Beyond The Veil

MORGANTOWN, W.Va. 

When dealing with a "disobedient wife," a Muslimman has a number of options. First, he should remind her of "the importanceof following the instructions of the husband in Islam." If that doesn'twork, he can "leave the wife's bed." Finally, he may "beat"her, though it must be without "hurting, breaking a bone, leaving blue orblack marks on the body and avoiding hitting the face, at any cost."

Such appalling recommendations, drawn from the book Woman in the Shadeof Islam by Saudi scholar Abdul Rahman al-Sheha, are inspired by asauthoritative a source as any Muslim could hope to find: a literal reading ofthe 34th verse of the fourth chapter of the Koran, An-Nisa , or Women."[A]nd (as to) those on whose part you fear desertion, admonish them andleave them alone in the sleeping-places and beat them," reads one widelyaccepted translation.

The notion of using physical punishment as a "disciplinary action,"as Sheha suggests, especially for "controlling or mastering women" orothers who "enjoy being beaten," is common throughout the Muslimworld. Indeed, I first encountered Sheha's work at my Morgantown mosque, where aMuslim student group handed it out to male worshipers after Friday prayers oneday a few years ago.

Verse 4:34 retains a strong following, even among many who say that womenmust be treated as equals under Islam. Indeed, Muslim scholars and leaders havelong been doing what I call "the 4:34 dance"—they reject outrightviolence against women but accept a level of aggression that fits contemporarydefinitions of domestic violence.

Western leaders, including British Prime Minister Tony Blair and ItalianPrime Minister Romano Prodi, have recently focused on Muslim women's veils as anobstacle to integration in the West. But to me, it is 4:34 that poses the muchdeeper challenge of integration. How the Muslim world interprets this passagewill reveal whether Islam can be compatible with life in the 21st century. AsHadayai Majeed, an African American Muslim who had opened a shelter in Atlantato serve Muslim women, put it, "If it's okay for me to be a savage in myhome, it's okay for me to be a savage in the world."

Not long after I picked up the free Saudi book, Mahmoud Shalash, an imam fromLexington, Ky., stood at the pulpit of my mosque and offered marital advice tothe 100 or so men sitting before him. He repeated the three-step plan, with"beat them" as his final suggestion. Upstairs, in the women's balcony,sat a Muslim friend who had recently left her husband, who she said had abusedher; her spouse sat among the men in the main hall.

At the sermon's end, I approached Shalash. "This is America," Iprotested. "How can you tell men to beat their wives?"

"They should beat them lightly," he explained. "It's in theKoran."

He was doing the dance.

Born into a conservative Muslim family that emigrated from Hyderabad, India,to West Virginia, I have seen many female relatives in India cloak themselveshead to toe in black burqas and abandon their education and careers formarriage. But the Islam I knew was a gentle one. I was never taught that a mancould—or should—physically discipline his wife. Abusing anyone, I wastold, violated Islamic tenets against zulm , or cruelty. My familyadhered to the ninth chapter of the Koran, which says that men and women"are friends and protectors of one another."

However, the kidnapping and killing of my friend and colleague Daniel Pearlin 2002 forced me to confront the link between literalist interpretations of theKoran that sanction violence in the world and those that sanction violenceagainst women. For critics of Islam, 4:34 is the smoking gun that proves thatIslam is misogynistic and intrinsically violent. Read literally, it is astroubling as Koranic verses such as At-Tauba ("The Repentance")9:5, which states that Muslims should "slay the pagans wherever ye findthem" or Al-Mâ'idah ("The Table Spread with Food") 5:51,which reads, "Take not the Jews and Christians as friends."

Although Islamic historians agree that the prophet Muhammad never hit awoman, it is also clear that Muslim communities face a domestic violenceproblem. A 2003 study of 216 Pakistani women found that 97 percent hadexperienced such abuse; almost half of them reported being victims ofnonconsensual sex. Earlier this year, the state-run General Union of SyrianWomen released a report showing that one in four married Syrian women is thevictim of domestic violence.

Much of the problem is the 4:34 dance, which encourages this violence whileproducing interpretations that range from comical to shocking. A Muslim man inupstate New York, for instance, told his wife that the Koran allowed him to beather with a "wet noodle." The host of a Saudi TV show displayed a poolcue as a disciplinary tool.

Modern debates over 4:34 inevitably hark back to a still widely used 1930translation of the Koran by British Muslim Marmaduke Pickthall, who determinedthe verse to mean that, as a last resort, men can "scourge" theirwives. A 1934 translation of the Koran, by Indian Muslim scholar A. Yusuf Ali,inserted a parenthetical qualifier: Men could "Beat them (lightly)."

By the 1970s, Saudi Arabia, with its ultra-traditionalist Wahhabi ideology,was providing the translations. Fueled by oil money, the kingdom sent its Koransto mosques and religious schools worldwide. A Koran available at my localmosque, published in 1985 by the Saudi government, adds yet another qualifier:"Beat them (lightly, if it is useful)."

Today, the Islamic Society of North America and popular Muslim Internetmailing lists such as SisNet and IslamIstheTruth rely on an analysis from"Gender Equity in Islam," a 1995 book by Jamal Badawi, director of theIslamic Information Foundation in Canada. Badawi tries to take a stand againstdomestic violence, but like others doing the 4:34 dance, he leaves room forphysical discipline. If a wife "persists in deliberate mistreatment andexpresses contempt of her husband and disregard for her maritalobligations," the husband "may resort to another measure that may savethe marriage . . . more accurately described as a gentle tap on the body,"he writes. "[B]ut never on the face," he adds, "making it more ofa symbolic measure than a punitive one."

As long as the beating of women is acceptable in Islam, the problem ofsuicide bombers, jihadists and others who espouse violence will not go away; tome, they form part of a continuum. When 4:34 came into being in the 7th century,its pronouncements toward women were revolutionary, given that women wereconsidered little more than chattel at the time. But 1,400 years later, theworld is a different place and so, too, must our interpretations be different,retaining the progressive spirit of that verse.

Domestic violence is prevalent today in non-Muslim communities as well, butthe apparent religious sanction in Islam makes the challenge especiallydifficult. Some people seem to understand this and are beginning to push backagainst the traditionalists. However, their efforts are concentrated in theWest, and their impact remains small.

In his recent book No god but God, Reza Aslan, an Islam scholarat the University of Southern California, dared to assert that"misogynistic interpretation" has dogged 4:34 because Koraniccommentary "has been the exclusive domain of Muslim men." An IranianAmerican scholar recently published a new 4:34 translation stating that the"beating" step means "go to bed with them (when they arewilling)."

Meanwhile, shelters created for Muslim women in Chicago and New York havebegun to preach zero tolerance regarding the "disciplining" of women—a position that should be universal by now. And some Muslim men appear tograsp the gravity of this issue. In Northern Virginia, for instance, an imamorganized a group called Muslim Men Against Domestic Violence—though it stillendorses the "tapping" of a wife as a "friendly" reminder,an organizer said.

Yet even these small advances, if we can call them such, face an uphillbattle against the Saudi oil money propagating literalist interpretations of theKoran here in the United States and worldwide.

Last October, I listened to an online audio sermon by an American Muslimpreacher, Sheik Yusuf Estes, who was scheduled to speak at West VirginiaUniversity as a guest of the Muslim Student Association. He soon moved to thesubject of disobedient wives, and his recommendations mirrored the literalreading of 4:34. First, "tell them." Second, "leave thebed." Finally: "Roll up a newspaper and give her a crack. Or take ayardstick, something like this, and you can hit."

When I telephoned Estes later to ask about the sermon, he said that he hadbeen trying to limit how and when men could hit their wives. He realized that hehad to revisit the issue, he told me, when some Canadian Muslim men asked him ifthey could use the Sunday newspaper to give their wives "a crack."

Yet even those doing the 4:34 dance seem to realize that there's a problem.When I went back to listen to the audio clip later, the offensive language hadbeen removed. And when I asked Estes if he had ever rolled up a newspaper togive his own wife a crack, he responded without hesitation.

"I'm married to a woman from Texas," he said. "Do you knowwhat she would do to me?"

Asra Q. Nomani is the author ofStanding Alone: An American Woman'sStruggle for the Soul of Islam (HarperSanFrancisco). and a co-founder of Muslimsforpeace.net