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Wife beating in islam? The Quran strikes back

Started by Wakas, February 11, 2010, 07:54:51 PM

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huruf

Quote from: Wakas on February 01, 2014, 09:53:35 AM
peace huruf,

Thanks for clarifying that in your view 4:35 switches to a couple unmentioned previously. I dont consider your view credible, however, as I said, if you wish to come up with an alternative, feel free to research such and produce an article/etc so others can weigh it up and decide etc.


You may not consider it credible, but, in fact, there is NOT a couple mentioned earlier. There is a plural feminine referring to the women from whom something is feared. Those women may live in a couple or not. We are not informed of the kinds of reasons the fearers have to feel as they may do, so there is no restriction on the kind of "nushuz" that the may fear.

?An alternative to what?

Salaam

Nabeel

Quote from: huruf on February 01, 2014, 08:56:03 AM
If you remember or read back the quotes from the Qur'an and the Lane dictionnary, and as I made explicitly clear, I think, it is not an object called "bed" but the place where one lies to sleep. It is function not an object. That is the whole point that we are talking about sleep or place of certainty, like the aya where it refers to the place where somebody was to die, so there is no question about marital considerations. And I suppose to, that the community of believers, which is the addressee of the sentence does not usually share a bed or place of sleeping with any particular women from whom whatever is feared.

I understand that the word 'bed' in Lane's literally translates to 'a place of lying down', but even in your interpretation it would be very unusual for the verse to use a vague expression about a 'place of lying down' to somehow convey a dissimilar meaning of "leave them to think about it at leisure".  I'm sorry but even if your interpretation is possible, it seems very far-fetched because it assumes almost every word in the verse to be ambiguous and somehow completely different.

huruf

You cannot make something unambiguous by giving it sa meaning it does not have just for the sake of it no seeming ambiguous to you. I mean, I know that translating anew concepts that have not been handled before is difficult and that my translation may leave a lot to be desired, but the question is that you cannot give it any meaning which falsifies the text just because by doing so seems so "comprehensible". In factall of us while dismounting "traditional" interpretations that looked wholly unsatisfactory to us have made atempt after attempt trying to get to the gist of something that before was understood completely different or rather not understood. We have to go through that.

I am eager to get the best translation, but what is out of the question in this case is the understanding of the community leaving the women in their beds alone, or something of the kind, because it just is preposterous or, worse, insisting that it is husbands that are being addressed.

Salaam

huruf

What is also out of the question is seeing in this aya any authorization to punish o correct women. There is an advice to those who may fear that the women do something wrong, but in no way there is any authorization to pester, spy or mishandle them or trespass on their affairs. In fact it is an outright rejection of any "preventive" doings, like forbidding them something, for instance.

As in the next aya, those who may have a pact with a particular woman and where there is disconformity as to their abiding by it are adviced to get arbitration to avoid a break up, but nowhere and at no time is it a question of punishing, correcting or forcing anything on anybody.

Salaam

Nabeel

Quote from: huruf on February 01, 2014, 02:31:01 PM
You cannot make something unambiguous by giving it sa meaning it does not have just for the sake of it no seeming ambiguous to you. I mean, I know that translating anew concepts that have not been handled before is difficult and that my translation may leave a lot to be desired, but the question is that you cannot give it any meaning which falsifies the text just because by doing so seems so "comprehensible". In factall of us while dismounting "traditional" interpretations that looked wholly unsatisfactory to us have made atempt after attempt trying to get to the gist of something that before was understood completely different or rather not understood. We have to go through that.

I am eager to get the best translation, but what is out of the question in this case is the understanding of the community leaving the women in their beds alone, or something of the kind, because it just is preposterous or, worse, insisting that it is husbands that are being addressed.

I never interpreted that part 'avoid in bed' as a form of punishment for the wife from the husband.  Avoiding in bed may be an attempt to resolve a marital dispute.  In a disagreement, the man and the woman may not desire sleeping together anyway (they may be upset, annoyed or angry at each other), so avoiding in bed for the purpose of resolving a marital argument should not be seen as a form of punishment.  Like the previous step 'advise / speak to them' is an attempt at reaching resolution, avoiding in bed should also be seen as a step toward resolution.  I agree with you that the verse is not about punishment.  It is about possible steps toward resolving a marital conflict.  Hence, the translation should be: 'advise / speak to' them, not 'admonish' them.   It should be: 'avoid in bed', not 'leave / shun them in their beds alone'.

Nabeel


huruf

There continues to be in most conjectures on this aya the assumption that it is husbands that are addressed when it says

3iDHuhunna wa ahjuruhunna filmaDaji3 waDribuhunna (let them know of your fears, do not trespass on their realm and try to get glarity from them)

But clearly, manifestedly, it is not so.

In the whole aya there are three parties spoken of: the rijaal, third person masculine plural, the nisaa', third person feminine plural, and the addressee, which continues to be the

ayuha alladhina amanu (you -second person mixed plural- who have believe). They are the ones addressed to in aya 28 and it continues like that all the time whithout change of addressee, and if you look at the previous ayas it sticks to the rule of the third person concerning women and men and, after 4.34, it is still the second person mixed plural -you who have believed-. There is no change of addressee at all. So at no time in 4.34 the speech is addressed to any husbands. They or any other men or men at large who may be concerned are spoken of in third person masculine plural.

There is no way that that can be bysided and make as if it was not there, because it is only the reader's inability to conceive that no husbands are addressed which sets any impossibility of not addressing them there. The text is clear, explicit and evident. And that is why separating beds beside  making wet paper of the grammar of the Qur'an, makes it completley illogical to give it that meaning, also besides forcing into the word maDaji3 a connotation which at best is whimsical.

If we look objectively at the Qur'an and grammar and any logic language can have, there are no husbands addressed. They are a phantom of our own preconceptions, very much ingrained in the "man-male is the centre of the universe and everything revolves around him" which all of us have internalised and apply always unconsciously and automatically.

Also this is not may invention nor still less my discovery. This I have read from  other people, some of whom have very solid formal education in places like Al-Azhar. So it is not a fantasy of feminists or anything like that, as we in the forum get called by those who dislike to see their malish convictions shaked.

Obviously, all persons do believe and think whatever they will, but I must point out the obvious grammar and language of the Qur'an errors when I see them, because it is not pushing elementary language failings under the carpet that we are going to make headway.

The addressee continues to be ayuha alladhina amanu, second person mixed plural all the following ayas after 4.34 up to aya 40 where the adresse is singular masculine,  I gather, in fact the Prophet, with the second person singular to continue being addressed in aya 41. And then, in aya 42. goes back to addressing the community repeating the address: ya ayuha alladhina amanu, Oh you who have believed. Verify all that.

So there is no ambiguity at all in the text as to whom is being addressed. We always know who is addressed because when the addressee changes, is is made explicit, and when it is changed back is is also made explicit. There is no circumventing that: It is not husbands who are told to do anything in aya 4.34 nor who fear anything from the women. Not they, but "ayuha alladhina amanu", those who have believed.

Salaam
   

Wakas

peace huruf,

Quote from: huruf on February 02, 2014, 04:47:37 AM
If we look objectively at the Qur'an and grammar and any logic language can have, there are no husbands addressed.

You have made this claim multiple times.

We discussed the issue of what are the Quranic terms for husband and wife etc on this thread, to which you nor anyone had an answer that worked. See from this post onwards:
http://free-minds.org/forum/index.php?topic=9604721.msg316780#msg316780

Thus, until you have an answer, the more correct view, according to your own knowledge/reasoning would be:

"If we look objectively at the Qur'an and grammar and any logic language can have, there are no husbands addressed.... but since I do not know the term for "husband" as per Quran it is theoretically possible it may refer to "husband".


All information in my posts is correct to the best of my knowledge only and thus should not be taken as a fact. One should seek knowledge and verify: 17:36, 20:114, 35:28, 49:6, 58:11. [url="http://mypercept.co.uk/articles/"]My articles[/url]

[url="//www.studyquran.org"]www.studyQuran.org[/url]

huruf

Quote from: Wakas on February 02, 2014, 05:18:53 AM
peace huruf,

You have made this claim multiple times.

We discussed the issue of what are the Quranic terms for husband and wife etc on this thread, to which you nor anyone had an answer that worked. See from this post onwards:
http://free-minds.org/forum/index.php?topic=9604721.msg316780#msg316780

Thus, until you have an answer, the more correct view, according to your own knowledge/reasoning would be:

"If we look objectively at the Qur'an and grammar and any logic language can have, there are no husbands addressed.... but since I do not know the term for "husband" as per Quran it is theoretically possible it may refer to "husband".

Well about the terms for husbands and wives, that is another story or thread or whatever, as to the terms men and women there is no confusion whatsoever, rijaal is men, nisaa' is women. Nisaa' in as very definite conntext might mean wives, but rijaal never is husbands. If in 4.34 you insist that the talk is not at all abut men and women, what you are doing in fact is forbidding the qur'an from speaking ever about men and women and imposing on it that it always talk about husbands and wives, something unheard of in any language. No mastter what might have been said in any other thread, the fact is that the meaning of rijaal when opposed to nisaa' is men, which is the case in 4.34 as is also the case in the previous ayas, like 4.32, that is, just two ayas before 4.34.

And in no wise covet those things in which Allah Hath bestowed His gifts More freely on some of you than on others: To men is allotted what they earn, and to women what they earn: But ask Allah of His bounty. For Allah hath full knowledge of all things. (32)

In this case it is talking abour irjaal and nisaa'. It would be indeed funny that two ayas later, without warning, they have become husbands and wives.

On the other hand you are avoiding the question which in fact I have insisted upon and it is that husbands are not addressees in aya 4.34. That the addresses are ayuha alladhina amanu, You who have believed.

As to the words husbands, any one using the search tools for the qur'an can find the ayas where the word appears. So no mistery there. Adn I will not get into that here, because there is the question of the member in a couple, the bu3ul and another whole question alltogether which completely different from this one in 4.34 where neither rijaal nor women are spoken of as members in a couple, although anybody can be a member of a couple of course but also may not be. That is, in couple or without coupla they are still men and women, and that is what is dealt with.

Salaam

Earthdom

Quote from: uq on January 27, 2014, 07:28:28 AM
1. The root ض ر ب admits of a huge number of various meanings in the Classical Language. Words derived from this root seem to have been used to signify some form of motion, as "to strike" or "to travel" or "to impress a coin" or "to snatch away" etc., and a great deal of them are tropical applications. Notwithstanding this, they are almost always prepositional compounds, that is, they occur with obligate prepositions, as ضرب في or ضرب عن or ضرب له, etc. Whereas in 4:34, the verb occurs without a preposition; it takes a direct object. This is a difficulty for those of us who seek to justify its signification as being "separate from them" or "go away from them."

Nah!! brother uq raised important point for what we must take notice.
It's about preposition في.DRB can be mean separate, go away with that preposition

Example: ضر‌بوا في الأر‌ض (appear in 2:273 and 3:156)

I don't see in any dictionaries both Lane and baheeth.com if DRB without any prepositions can be mean separate, go away.
But mostly mean strike, beat and attemp.

Example:
-From lisan ul Arab : - تَضَرُّبُ الولد في البَطْنِ
                                - ما ضَرَبْتَه بالسيفِ

-From Al Shaaha fi Al Lughat :
خَشاشٌ كرأس الحيّة المتـوقِّـدِ    أنا الرجل الضَرْبُ الذي تعرفونه

Source : baheeth.com

If I'm not wrong during 2003 invasion of Iraq, I seen many Iraqi crowds in TV said something like "Darob!! Darob!!".

I'm neutral in here and God know best.

Peace