Dr Shabir Ally discusses the strengths and weaknesses of the new Study Quran (hereafter SQ) in an absorbing review on the Quran Speaks programme. He highlights what he see as a serious deficiency in the SQ’s discussion of women rights in the Quran saying

“This may not suit a modern sort of conscience” (timeline 8:54)

He comments on surah 4 verse 34 that it has been “interpreted to mean a man may beat his wife – it doesn’t mean that”.

“Authors of Study Quran conclude that a man may beat his wife but not severely and its better not to do it ” (timeline 9:37).

“Many women will find such an interpretation unacceptable today” (timeline 9:54).

Shabir thinks that the SQ uncritically expresses the views of classical scholars but is critical of some modern views that argue 4:34 has nothing to do with the physical chastisement of wives.   He says that classical opinions should be criticised too. This is a deficiency in the SQ.

At 12:35 he says “The conclusion that a man may beat his wife is obviously unacceptable in our modern times”

At 12:41 he says: “So we must have an interpretation that does not give that allowance and I feel that I have that interpretation” 

Interestingly, Professor A.C. Brown in his recent work ‘Misquoting Muhammad: the Challenge and Choices of Interpreting the Prophet’s Legacy’, conducts an exhaustive survey of classical and contemporary discussions of 4:34 (see pp. 268-290). 

After discussing the various translation and interpretive strategies employed by contemporary scholars in their efforts to distance Islam from the evident meaning of 4:34, he notes,

‘Ironically, the unstated assumptions that many readers today would generally see as encasing the ‘literal meaning’ of 4:34 were shared by none of the pre-modern ulama. They are, in fact, totally foreign to the Islamic tradition. Reading the verse as an unambiguous legitimisation of spousal abuse assumes that the Quran should be read in isolation and that duties should be derived from it unmediated. Yet no pre-modern Muslim school of thought ever advocated that (except perhaps the early Kharijite extremists), and Islamic modernists who claim they do this today cannot manage to do so consistently. On the contrary, Muslim sects agreed that the Quran had to be read through the prism of the Prophet’s teachings as expounded by the ulama, who then disagreed endlessly on what those teachings should be.’    

Nevertheless, Brown continues,

‘The most salient theme in the ulama’s writings across the centuries has been one of restricting almost completely the apparent meaning of the verse. This seems to have appeared with the first, infallible interpreter of God’s revelation, the Messenger of God himself. Canonical Sunni Hadith collections quote the Prophet at first teaching his followers: ‘Do not strike the female servants of God.’ Only when his lieutenant Umar complained about Medinan women disrespecting their husbands (as oppose to the more submissive Meccan wives to whom they were accustomed) did the Prophet allow hitting them. The Hadith cautions, describing how a wave of seventy (i.e., many) women subsequently came complaining to the Prophet about their husbands. This led him to declare that those men who beat their wives ‘are not the best of you,’ adding, ‘The best of you will not strike them.’

So I do not share Dr Shabir’s dislike for the evident meaning of the text of 4:34.  Understood in the context of the prophet’s life and message it is not a licence for domestic abuse, but ‘just as the Hudud punishments were meant more as sign of the grievous nature of certain offences than as sentences to be enacted, so the command to strike a wife was intended to communicate the severity of her behaving disgracefully towards her husband, not as a license for domestic abuse.’ (p276).

Lastly Shabir’s anxiety that “Many women will find such an interpretation unacceptable today” (timeline 9:54) suggests that modern (ie Western secular) rejection of Islamic teaching is normative for our reinterpretation of controversial Quranic verses.

Consider this scenario: many modern people (translation: Western liberal-thinking people) find the Quran’s condemnation of homosexuality to be completely unacceptable. Same-sex couples should have the right to marry. To oppose this a denial of the most fundamental human rights to freedom and marriage equality, in the USA a right guaranteed by the Constitution itself.     

Someone might say,

“So we must have an interpretation of the Quran that does not suggest any condemnation of homosexuality and I feel that I have that interpretation”

Indeed there are some (a very few) Islamic scholars who are arguing just this point using the same kinds of arguments that Dr Shabir Ally outlines.

I have noticed in my own reading in Christian theology over the years that precisely this methodology is employed by modernist Christians who wish to ‘update’ and make ‘relevant’ unacceptable Biblical teaching on homosexuality, male headship, the reality of hell fire, and eternal punishment.

My question to Shabir: are we not in danger of going down the same path?    

Categories: Islam, Quran, Recommended Reading