The Koran verse splitting imams on domestic violence

Updated

Some imams in Australia still teach that the Koran permits husbands to beat their wives, with police reporting Muslim men are citing scripture to justify abuse. Now a new generation of faith leaders is working to undo the damage.

This feature is part of an ongoing investigation by ABC News edited by Julia Baird and Hayley Gleeson into religion and domestic violence. Other articles in this series have examined Islam and Islamic divorce, mainstream Protestant denominations, the Catholic Church, Christian clergy wives, Hindu and Sikh communities, and Jewish divorce laws.

Sitting in a small, modestly furnished room at the Heidelberg mosque in Melbourne's northeast one recent Friday afternoon, Sheikh Alaa El Zokm's brow furrowed as he recalled how, during a talk he was giving on domestic violence, a young Muslim woman had nervously raised her hand.

She was terrified of getting married, she told him, because her husband might interpret verse 34 of chapter four in the Koran as some other men did: as a licence to treat his wife badly and perhaps, if she disobeyed him, beat her up.

Sheikh Alaa nodded sympathetically, he said, and offered gentle counselling about how Islam "honours women", and the importance of love and kindness in marriage.

Koran 4:34

According to one of the most popular English translations of the verse, by British-Indian scholar Abdullah Yusuf Ali, it states:

Men are the protectors and maintainers of women, because Allah has given the one more (strength) than the other, and because they support them from their means. Therefore the righteous women are devoutly obedient, and guard in (the husband's) absence what Allah would have them guard. As to those women on whose part ye fear disloyalty and ill-conduct, admonish them (first), (next), refuse to share their beds, (and last) beat them (lightly); but if they return to obedience, seek not against them means (of annoyance): For Allah is Most High, great (above you all).

The fact that a sheikh had even broached the issue of domestic abuse and Koran 4:34 in public is highly unusual; most Muslim leaders in Australia shy away from discussing it, partly to avoid the controversy it inevitably sparks.

But for the past year, the 29-year-old, Egyptian-born imam has been delivering a series of lectures — at mosques, Muslim community events, universities and Christian churches — in a bid to correct "misunderstandings" and promote respectful relationships.

He does this, he said, because he's seen first-hand the devastation domestic violence is causing his community, and feels compelled to intervene.

"There are very rare cases of individuals who misuse this verse as a reason for violence," Sheikh Alaa said. "[But] any saying that promotes violence will and must be challenged as it goes against one of the most vital principles of Islam" — that is, "mercy and tranquillity between a husband and wife."

The increasingly urgent question, however, is not just how the verse might be being interpreted, but how it is being taught.

Advocates have told ABC News a significant number of imams in Australia — many of whom have been educated in overseas institutions that champion patriarchal interpretations of Islam — are telling followers that 4:34 does allow men to physically discipline wives.

And, in the absence of any clear instruction from the country's most senior Islamic scholars, including the Grand Mufti, the consequences can be brutal, with police reporting that Muslim men are frequently citing scripture as justification for their abuse.

For decades 4:34 has been the source of intense debate over whether and to what extent Islam sanctions men's authority over and hitting of women.

Though scholars are divided on several points — including the correct English translation of the Arabic word wa-dribuhunna, which has been translated as "beat them" and "strike them", but also "separate" and "go away" from them — the verse states that a rebellious woman should first be admonished by her husband, then abandoned in bed and, finally, if her disobedience continues, beaten.

More than any other passage in the Koran it has been a thorn in the side of domestic violence workers and women's rights activists, who say it is fuelling abuse in Muslim communities and dissuading victims from seeking help.

Now, a new generation of imams is defying the status quo and speaking out to promote non-violent readings of 4:34 in the hope they might undo the damage done by decades of silence.

Faith leaders "absolutely" have a responsibility to discuss 4:34 with their communities, said Sheikh Alaa — to stress that it should never be used to condone violence. At the same time, he added, many leaders are unqualified in Islamic scholarship, and simply parrot literal translations they've picked up.

"An imam shouldn't be talking about these issues unless he's studied and knows what he's talking about ... It can be very dangerous if he says something that is not right."

'We need to be strategic about what we say in public'

Uncertainty over how the verse should be understood has persisted since last April, when the Women of Hizb ut-Tahrir Australia, a radical Islamic group, posted a video on Facebook in which two hijabi women claimed the Koran permits men to hit disobedient wives — gently, using small sticks or pieces of fabric.

"He [the husband] is permitted — not obliged, not encouraged, but permitted — to hit her [his wife]," one of the women said. "That is what everyone is talking about. It should not cause pain. Not harsh."

Just weeks earlier, Keysar Trad, then-president of the Australian Federation of Islamic Councils, had suggested in an interview on Sky News that his religion allows husbands to beat their wives as a "last resort" after having engaged in counselling, though he quickly apologised for what he described as a "clumsy attempt" to explain a verse from the Koran.

Some Muslim leaders went into damage control, insisting such views were a "minority opinion" within Islam in Australia, and that it "should be made very clear to all Muslims" that there is never any justification for violence against women.

A statement signed by more than 30 Muslim figures, including a handful of clerics, asserted that, "Islam categorically prohibits and denounces the abuse of women" and "...there are countless Australian religious clerics who have publicly declared this to be the case".

And yet it did not specifically address the questions and confusion surrounding 4:34: How should it be interpreted? Why is there such disagreement among Muslims over its meaning and application? And why do so many faith leaders refuse to weigh in?

When ABC News first began reporting this series 18 months ago, questions about the links between 4:34 and family violence were swiftly shut down by experts and imams alike — partly out of fear that simply raising the issue would invite (or prolong) sensationalist media coverage and unwanted scrutiny on Muslim communities, who already feel under siege.

But after spending more than a year talking to Australian Muslims about this question it has become clear that imams are, in fact, divided, while key leaders have continually refused to engage at all.

The acting Grand Mufti of Australia, Dr Ibrahim Abu Mohammed, did not respond to several requests from ABC News seeking clarity on 4:34 (nor did his predecessor, Sheikh Abdel Aziem Al-Afifi, who died in July, just four months into his role).

The president of the Australian National Imams Council, Sheikh Shady Alsuleiman, has also refused to respond to repeated requests for comment over the past six months, including on his remarks that husbands have the right to forbid wives from leaving or working outside the home, including going into the backyard to "put up the laundry".

Women, too, are prone to tip-toeing around the verse: the fear that they might be seen as criticising or challenging all-male imams' authority is a strong deterrent, particularly for those who work in the family violence sector.

As one professional Muslim woman told ABC News, "We need to maintain functional relationships with these men, so we need to be strategic about what we say in public."

But advocates say the silence around the issue is only making it more difficult for victims to seek help. As one Muslim family violence worker in Melbourne told ABC News: "The repercussions of having people in authority basically give permission for violent and controlling behaviour has a ripple effect — it weighs down not only on families but communities as a whole."

There are a lot of different "view points" on the correct interpretation of 4:34, the worker said, "but let's sit down and have the conversation."

'Sheikhs in Australia recite a range of interpretations'

So then what should that conversation look like? Islamic scholarship, frequently tangled up in the politics of colonialism, can be complex, not only because it requires proficiency in Arabic language and grammar.

Conservative or traditional scholars argue 4:34 should be read literally, and it gives men authority and disciplinary privileges over wives: beating is permitted as a "last resort" in response to what they consider to be very serious transgressions, perhaps adultery.

Progressives like Sheikh Alaa, meanwhile, say it should be read in context with the Koran's broader messages of justice and peace, and the example of the Prophet who, they claim, "never hit a woman".

For them, the verse is a three-step process for addressing a wife's arrogance, or disrespect, toward her husband: couples should first discuss their concerns, separate from the marital bed and, finally, walk away or separate from one another.

It doesn't make sense to Sheikh Alaa that god would allow a man to beat his wife to fix a problem in his marriage. "How can you advocate hitting as a solution?" he said. "Which lady in the world is going to accept being hit?"

Fatima* accepted it for years. The recently-divorced mother from Melbourne endured decades of physical, emotional and financial abuse by her husband, who she said would spit 4:34 at her to justify his authority.

"He was quite fluent in Arabic, but I'm not," Fatima said. "I was brought up in Australia, and relied on the English translation until I started learning Arabic myself. For years I took it literally, I believed he had the right, that I deserved it."

She might have fled the relationship sooner, she said, had she received different advice from faith leaders.

"I have heard sheikhs in Australia recite a range of interpretations of 4:34, but the most prominent one [advocates] beating or hitting," Fatima said.

"I've heard one imam say that a man has the right [to hit his wife] in the most extreme circumstances of nushuz [disobedience or disloyalty] ... So basically if he walks in and finds his wife having an affair ... if he loses his temper and hits her, then he will be forgiven for his first reaction."

Other imams, she added, "have said, 'Well, it [hitting] should be tokenistic; a husband can use a toothbrush or a scarf and cannot leave any marks or bruising — it's just to show that you are upset."

Of course, it's not only a scholarly or theoretical debate. Many Muslim majority states — including the UAE and Egypt — give permission in their legal codes for husbands to physically discipline wives.

And in 2016, an anti-domestic violence bill in Pakistan was deemed "un-Islamic" by the Council of Islamic Ideology, which advises legislators on sharia matters.

A husband, the council reportedly said, should be allowed to "lightly beat his wife" if, among other reasons, "she defies his commands and refuses to dress up as per his desires" or "turns down demand of intercourse without any religious excuse".

'What do Muslims want this verse to mean?'

Koran 4:34 can be read both ways, said Ayesha S. Chaudhry, an associate professor of Islamic and gender studies at the University of British Columbia — as either sanctioning violence against wives, or as prescribing a peaceful strategy for resolving marital conflict — it just depends on who's reading it.

Religious scholars in the pre-colonial period, she said, expected the Koran to support a patriarchal structure of marriage and could make a persuasive case that it did.

But scholars in the 20th and 21st centuries — a growing number of whom are women — have increasingly begun to interpret it in line with their expectations for it to uphold messages of gender equality. In other words, when women read, they interpret differently.

"The subjectivity of the scholar influences the questions they ask, where they look for answers, and how they interpret the information they find," said Dr Chaudhry, who is also the author of a book about 4:34 and domestic violence. The question for modern Muslims, she said, is "what do they want this verse to mean?"

Many, it seems, want it to affirm male superiority.

During his eight-year stint as a domestic violence prevention officer with Bankstown police, Danny Mikati would regularly challenge Muslim men who defended abusing their wife by claiming their religion allowed it.

Most would refer not to their apparent licence to "beat lightly", Mr Mikati said, but to "the authority endowed upon a man and the requirement for a woman to be obedient".

"I would take them up on it because I knew they hadn't read [the Islamic texts]," said Mr Mikati, who left the force last June after a 17-year career but still works privately with domestic violence clients.

"I'd basically tell them to be careful using God's words to justify their violence and criminal behaviour, and defy them to produce one example of a prophet that did so ... It was something I really focused on because I wanted to be able to show that they were doing a disservice not only to their wife and family but to their faith, and to their community."

In response, he said, most men would "shut up". "What could they say?" he said. "They were cherry-picking verses to suit them, yet 99 per cent [of them] didn't know what was from hadith and what was from the Koran."

Greater investment in local Islamic scholarship needed

Exacerbating the problem in Australia, experts say, is a lack of local Islamic scholarship.

Islamic legal pronouncements and interpretations rely on the scholar having a "deep understanding" of the society in which they live, and should always be relevant to and reflective of the local culture, said Mehmet Ozalp, the founding director of the Centre for Islamic Studies and Civilisation at Charles Sturt University.

A scholar who lives and is educated in a Muslim-majority country like Pakistan, for instance, will necessarily interpret the Koran differently to scholars in western countries. For this reason, Dr Ozalp said, there is a need for greater investment in Islamic scholarship here.

"Until we established the Centre for Islamic Studies at CSU, if a Muslim wanted to excel in Islamic studies they had to go overseas — for example, Yemen, Syria or Egypt — to study. These places still have historic appeal, but we need to provide equal or better levels of Islamic education in Australia."

The requirement that Islam must mould to the local culture is on the agenda of some overseas institutions.

Before settling in Melbourne almost four years ago, Sheikh Alaa studied at Al-Azhar University, an ancient and influential school of Sunni Islamic learning in Cairo.

"Al-Azhar is trying to ... qualify people to be imams in western countries," Sheikh Alaa said, in order to counter extremism, and misinterpretations of scriptures that deal with women, for instance, or jihad.

"It's a 'must' for any imam who comes to a western society to understand the culture ... before giving an explanation or verdict that may contradict with the nature of the people in that place," he said. "And this is an Islamic rule."

This rule, though, is not always followed. A decade ago a report by the Islamic Women's Welfare Council of Victoria claimed Muslim faith leaders were ill-equipped to respond to complex modern problems including marriage, divorce and domestic abuse, and that some were conducting illegal polygamous marriages, or obstructing police from pursuing domestic violence charges.

"They come from their own little village and culture and say this is what Islam is," one woman interviewed by the report authors said. "They come from a village where there is no running water and electricity, and they bring their dark ideas into this country."

But experts say many imams today still cling to a conservative, classical Islam that upholds men's authority over women.

"The majority of imams in Australia still buy into what is today considered as mainstream classical Islam and its logic, especially on gender issues," said Adis Duderija, who researches progressive Islam and gender in Islam at Griffith University.

"They have accepted this idea of authenticity residing in the past — with the founders of the four main schools of [Islamic] thought being the pinnacle of intellectual endeavour — and they believe their interpretive methodologies ought to be followed."

For Danny Mikati, it underscores the importance of comprehensive family violence training, which he said had only recently begun to resonate with sheikhs in New South Wales.

"The problem is ... if you're not a home-grown imam — which very few [in Australia] are — and you come in from another country, where is the training on Australian law, family law, the Domestic Violence Act ... the psychological impacts of abuse?"

Some imams, he added, had learnt the hard way that domestic violence cannot be dealt with simply by bringing an abusive husband and his wife together for counselling.

He recalls having to attend one such "mediation" session where a sheikh and the victim's elderly father (who'd been there to support his daughter) were both punched in the face by her violent husband, who was charged.

"They started to get it," Mr Mikati said of leaders who had similar experiences. "They became a risk to the organisation [they worked for], a risk to the community and they started to take a more serious stance against domestic abuse ... they could see the consequences of what happens when you make the wrong moves."

Men must make space for women's voices, leadership

What is also needed now, survivors and advocates say, is for Australia's most senior scholars and spiritual leaders to break their silence and provide clarity on 4:34, as clerics in other western countries have done.

In a rare move in 2012, for instance, the Islamic Supreme Council of Canada issued a fatwa, signed by 34 member imams, stating that honour killings, misogyny and domestic violence were "un-Islamic actions and crimes in Islam".

The religious edict, which was made a week after a Montreal couple and their son were convicted of killing four female relatives, sought to promote respectful relationships by countering misinterpretations of the Koran, in particular 4:34.

The "correct translation", the Council ruled, requires that husbands not "become violent", but cite "disloyal" wives to authority. "In Islam, there is no gender based superiority," it said. "In fact, the relationship between a husband and wife is based upon mutual love, respect and care."

In Australia, however, there has been almost no discussion. The Australian National Imams Council has previously called on imams to deliver special Friday sermons on domestic violence to mark the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women.

But while it has issued detailed statements clarifying the Islamic position on homosexuality ("homosexuality is a forbidden action; a major sin and anyone who partakes in it is considered a disobedient servant to Allah that will acquire His displeasure and disapproval"), no such advice has been forthcoming on 4:34.

"As a woman, as a member of the Muslim community, it would mean so much if the Grand Mufti would come out and say, 'there is never any excuse for violence'," said Fatima, the domestic abuse survivor.

In Sheikh Alaa's experience, women — regardless of whether they've experienced abuse — crave clarity on 4:34.

"All imams have a responsibility to explain things," he said. "That's the covenant between them and the lord ... to help the community understand the religion."

Partly for this reason he's about to start delivering a pre-marriage course at his mosque, "to qualify for the couple that they need to treat each other with kindness".

But Dr Chaudhry argues that men in power must also "use some of their privilege to lose it" and make space for women's voices and leadership.

"It's actually not enough [for imams] to say that men can't hit their wives," she said. "We have to change the way power is structured in Muslim communities. Architecturally, the mosque represents patriarchy: the main prayer hall belongs to the men, and women have the marginal spaces ... and don't get to participate in the religious authority of the mosque or speak to their congregation."

Ultimately, she added, "men who are allies have to divest from the spaces that give them authority in order to make those spaces more inclusive."

Danny Mikati agrees. As the driving force behind so many community initiatives, he said, "Women need to start being less merciful to the organisations, to the men, when they're ignored. They've got a lot of lobbying power, and they should use it."

So if men don't listen to women's demands for stronger action on domestic violence?

"Protest!" Mr Mikati said. "Refuse, don't do anything. You make the organisations run, not the men. If your voices aren't being heard, what's the point?"

*The names of domestic violence survivors have been changed for legal and security reasons.

Other articles in this series

Exposing the darkness within: Islam and domestic violence

'Submit to your husbands': Women told to endure domestic violence in the name of God

'Their cross to bear': The Catholic women told to forgive domestic abuse

Raped, tracked, humiliated: Clergy wives speak out about domestic violence

The secret scourge of family violence and murder in Australian Hindu and Sikh communities

Chained women: The Jewish wives being held hostage in abusive marriages

'I'm not his property': The abuse Muslim wives are told to tolerate

Topics: domestic-violence, relationships, islam, religious-leaders, women, assault, australia

First posted