’s prayers and peace be upon him - said: “Do not strike the servants of God.”

The (narrator of the hadith) said: So the women became angry and had bad manners towards their husbands, so Umar said: O Messenger of God, the women have been disgusted with their husbands since you forbade beating them.

He said: The Prophet - may God bless him and grant him peace - said: Strike them.

People beat their women that night.

There are several hadiths and antiquities related to the issue of beating women, in contrast to the hermeneutic quibbles that try to take the Qur’anic word out of its real, immediate or apparent meaning, and these news cannot be counted here;

Finding the root of “drib” in the indexes of hadith blogs is sufficient for that, but I would like to stop at two hadiths that are indicative here:

The first hadith: A woman came to complain about her husband to the Messenger of God, may God’s prayers and peace be upon him;

Because he slapped her, so the Messenger - may God’s prayers and peace be upon him - called the man to take the woman’s right, so God Almighty revealed verse 34 of Surat An-Nisa in which there is beating, and the Messenger of God, may God bless him and grant him peace, said: “We wanted a matter, and God Almighty created a matter.”

This hadith was mentioned by al-Wahidi al-Nisaburi in Asbab al-Nuzul, and it was transmitted by most of the commentators in their books, and it was narrated by al-Kharati and al-Tabari.

And in the narration of Muqatil bin Suleiman that the verse was revealed about Saad bin Al-Rabi` bin Amr and his wife Habiba bint Zaid - and they are from the Ansar - and that he slapped his wife, so she came to her family, so her father went with her to the Prophet - may God’s prayers and peace be upon him - and said: I married him, and my daughter made him bed, so he slapped her!

The Prophet, may God’s prayers and peace be upon him, said: “To take revenge from her husband.” So she came with her husband to take revenge on him. Then the Prophet, may God bless him and grant him peace, said:

The second hadith: that the Messenger of God - may God’s prayers and peace be upon him - said: “Do not strike the slave girls of God.”

The (narrator of the hadith) said: So the women were disgusted with their husbands, and Omar said: “Oh, Messenger of God, the women have been disgusted with their husbands since you forbade beating them.”

He said: The Prophet, may God bless him and grant him peace, said: Strike them.

People beat their women that night.

Many women came complaining of beatings.

The Messenger of God - may God’s prayers and peace be upon him - said when morning: "Seventy women have walked around the family of Muhammad tonight, all of them complaining about being beaten. By God, you will not find those who are your best."

And in some narrations, that Umar bin Al-Khattab said: “We, the people of Quraysh, used to have our men owning their women, so we came to Medina and found their women taking possession of their men, so our women mixed with their women and they swarmed against their husbands,” meaning they became angry and rebellious.

The hadith was narrated by Abd al-Razzaq al-San’ani, Ibn Abi Asim, Ibn Majah, al-Tabarani, Ibn Hibban, al-Bayhaqi, and others.

The first hadith falls within the “reasons for revelation” of verse 34 of Surat An-Nisa in which the command to hit is mentioned, while the second hadith falls within the “reasons for the revelation of the hadith” concerning the prohibition of hitting women.

It is remarkable that the Prophet’s initial position in both cases was not to support beating, which is the origin from which the exception occurred in the first text here. His principled (or original) position, which is invoked, is that he should not be beaten and that it is contrary to charity.

But what is remarkable about these two hadiths is that we are facing a problematic behavior - which is hitting women - from two sides:

The first aspect

: that the Prophet - may God’s prayers and peace be upon him - considered beating as a problematic behavior from the point of view of origin (i.e., in the absence of an exception);

In the first hadith, he had intended to hold the battered husband accountable before the verse was revealed to him;

Where he stated that he wanted one thing and God brought about another, and in the second hadith the Prophet - may God’s prayers and peace be upon him - established something similar to the moral rule, which is that beating is not a good act, and therefore whoever strikes is not counted among the best of people.

The second

aspect: that hitting women was a problematic behavior in people’s customs at the time of the text or revelation. Otherwise, how do we explain the complaint of 70 women who walked into the house of the Prophet - may God’s prayers and peace be upon him - complaining about the beating of their husbands?

How do we explain the difference between the women of Medina, who did not beat, from the women of Mecca, among whom beating was apparently a common thing?

And we do not know that only from Omar’s review of the Prophet - may God bless him and grant him peace – as in the first hadith here, but we also know it from a group of historical news that we find in various sources of hadith books, history and literature, but rather in some books of interpretation and jurisprudence, as we will point out later. Some of the companions and followers did.

Pre-modern confusion: text and interpretation

In the face of this problematic behavior and the multiplicity of texts related to it, the commentators and hadith commentators differed in the interpretation of these texts in terms of combining the text of the Qur’an with verbal and practical texts of hadith, and in terms of understanding the historical and social context at the time of revelation. I suggest here distinguishing between two levels of discussion about beating women:

The first level: Interpretation of the Qur’anic text that commands the absolute multiplication (and hit them)

On the first level, we are facing an attempt to understand the Qur’anic command to beat and determine its meaning accurately, as we find several interpretations, not one of which takes the word beating from its true meaning, but all revolve around restricting the Qur’anic text and mitigating the significance of the matter, and here we can count 3 meanings that confirm an apparent confusion The Qur'anic text:

The first saying

: Restricting disobedient wife beating without severe, meaning that the Qur’anic text is not apparent in the absolute beating, and Imam al-Tabari (d. 310 AH) narrated with his chains of transmission on the authority of Ibn Abbas and a group of followers - such as Saeed bin Jubair, Amer Al-Shaabi, and Qatadah bin Da’ama Al-Sadosi, And Ata bin Abi Rabah, Ikrimah Mawla Ibn Abbas, Ismael Al-Suddi, Muhammad bin Ka’b, and Al-Hasan Al-Basri - that beating here is a severe beating.

It is as if they carried the Qur’anic text on the hadith of the Farewell Pilgrimage, in which the Prophet, may God’s prayers and peace be upon him, said: “… Beat them not severely.” Rather, Abu al-Hasan al-Wahidi al-Nisaburi (d. 468 AH) recounted the consensus on this meaning.

It is not severe, that is, the one whose effect does not appear and does not cause bodily harm, and Qatada said: It is not disgraceful, and Al-Hasan Al-Basri said: It is not influential.

The second saying

: Reducing the meaning of beating to the fullest extent, such as saying that what is meant by it is striking with a toothpick or the like, as Ibn Abbas went to that, when Ataa asked him about the meaning of the verse, he explained it with a toothpick and the like.

The third opinion

: that some imams left the beating altogether, or said that it is contrary to the first opinion.

This Ata bin Abi Rabah - who is the one in charge of the jurisprudence of Makkah - says: "He should not beat her if he commanded and forbade her and she did not obey him, but he is angry with her."

Judge Abu Bakr bin al-Arabi al-Maliki (d. 543 AH) said: “This is from the jurisprudence of giving.”

And this Imam al-Shafi’i has held that it is more appropriate to abandon beating;

When it was narrated that the Prophet - may God’s prayers and peace be upon him - said: “Do not strike the slave girls of God.”

That is, Ataa and Al-Shafi’i went to the hadith that I referred to earlier and contained in the context of the difference between the women of Mecca and the women of Medina, and restricted it to the apparent meaning of the Qur’anic text. Some of the later interpreters, such as Nizam al-Din al-Nisaburi (d. 850 AH), also followed this view.

The second level: Interpretation of hadiths on the same topic

On the second level, that is, the interpretation of the many and different hadiths on the subject of multiplication;

We find that some hadiths permit beating and some explicitly forbid it. Then, if the Qur’anic text is explicit about the disobedient wife, then the hadiths do not speak of disobedience.

In this context, Imam Ibn al-Faras al-Maliki al-Andalusi provided us with a useful summary about the position on beating women;

He said: “There was a difference of opinion regarding the non-severe beating of women.” Then he gave two main opinions, which I will add to an explanation and will not be restricted to his text, so I say:

The first opinion

: There appears to be a contradiction between two types of hadiths: the anecdotal hadiths that permit beating on the one hand, and the practical Sunnah which shows that the Prophet - may God’s prayers and peace be upon him - contented himself with desertion only and never struck, and the generality of the anecdotal hadiths in which he commands forgiveness of women and their good treatment on the one hand. other.

Those who hold this view have preferred that the best thing that men can do is to forgive women, according to what was authentically reported on the authority of the Prophet - may God’s prayers and peace be upon him - about his patience with his women deserting him, and it was not mentioned that he punished them for that.

Ibn al-Faris said: “They denied the hadiths that came with the permissibility of beating them.” He mentioned hadiths that are not authentic, then he said: “It is not permissible to invoke them in order to distort their chain of transmission.”

But al-Tahir ibn Ashour may not have accepted that, so he said: “Or interpret them,” meaning that he referred to a possibility other than denying the authenticity of these hadiths, which is their interpretation.

The second opinion

: For a people who saw the authenticity of the news that permitted beating, but the owners of this opinion differed in the interpretation of the hadiths, and we can observe here 3 interpretations:

The first interpretation

: that permissible beating is contained for a legitimate reason, which is if a man sees something in his wife that he dislikes “in what she is obliged to obey.” The owners of this opinion inferred from the practice of a group of companions and followers, and that they were doing that, and Ibn al-Faras cited some facts. In this sense.

The second interpretation

: that it is contained in the meaning of discipline, and that the Prophet - may God’s prayers and peace be upon him - commanded men to discipline their families and admonish them to them, and that the man should not be free from the loss of his family with what prevents them from corruption.

The third interpretation

The Prophet, may God’s prayers and peace be upon him, urged a man to intimidate his family about the Essence of God Almighty by beating them, lest they commit a crime that would leave him disgraced;

As he - may God’s prayers and peace be upon him - made a man a custodian of his family.

And they understood from his saying, peace and blessings of God be upon him: “As for Abu Jahm, he does not put his stick from his shoulder,” that he taught Fatimah bint Qais the harshness and severity of Abu Jahm toward his family. meaning;

Just preaching and reminding does not necessitate slander for its owner.

And I say: It may be replied to this that the hadith is yes contained in the context of slander, but the slander is directed to the severity of that Abu Jahm, which is due to the attitude of beating by plunder, and it is more consistent with the rest of the hadiths!

However, Ibn al-Faris leaned towards the apparent meaning of the verse (and beat them) and saw in it the greatest argument for those who saw their beating;

And he said: “Not less than that it is permissible. Rather, if it is said:

It's a scar that would've been all right;

Because in that there is a reformation for them, and if they are alone and their desires, they will perish... Rather, it is hateful to hit them with transgression and extravagance.”

Modern Problems: The West, Law and Ethics

As for the modern form of the subject of multiplication, we can distinguish between 4 points of view:

The first consideration: that the problem with beating is a “Western suspicion”.

It is remarkable that Muhammad Abdo and Rashid Rida accepted the idea of ​​beating the disobedient wife, and did not see anything problematic in it (according to the Western perspective).

Muhammad Abdu said: “The legality of hitting women is not something that is condemned in the mind or instinct, and it needs interpretation. Women are sensible to advice, respond to admonition, or resent abandonment, so beating must be dispensed with, for each case has a ruling that suits it in the Sharia, and we are commanded in any case to be kind to women, to avoid their oppression, to hold them honourably, or to release them with kindness, and the hadiths in the commandment of women are very numerous.

God forbid that He authorizes or approves of such oppression… What corruption will occur on the earth if it is permitted for a pious and virtuous man to lower the arrogance of one of them, and degrade her by disgracing her arrogance with someone else hitting her hand, or a palm that slams her on her neck?

Many of their imams, the Franks, beat their learned, well-dressed, naked, slanted women.

Their sages, scholars, kings and princes did this, for it is a necessity that those who are too exuberant to honor those educated women can do without, so how do you condemn its permissibility of necessity in a public religion for Bedouins and urbanites of all kinds of people?!

The second view: the legal problem represented by Al-Taher bin Ashour.

Although he concluded that “the permission to beat is to observe delicate conditions between the spouses, so the husband is authorized to beat his wife in order to establish cohabitation between them, and exceeding what is required by the state of her disobedience is a transgressor,” and that “husbands are entrusted with the positions” of the three qualities: exhortation, abandonment, and beating;

According to the strength of the disobedience and its extent in corruption.

However, it seems that the beating was problematic from two sides: the first: that it is “dangerous and difficult to define” and therefore it is necessary to “set a limit” for it in jurisprudence;

“Because if the husbands were allowed to take care of it - and they then heal their anger - that would have been an assumption that exceeded the limit, as there are few who are punished according to the extent of the sin.” And I explained - in my previous article - that these limits are clear and specific in jurisprudence.

The second: that as a result of his legal confusion and an attempt to control it by legal means, he mentioned two possibilities: The first possibility: that it is “possible.”

That the one who is addressed in (and beat them) is the judge, and in this case, the one who inflicts the discipline is the judge.

The second possibility is that according to the saying that discipline for the husband “is permissible for the guardians - if they know that the husbands are not good at setting the legal penalties in their places or standing at their limits - to strike at their hands… and announce to them that whoever hits his wife will be punished, so that the matter of harm between husbands will not be exacerbated, especially When the will is weak.”

The third consideration: the feminist problematic, which, in its entirety, is due to a central issue here, which is the guardianship of men over women, and the centrality of the idea of ​​equality in the sense of similarity. However, this approach collides with the Qur’anic text, which apparently legitimizes beating;

Because it is a branch of the husband’s competence to discipline the wife if she deviates, and this discipline is a branch of guardianship, which is a major dilemma from a feminist perspective that seeks to abolish aspects of gender discrimination, but this perspective fails - as a result of its pre-gender biases - to grasp the internal logic of heritage, and is satisfied with interpretations and generalizations It fits or ignores the possibility in the text that is required by the hermeneutic act, to subordinate the text to a single meaning that is consistent with the feminist perspective, and then any traditional understanding becomes a male bias.

The fourth view: It is the moral problem, although there is an attempt to include feminism within the major Western moral theories (such as the ethics of duty, the ethics of utility, and the ethics of care).

It revolves around a central idea, which is that beatings are a violent practice that contradicts the concept of human dignity in the modern sense (general harm or humiliation and the sanctity of the body), which is related to the idea of ​​human rights in general, and this leads us to a range beyond mere problematic beating of women;

Because it will include the absolute hitting of the woman, the man and the boy together.

The problem of hitting a woman - then - is old in terms of the sentence, but its faces are different:

  • The ideological confusion follows a predetermined orientation (ideological bias), and this confusion is closer to the logic of objection to the text or denunciation, and because the text - in this style - is a problem, interpretations are resorted to that remove the obstacle of the text and take it out of its true significance to be consistent with the axioms prior to the text This type of interpretation is the opposite of the objection to the text.

    Because it does not listen to the internal logic of the text and the system of sciences based on it.

  • As for cognitive ambiguity, it is that which is based on principles, and is located among the people of knowledge and knowledge, and from here the previous scholars distinguished between ambiguity and debate, and branches of knowledge have emerged that research the problem of the Qur’an and the problem of hadith.

    The one who is experienced in the books of jurists and fundamentalists knows the expenses of cognitive confusion;

    Because it is from the heart of the consideration, but if the knowledge expands, the problem will be great.

    Because it arises from the critical mind and structural visions.

    As for clarity and decisiveness, it often arises from lack of knowledge and weakness of the faculty of understanding and interpretation, and Imam Al-Qarafi said: “Knowing the problem is knowledge in itself and an opening from God Almighty.” And I will try to solve the problem of multiplication from an ethical perspective in a later article, God willing.