The Must Know Guide to the Qur'an for the Western World by TheQuran.com Group

Author:TheQuran.com Group [Group, TheQuran.com]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9781935577041
Publisher: Oasis Life Publishing, LLC
Published: 2011-07-23T16:00:00+00:00

If a man calls his woman to his bed, and she does not come, and then he goes to bed angry at her, the angels will curse her until the morning.[286]

These same statements are repeated in the ḥadīth, such as Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī and Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim, but with variations in the wording.[287]

3. Beating

If the previous methods, including instruction and verbal abuse, fail to correct a wife’s behavior, then a husband is given the right to beat his wife. Verse Q 4.34 does not specify the mode or limit of the beating. However, it is believed that Muḥammad put a condition on the beating, classifying it as “not excessive.”[288]

When interpreting the phrase “not excessive beating,” scholars offer the following guidelines:

• Avoid hitting the wife’s face.[289]

• Do not break any of the wife’s bones.[290]

• Use nonfatal implements or physical force:[291]

° al-siwāk (a twig of the Salvadora persica tree), or shoe laces, etc.

° hand, etc. [hitting, slapping, punching the neck and chest, etc.]

The wife may receive a beating for every behavior that incites the anger of her husband or for every act that her husband does not like.[292] Current Islāmic literature supports the legitimacy of beating and its benefit for “upbringing.” For example, the Egyptian scholar Muḥammad Mitwallī al-Sha‘rāwī (AD 1911-1998), who was considered among the 3top Muslim thinkers in the twentieth century, records his position:[293]

Beating is not a sign of hatred. It could be a sign of love. As long as it is not excessive, it would only cause a small amount of pain. A person might resort to lightly beating the loved one due to desiring what is in the person’s [best] interests and due to caring about the person. A woman, by her very nature, understands that, coming from her husband. She knows that his anger at her and his punishing her…will soon pass away and with its passing, its causes will pass. Therefore, they remain in their relationship as if nothing happened.

D. Husband’s Rights over Wife’s Body

The Qur’ān regards sexual intercourse as an act of the man that a woman receives. She is merely an object used for his enjoyment: “Your women are your tilth, so come into your tillage how you choose...” (Q 2.223).

Because a husband has the right to control his wife’s body, like a farmer with his plow, Muslim scholars started a discussion over the meaning of the term annā, translated in the verse above as “how.” This word can also mean “where,” “when,” and “however.” Therefore, they have determined that this verse indicates the following sexual rights of a husband over his wife:

1. He has the right to choose any sexual position he desires.[294]

2. He has the right to have sexual relations whenever he feels like it, except during menstruation.[295]

3. He has the right to have sexual relations wherever he wishes. Therefore, some claim that this verse permits anal intercourse, a view that was supported by the Companions and some Medinan religious scholars.[296] (See comment on Q 2.223, Qur’ān Dilemma 1: 238.)

According to the Qur’ān, a wife has no right over her own body.

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