title: Understanding Q. 4:34 in relation to wife-abuse
title: tradition, feminists and faith leaders
titleType: Subtitle
Creators: name: Afifi, Mahmoud Ali Gomaa
Publisher: name: Lancaster University
Year: 2024
Subjects: Qur'ān 4:34, tafsīr and fiqh, feminist hermeneutics, praxis, religious authority, UK imams

description: Qur'ān 4:34 is the verse taken literally to authorize the husband to
 physically discipline his (nāshiz recalcitrant) wife. A substantial body
 of scholarship, mainly within Islamic feminist literature, has emerged to
 resolve the ethical and hermeneutic problematic this verse poses. Much of
 this literature has been yoked on the theoretical interpretation of Q.
 4:34 to mitigate the theological concerns arising from the letter of the
 verse and its historical interpretations. Theological positions in the
 classical tradition, perceived to be sustained by traditionally trained
 scholars today, are often dismissed by feminist interpreters as unhelpful.
 However, as the findings of this thesis show, in their attempt to eschew
 stereotypical images of that tradition as patriarchal, traditionally
 trained scholars do not subscribe to classical readings of the verse.
 Nevertheless, they dismiss the feminist hermeneutics of Q. 4:34 as
 secular/western. Building on contemporary scholarship on Q. 4:34 but
 diverging in aims and approach, this thesis combines i) an exploration of
 the hermeneutic history of Q. 4:34, from classical to feminist readings;
 with ii) an investigation of the extent to which these interpretations
 are/are not deployed in practice, and where polarization and/or tensions
 in relation to the verse are mitigated. To ground the discussion in a case
 study, the thesis will focus on Britain, examining the interpretations and
 practices of UK imams and traditionally trained Muslim faith leaders. The
 focus of the thesis is, therefore, on how UK imams and Muslim faith
 leaders read and deploy Q. 4:34 (if at all) in their approach to wife
 abuse in contemporary Britain. Further, what impact does their context
 have on their reception of the hermeneutic/exegetical tradition of Q.
 4:34? As the research draws attention to the crucial role
 'context' plays in mitigating the text and its sanctioned
 interpretations in the classical tradition, the first part of the thesis
 is a textual examination of Q. 4:34 as read within works of tafsīr, fiqh,
 and feminist hermeneutics. This textual part of the thesis redressed the
 dismissal and lack of in-depth engagement with the exegetical tradition of
 Q. 4:34, as key to a contemporary hermeneutic of application that combats
 wife abuse in contemporary context. The second part of the thesis
 investigates through semi-structured interviews and an ethnography of a
 two-day meeting of 70 British-based imams and scholars how they read and
 apply Q. 4:34 in their practical treatment of wife abuse in their
 communities. The analysis situates their readings and practices in the
 wider textual tradition explored in the first part. The research
 illustrates how, in aspiring for a reinterpretation of Q. 4:34 which
 mitigates its effect on their communities within the context of Britain,
 imams and scholars often produced hybrid yet novel tradition-based
 strategies which also bespeak modernist/feminist hermeneutics despite
 prevalent ambivalence against feminism amongst many of them. The thesis
 argues that these strategies and interpretations primarily exemplify the
 dialectic between text and context, and secondarily problematizing the
 emphasis in current scholarship on a textual solution for wife hitting. In
 conclusion, the thesis argues that the perceived polarization between
 feminists and traditionally trained scholars is a sham as they share, in
 practice, similar views when approaching Q. 4:34. Further, it proposes as
 a productive way forward that, at the practical level redressing wife
 abuse, requires a more in-depth, contextual approach in which praxis
 guides and predicates interpretation within Muslim communities.