We are hipnotized by habit and prejudice. Just reading the next aya after 4.34, that is, 4.35, we would be rid of the idiocy that entails having so many headaches at interpreting 4.34, and I include myself among the guilty.
Recently I read some analisys made by a Moroccan colleague, who in turn read from an Azhari, which deals with whom is addressed and of whom it is spoken in those ayas and any other ayas. I think the vision and understanding is quite entlightening and besides without anything mysterious about it. Plain straightforward grammar and logic. Nothing else, no contorting no effort in fact. Plain common understanding. I translate from Spanish:
So in 4.35 the community is addressed and is instructed that if they fear a breach between the spouses , they should appoint an arbiter from her family and another one from his family.
This aya is not addressed to the spouses, when the spouses are meant or addressed, the third person is used, he, or she, what in Arabic grammar is called Al ghaib.
This aya 4.35 is not addressed to the spouses but to the community, men and women,
and the same applies to the previous aya 4.34
It is not addressed to the spouses but to what the Qur'an calls "alladhina amanu", those who have como to believe in 4.29, since the addressee continues to be the same.
when men are spoken of it says "they" (masculine, hum), when women are spoken of it says "they" (feminine, hunna), and when it addresses the community it uses "you", second person inclusive plural. That is, three different kinds of pronoun are used: third person masculine, third person feminine, second person inclusive plural.
Since most of those who interpreted the aya were men, they interpreted that the inclusive plural referred to the husbands, but:
Men (they masculine) are responsible for the care of the women (they feminine) by virtue of that in which He has favoured more each other repsectively and by what they (masculine) spend of their (third person masculine) wealth. Virtuous women (they feminine) are those devoted to God who guard what God has guarded. As to those (they feminine) from whom you (second person inclusive plural) fear nushuz, warn them, leave them in their place, make them realise, but if they comply, do not harm them. God indeed is most high most great.
With the masculine component of the couple he uses the third person, he, they (masculine), with the feminine component, it uses she, they(feminine), and when the society is addressed (males and females) it uses the second person: You who have come to believe.
There is more to add, but I am quite busy now, I will complete it later.
Salaam
I will continue here the translation of the text as announced:
Except for the case where males are clearly addressed as "you (plural)" as the part of that community directly responsible for that, in as much as they are part of that community and personally responsible of following those instructions, as is done in 4-19-22, where they are told to not do the evil deeds they used to practice in the pre-islamic society such as inherit women and exact from them the return of wealth and to marry the wives of the fathers. After that, the pronouns follow the usual usage:
he for the husband,
she for the wife, and
you (plural) for the community, starting the speeach anew with: "Ya ayuha alladhina amanu" Oh you who have come to believe... in 4.29. And the addressee is not changed after that it being "alladhina amanu", so the "you" plural is still the community, and the parts of it alluded in the ayas are those named in the third person. It is a basic and common fact of grammar.
To choose a meaning for da-ra-ba en the aya depends on the time, the circumstances and the environment in which that community of believers finds itself. The Qur'an sets forth a variety of meanings of daraba, some refer to orientation and teachings, for instance, da-ra-ba an examle, or simil or as a treatment, 38.44, or da-ra-ba as separate or impose (57.13)... Basically to act with da-ra-ba. It is left to those in charge of social assistance within the community. May be what most pushed the interpreters to take it that with you(plural) it is addressing the husbands was the following expression of "wa hujuruhunna fil maDaji3" (leave them alone in bed), which they understood as "stop going to bed with them", while the meaning is such as correctly translated by Asad as "leave them alone in bed", since the "maDaji3", according to the Qur'an are precisely that: the homes, or the corresponding places, as we see in 3.154:
"Say: "Even if you had remained in your
homes (where they were meant to lie), those for whom death was decreed would certainly have gone forth to the place of their death"
and in 32.16
Their sides forsake their beds, and they call upon their Lord in fear and hope, and expend (in charity) out of the sustenance We have granted them. (16)
Neither does the Qur'an say that first warn, then leave alone in the bed and then da-ra-ba, and that comes as a consequence of understanding the text as addressed to the husband. It is conspicuous in Asad's translation, adding words that are not in the text that, according to him, are explanatory (warn them [first]; then leave them alone in bed, then hit them...
But in the case of it being the woman who fears nushuz from the husband, it is clear that it is not addressing the community (you (plural)) but to the husband and the wife using for that purpose the same as has been used all along for the case:
he and
she who are
they. "They" is not addressed to the community (you (plural)), but to the couple: to come to conciliation, and reconciling is better for each of them.
In the case of fearing nushuz from the wife, the question is not left int he hands of the husband, but in those of the community or the legislator to proceed as may be fit. In the case of fearing rebeliousness from the husband it is left in the hands of both of them to reconcile, it is felt that the Rabb caresses both of them, advising in general to avoid selfishness and calling to act virtuously and fear Him and have cosncience of Him, He who kows all we hide.
So here ends the translation.
By sheer grammar it is transparent that nowhere husbands ar authorized, least of all called to behave as administrators of justice for the wives.
It is so indredibly plain that one wonders from where the possibility of error can have been had.
There is whole long work by wakas in
www.quran434.comas to the meanings of daraba in the Qur'an
With cooler and cooler minds on the divine reading hopefully the meaninglessness and ridiculousness of the beating notion will become more and more manifest and overwhelming even for the most hypnotized of its upholders, which most of us have initially been, for lack of knowledge and through acceptance of handed down concepts.
Salaam
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