[CIS 2.2 (2006) 157170] Comparative Islamic Studies (print) ISSN 1740-7125 doi: 10.558/CISv2i2.

157 Comparative Islamic Studies (online) ISSN 1743-1638

The Problems of Conscience and Hermeneutics: A Few Contemporary Approaches*

AYESHA S. CHAUDHRY
New York University

This paper surveys contemporary approaches to the problems of conscience raised by Chapter 4, Verse 34 of the Quran, exploring modes of resolving the issues that arise when believing Muslims approach the verse and nd its apparent meaning to violate their pre-existing notions of justice, notions which are partly informed the by the Quranic text itself. It argues that the prescription of hitting ones wife, as the last of three mitigating directives when dealing with a woman who embodies the quality of nushz, creates a moment of interruption in the relationship between the believer and text. Contemporary scholars engage both text and historical precedent in the present context when (re)interpreting Quran 4:34 and this paper shows that the relative weight given to text and precedent determines the conclusions of individual arguments.

Introduction In March of 2007 the New York Times1 printed the story of a German judge who denied an expedited divorce to a German-Moroccan woman who was physically abused by her husband, arguing that the Quran granted the husband the prerogative to physically discipline his wife, stating that The Koran sanctions such physical abuse.2 The reporter, Mark Lander, claried for his readers that While the verse cited by Judge Datz-Winter does say husbands may beat their wives for disobediencean interpretation embraced by Wahhabi and other fundamentalist Islamic groupsmost mainstream Muslims have long rejected wife-beating as a relic of the medieval age.3 This story highlights the importance of Q 4:34 in the investigation of the (in)equality of genders in the Quran and is directly connected to the question of divine sanction or justication for domestic violence. The verse declares that men are qawwamn over women and further prescribes three steps that men may undertake if they fear nushz from their wives. Both qawwamn and nushz are difcult words to translate due to the multiple meanings they contain, but qawwamn is usually understood to mean guardians and nushz to mean, in this context, disloyalty, rebellion, or recalcitrance. According to conventional readings of this verse, the three steps that husbands may undertake if they fear nushz from their women are: to admonish them [faihunna],
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shun them in bed [wahjurhunna l-maji], and/then strike or beat them [waribhunna]. Abdullah Yusuf Ali translates the verse as follows:
(Husbands) are the protectors and maintainers of their (wives) because Allah has given the one more (strength) than the other, and because they support them from their means. Therefore the righteous women are devoutly obedient, and guard in (the husbands) absence what Allah would have them guard. As to those women on whose part ye fear disloyalty and ill-conduct, admonish them (rst), (next) refuse to share their beds, (and last) spank them (lightly); but if they return to obedience, seek not against them means (of annoyance): For Allah is most High, Great (above you all). (Q 4:34)

Ali displays his discomfort with the prescription of wife-beating in this verse by taking two steps. First, he interprets the three prescriptions of verbal admonishment, shunning in bed, and beating to be sequential rather than simultaneous. Second, he qualies the unqualied Quranic prescription of beating by adding lightly in parentheses. Alis hermeneutic move is an example of how the explicit textual command to beat women who commit nushz violates notions of justice and gender egalitarianism that many contemporary scholars bring to the text. These conscientious objections arise in part because they perceive this verse to stand in counter-distinction to other verses in the Quran that promote reciprocity, mutual love and respect in marriage, and encourage the establishment of justice.4 This paper explores the methods employed by contemporary believing scholars who seek to reconcile the notions of justice and gender egalitarianism that they bring to the text with their belief that the Quran is the literal word of God. Their attempts at reconciling the tensions raised by the prescription of wifebeating in turn lead to a conversation regarding the interrelated issues of (a) the relative privileging of Quran and Sunnah,5 (b) the relationship between text and community, and (c) the role of historical precedent in contemporary interpretations. While not all believing scholars struggle with Q 4:34 in their published work, this paper focuses on the work of contemporary scholars who do wrestle with conscientious objections to the prescription of wife-beating. Within current scholarship, I identify three trends which I refer to as traditionalist, idealist, and reformist.6 In the traditionalist approach, the Sunnah plays a signicant role in explaining the Quranic text, and the community relinquishesat least nominallyits autonomy in its interaction with the Quranic text, thus making the text sovereign. In this case, the tradition, which had previously played a part in interpreting the verse, functions as a binding authority when considering new interpretations.7 In the idealist model the Sunnah continues to be signicant, and while the Quranic text remains sovereign, the community receiving this divine text
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assumes greater interpretive authority than it does in the traditionalist model. Scholars in this category have an ideal view of the Quran and also hold precious specic ideals, to which they would like to see the Quran conform. Previous interpretations play a conicted role in this interpretive framework. On the one hand, the pre-modern exegetical heritage is entirely suspect after being labeled patriarchal and misogynistic, and on the other hand, it is drawn on in an ad hoc and selective manner in order to bolster specic interpretations of the Quran. Within the reformist method, Sunnah plays only a supplementary role in comprehending Q 4:34. Furthermore, the community assumes an even greater interpretive role in this framework, such that it may reject the literal interpretation of specic texts in the Quran. The text of the Quran is not sovereign in this approach, but can only be understood in its interactions with the interpretive community. Concerning tradition, reformists emphasize the signicance of engaging critically with and learning from the interpretive heritage, all the while clarifying that this heritage is not binding. I propose that while the traditionalist and idealist trends are crucial steps in current scholarship, as they recognize the tension between notions of gender justice and the text of the Quran, their methods do not ultimately resolve these tensions. The reformist approach builds on the traditionalist and idealist approaches and moves beyond them both, although it is still in its formative stage. The salient difference between the reformist approach and the traditionalist and idealist approaches is that the reformists are willing to admit that the Quranic text itself might be patriarchal and/or androcentric, or perhaps even unjust. The Traditionalist Approach The traditionalist method absolves the text of the Quran, deemed to be the literal word of God, of all blame for any perceived injustice. Rather, it places the entirety of the blame for tensions raised by Q 4:34 on human understanding. Egyptian-Canadian professor Jamal Badawi8 and Pakistani-Canadian professor Ahmed Shafaat9 represent the range of positions found within the traditionalist method. They approach Q 4:34 differently, but both believe that if the tradition (Sunnah and pre-modern interpretations) were presented in the correct light, it would resolve any tensions that Q 4:34 might raise. Both argue that Islam espouses ideas of justice and gender egalitarianism, and that men do not have superiority over women except by God consciousness [taqw].10 They argue that any apparent tension is resolved by considering a restricted denition of nushz as well as by stressing the necessity of following the three prescribed steps of admonishment, separating beds, and beating sequentially, thereby avoiding the latter whenever possible.11 Although both Badawi and Shafaat
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present their methodologies as solidly traditional it is clear that their reasoning differs from the heterogeneous scholarship referred to as tradition because they are explicitly wrestling with this prescription in the context of promoting the idea that Islam espouses justice and gender egalitarianism as ideals. Although the text is fundamental for both, they differ as to whether the Quran or Sunnah is primary. Badawi argues that it is signicant that the reported Sunnah of the Prophet is that he never beat his wives and his only reported comments on Q 4:34 qualied the prescription of beating by limiting or stigmatizing the husbands physical chastisement of his wife. This renders the prescription more symbolic than punitive in nature12 and should serve to discourage husbands from ever beating their wives. In contrast, Shafaat claims that rendering beating only symbolic apologizes for the prescription of wife-beating in the Quran, which being the word of God, requires no apology. Although the beating should not seriously injure the wife, he argues that it should nonetheless be an energetic demonstration of the anger, frustration and love of the husband.13 In this regard, he treats Sunnah as secondary to the specic Quranic text itself, since the prophetic model functions as exceptional rather than exemplary in this instance.14 The Idealist Approach The idealist paradigm locates most if not all blame for tensions surrounding Q 4:34 in the received tradition, with exegetical works rather than jurisprudence constituting the main body of work examined. Idealists argue that the Quranic text itself is not patriarchal and/or misogynist, but rather that misogyny and patriarchy were read into the Quran by exegetes.15 Once these exegetical works are properly historicized, this argument claims that contemporary scholars will no longer be bound by previous interpretations. Instead, they will be fully within their rights to re-interpret verses like Q 4:34 to have more egalitarian meanings, which are in line with the spirit of justice and gender egalitarianism found within the Quran.16 To this end, many feminist scholars attempt to retranslate -r-b17 in Q 4:34.18 In re-translating -r-b, they attempt to reconcile this particular Quranic text with the rest of their reading of the Quran and thus hold the text itself partially responsible for its own interpretation,19 by recognizing that there may be a problem with the text of the Quran itself. Hence, although the interpretive community receiving and interacting with the text assumes greater interpretive authority than in the traditionalist framework, the Quranic text still remains sovereign for idealist scholars. The tension between Quran and Sunnah remains relevant here, though idealists across the board privilege the Sunnah over the Quran with respect to wife-beating, arguing that the Sunnah helps believers to understand that the prescription in Q 4:34 was not meant to advocate marital violence. This privileged treatment of hadith reports
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over the Quran is unique in the idealist approach, which often dismisses/ disregards patriarchal hadith reports in favor of more egalitarian verses of the Quran. In this particular case though the roles seem to be reversed since the hadith reports are more accommodating than the literal verse itself.20 Scholars who fall into the idealist paradigm include Asma Barlas, Hadia Mubarak, and Sadiyya Shaikh. Amina Wadud takes a unique place in this tradition. Wadud addresses the problem of -r-b in Q 4:34 in her work Quran and Woman21 in a largely idealist way, with the exception that Sunnah does not play a role in her interpretation of -r-b.22 In the decade and a half between Quran and Woman and her 2006 book Inside the Gender Jihad, her methodology has developed and now ts the reformist paradigm. I will discuss her approach in greater depth below. Barlas and Mubarak hold that patriarchal exegetes misinterpret Q 4:34 to sanction violence against women.23 Absolving the Quranic text of any responsibility for prescribing marital violence, Barlas argues that it is exegesis that reads sexual inequality and husband privilege into the Quran.24 Echoing Barlas, Mubarak writes that any reading of the Quran that promotes or sanctions domestic abuse would violate the Quranic paradigm of marital relations.25 Both she and Barlas argue that it was secondary religious texts that enabled the textualization of misogyny in Islam.26 Further, they argue that it is the interpretive process, both imprecise and incomplete, that is open to critique and historicization, not revelation itself.27 In theory, then, Barlas and Mubarak absolve the Quranic text from any responsibility. In practice, however, they hold it at least partially responsible for its own interpretation28 by their attempts to use re-translation as a central method of reinterpretation of the command waribhunna, and beat them. Based on notions of Gods justice and the multivalent nature of the Quran, Barlas says that Riffat Hassans translation of -r-b as to hold in connement29 is the best construction30 of this verse. Mubarak suggests that waribhunna means to create an effect upon her by employing the means ordained for conict resolution: counseling and then sexual abandonment.31 Mubarak, then, understands waribhunna to be a restatement of the rst two prescriptions. She feels that this translation accurately32 reects notions of Gods absolute justice and the values of mercy and tranquility in marriage promoted in the Quran.33 Both Barlas and Mubarak display scholarly integrity when they consider that their own proposed translations of -r-b in Q 4:34 may be incorrect, when they reect on the ramications of translating -r-b to mean beating.34 In this event, they put forth essentially the same arguments cited by traditionalists when trying to explain away any tensions that translating -r-b as beating may raise for contemporary sensibilities. These arguments include the claim that traditional commentaries of Q 4:34 make it clear that -r-b was meant to be
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highly qualied and more symbolic than punitive in nature.35 Consequently, while they break from the traditionalist mold by historicizing classical exegetical interpretations and actually re-translate -r-b in Q 4:34, they also draw on the tradition for authority to argue that -r-b was not meant to condone violence against women. The problem of husband privilege and the androcentric nature of the Quranic text itself, as it speaks to men about women36 is not interrogated in the idealist framework. In her earlier work Sadiyya Shaikh37 focuses her critique exclusively on the exegetical interpretations of Q 4:34 arguing that classical exegetes interpreted Q 4:34 to legitimate physical violence against wives. In doing so, she assumes that Q 4:34 does not sanction violence against women. She writes that reading the verse to sanction violence against women reects a decontextualized and simplistic interpretation of the text.38 Though she critiques exegetes extensively, Shaikh does not consider that the nature of the Quranic text itself may be problematic and that it may be responsible for its own exegesis.39 The text remains sovereign in her approach and she does not mention the Sunnah or attempt to retranslate -r-b. Instead she argues that the imperative to beat wives if they are feared to be guilty of nushz is descriptive of its seventhcentury context rather than prescriptive.40 In her more recent work, Shaikh introduces the idea of a tafsr of praxis41 or embodied tafsr,42 where the community engaging with the Quranic textspecically abused women plays a central role in interpreting Q 4:34. Hence, she proposes that Quranic hermeneutics ought to consciously reectreal life experiences of Muslim women.43 The idea that she proposes of hermeneutics reecting the lived experience of Muslim women is one that many contemporary idealist and reformist scholars share. This approach provides an important opening for increased community responsibility for the interpretation of the Quranic text. The Reformist Approach Like Shaikhs work, Waduds work on Q 4:34 has also developed a great deal. While Wadud addresses the problem of -r-b in Q 4:34 in a idealist way in her book Quran and Woman,44 she develops her methodology in her most recent book Inside the Gender Jihad45 so that her work moves from the idealist paradigm to the reformist framework. Wadud writes plainly that she simply cannot condone permission for a man to scourge46 or apply any kind of strike to a woman.47 For this reason, she has come to say no to a literal application of this verse.48 While this no may appear to be a break from the tradition, Wadud makes the case that it is rather a continuation of the process of traditional exegesis of reading text through context.49 The only difference, according to Wadud, is that she explicitly acknowledges and accepts responsibility for her own intervention with the text while tradition does not do so overtly.50
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Although Wadud characterizes her no to the text of Q 4:34 as akin to Khaled Abou El Fadls conscientious pause51 I posit that it is qualitatively different. While a conscientious pause remains loaded with possibilities, including the possibility of accepting the text, a no is denitive in nature. It is not clear what saying no to texts such as Q 4:34 means precisely, nor is the relationship that these texts have with the community thereafter elucidated. It is clear, though, that Wadud no longer treats the text as sovereign, and in fact appears to be favoring the present context over the text in this instance of interpretation. Reformists, then, advocate an entirely new approach to difcult verses like Q 4:34 by granting an increasingly large interpretive role to each particularized context that interacts with the text. By doing this, they attempt to move away from what Ebrahim Moosa refers to as text fundamentalism52 wherein a text that is sovereign marginalizes its own community, to a text that is performative,53 interactive, and thereby relevant. Historical precedent remains pertinent in this framework, but as a helpful reference rather than a binding authority. The tension between the Quranic prescription of wife-beating and the prophetic Sunnah of never beating wives also remains relevant in this paradigm, but serves the function of validating the existence of ethical tensions raised by the text in the current context rather than resolving these tensions. Scholars such as Farid Esack, Khaled Abou El Fadl, Kecia Ali, Ebrahim Moosa, and Amina Wadud approach the text as reformists. These scholars directly confront the tensions raised by verses like Q 4:34 as text of the Quran itself. Esack and Ali note the primarily androcentric nature of the Quran and assert that scholars need to grapple with the problems this raises directly.54 Both argue that it is not enough to locate patriarchy in interpretations, but rather the patriarchy of the Quranic text itself must be acknowledged even if it does not necessarily lead to misogyny.55 As opposed to idealist scholars, Esack nds little value in the re-translations of -r-b as anything but beating, and instead addresses issues of text, community, and interpretation.56 Anticipating the later Wadud, Esack gives preference to the value of gender justice over the prescription of Q 4:34, even if it is a value that is largely imposed on the text. He contends that believers must consciously depart from the letter of the text57 when confronting the prescription of wife-beating in Q 4:34. In fact, any text that does not serve the end of justice must be subjected to a host of hermeneutical devices, ranging from contextualization and re-interpretation to abrogation. In response to those who may argue that this constitutes violence against the text, Esack candidly writes that if it comes down to a choice between committing violence against divine text and legitimating violence against real people, he would rather plead guilty to charges of violence against the text.58 Nonetheless, Esack believes that the Quran contains sufcient seeds within it to validate the efforts of those who are committed to gender justice and wish to live in delity with its underlying
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ethos.59 Moosa and Ali warn that it is important to recognize that contemporary concerns of gender justice may not be the concern of the Quran.60 Like the idealists, Esack and Wadud claim that the relationship between context and text is innitely signicant, especially since context always has and must continue to inuence interpretation.61 However, they differ from the idealists in two signicant ways: First, they contend that the use of the verb -r-b in Q 4:34 literally means to hit/beat. Second, Esack and Wadud unambiguously privilege current context over text and historical precedent when they argue that based on twenty-rst century notions of gender justice, a literal application of Q 4:34 is unacceptable.62 Though historical precedent remains germane to reformist scholars it plays a different role. While both idealists and reformists historicize tradition and argue for new interpretative models, idealists tend to draw on precedent in a manner that seeks authority from it63 while reformists evoke it rather as a helpful reference. Abou El Fadl argues that the role of historical precedent is to guide and not blind.64 The example of traditional scholars is used to make the case that they did not consider themselves irrevocably tied to their own predecessors but also that they did not disregard them out of hand.65 Moosa illustrates the way that reformist scholars draw on historical precedent to justify their own methods. He points to the example of classical jurists who considered beating legitimate grounds for women to seek divorce despite the fact that the Quran permitted it. He argues that privileging a particularized context has been an acceptable scholarly practice, notwithstanding its apparent contradiction to the explicit text of the Quran.66 In this regard, he encourages the study of the multiple interpretive methodologies employed by scholars in the past, as part of the exploration and development of new interpretive methods.67 Ultimately, then, reformist scholars seem be to advocating a complex relationship with history that neither binds us to it nor rejects it completely. While historical precedent is valued, it is historicized so it no longer carries the authority that is sometimes drawn from it by traditionalist and idealist scholars. This attempt to consider historical precedent when developing new methodologies, even as historical precedent is declared non-binding and the perpetually retrospective68 manner of many contemporary scholars is criticized, may appear to be disingenuous. However, I venture that they seek to maintain a connection with historical precedent in order to use it to avoid both text fundamentalisman interpretative framework that grants sovereignty to the text and its logical opposite, context fundamentalisma hermeneutic framework that would grant sovereignty to context alone. Rather than granting ultimate sovereignty to previously held interpretations or rejecting those interpretations outright, this approach seeks a middle path in which historical methods and interpretations are understood through the lens of the present context.
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Conclusion This brief survey of some of the contemporary approaches to Q 4:34 explores the question of how much text matters as opposed to context or vice versa, and who has the authority to decide how much of each plays a role in the interpretation of difcult verses. Although I outlined three specic categories in this essay for the purpose of organization, they are better represented by a spectrum and a varying level of each approach can be found in almost all scholarly works of interpretation engaged in this essay. As contemporary scholars struggle with Q 4:34, they have argued for engaging both the text and historical precedent in the present context. Yet current approaches raise more questions than they answer. How can scholars engage with a divine text so that they may ultimately say no to it as part of a hermeneutic that is at the same time consistent and comprehensive? How can scholars engage with history in a constructive and benecial way to derive such a hermeneutic? Can new methodologies of interpretation avoid both text and context fundamentalism? Verses such as Q 4:34 contain an immediacy that requires scholars to articulate a just and egalitarian reading of the text. This may lead them into novel methods of hermeneutics but these readings must be conscious of the myriad tensions any new interpretive methodology creates. Notes
* I would like to acknowledge Professor Kecia Ali for her persistent guidance in the writing and re-writing of this article. Her insights were invaluable to this project. The New York Times also printed another article in the same month regarding Q 4:34. The second article was about Laleh Bakhtiars new translation of -r-b in Q 4:34 as to go away. Actually this translation has been put forth by several scholars previously, including Dr. Abdul-Hamid Abu Sulayman, Tariq Suweidan and others. See Neil MacFarquhar, New Translation Prompts Debate on Islamic Verse, The New York Times, March 25, 2007. Mark Lander, Germany Cites Koran in Rejecting Divorce, The New York Times, March 22, 2007. Lander, Germany Cites Koran in Rejecting Divorce. E.g. Q 4:1; 9:7172; 16:72; 20:21; 33:35; 48:56; 49:13. Kecia Ali discusses these and other similar verses in Chapter 7 of her book Sexual Ethics and Islam (Oxford: Oneworld, 2006). Sunnah or the way of the prophet Muhammad, includes both hadith reports (reports of sayings of the Prophet) and sira (historical writings about the Prophet). I am not proposing these to be hard and fast categories, but rather as tentative structures that will help us sort through contemporary works on the topic.
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1.

2. 3. 4.

5.

6.

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7.

8. 9. 10.

11.

12.

13. 14.

15.

16.

The vocabulary that I use regarding the sovereignty of the text and of the community interacting with the text is drawn from my understanding of Ebrahim Moosas article The Debts and Burden of Critical Islam, in Progressive Muslims: On Gender, Justice and Pluralism, ed. Omid Sa (Oxford: Oneworld, 2003), 11127. Jamal A. Badawi, Gender Equity in Islam: Basic Principles (1995), www.iad.org/pdf/gei.pdf. Ahmed Shafaat, A Commentary on the Quran 4:34, http://www. themodernreligion.com/women/dv434-shafaat.html. Shafaat, A Commentary on the Quran 4:34. Taqw is a Quranic concept which connotes God consciousness and refers to the state that believers struggle to attain through faith and good deeds. Badawi discusses Q 4:34 only in the footnotes of his Gender Equity in Islam. Shafaat discusses this in the main text of his A Commentary on the Quran 4:34. The earliest comparative use of symbolic vs. punitive that I can nd was in Badawis 1995 treatise on Gender Equity in Islam. I found it used many times thereafter, by scholars including Barlas and Mubarak. See Asma Barlas, Believing Women in Islam: Unreading Patriarchal Interpretations of the Quran (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2002), 188, and Hadia Mubarak, Breaking the Interpretive Monopoly: A Re-Examination of Verse 4:34, Hawwa 2 no. 3 (2005): 276, 286. Shafaat, A Commentary on the Quran 4:34. The issue of the Prophets example being treated as exemplary or exceptional within contemporary discourse is discussed in depth in Kecia Alis article A Beautiful Example: The Prophet Muhammad as a Model for Muslim Husbands, Islamic Studies 43, no. 2 (2004): 27391. Shafaat treats the specic example of the Prophet not beating his wives as exceptional whereas Badawi considers it as exemplary. See Sadiyya Shaikh, Exegetical Violence: Nushuz in Quranic Gender Ideology, Journal for Islamic Studies 17 (1997): 4973; Shaikh, A Tafsir of Praxis: Gender, Marital Violence, and Resistance in a South African Muslim Community, in Violence Against Women: Roots and Cures in World Religions, ed. Sadiyyah Shaikh and Dan Maguire (Ohio: Pilgrim, forthcoming); Barlas, Believing Women in Islam, 189; and Mubarak, Breaking the Interpretive Monopoly: Re-Examination of Verse 4:34, 266, 275. Many feminist scholars refer to the notion of the spirit or underlying ethos of the Quran as one that promotes justice and egalitarianism differently in different social and historical contexts. These works draw heavily on Fazlur Rahmans work where he promotes this idea. See Fazlur Rahman, Islam (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002), 39; Amina Wadud, Quran and Woman: Rereading the Sacred Text from a Womans Perspective (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), 9; Asma Barlas, Believing Women in Islam, 23.

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17.

18.

19.

20. 21. 22.

23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28.

29.

30. 31. 32.

-r-b is the trilateral root of the imperative form iribhunna used in Q 4:34. The translation of this word is very controversial, although in its most basic sense it is translated by Hans Wehr in A Dictionary of Modern Written Arabic (Beirut: Librarire du Liban, 1980), 62931, as to beat, to strike, to hit. Some of these re-translations will be discussed below. For a more comprehensive list of contemporary re-translations, see Mubarak, Breaking the Interpretive Monopoly: Re-Examination of Verse 4:34, 26189. I borrow the general idea of a text being responsible for its own interpretation from Asma Barlas. See Barlas work in Believing Women in Islam, 2728, 2067. Kecia Ali discusses the Quran-centered nature of much feminist scholarship in her book Sexual Ethics and Islam, xxxxi. Wadud, Quran and Woman. Kecia Ali discusses this in her article A Beautiful Example: The Prophet Muhammad as a Model for Muslim Husbands, where she explores the tension raised by the fact that Wadud does quote the Prophet on being the best to his family and her decision to avoid Sunnah when dealing with this verse. Barlas, Believing Women in Islam; Mubarak, Breaking the Interpretive Monopoly: A Re-Examination of Verse 4:34. Barlas, Believing Women in Islam, 189. Mubarak, Breaking the Interpretive Monopoly: A Re-Examination of Verse 4:34, 275. Barlas, Believing Women in Islam, 9. See also Mubarak, Breaking the Interpretive Monopoly: A Re-Examination of Verse 4:34, 262. Asma Barlas, Believing Women in Islam, 34. The idea of a text being responsible for its own (mis)reading is one that I draw on from Asma Barlas work in Believing Women in Islam, 2728, 2067. Ali critiques Barlas take on the notion that that the Quran may be responsible for its own misreading (205) in her book Sexual Ethics in Islam, 132, where she argues that Barlas approach renders any claim that patriarchy may be present in the Quranic text itself as a misreading of that text. Barlas, Believing Women in Islam, 18889; Riffat Hassan, An Islamic Perspective, in Sexuality: A Reader, ed. Karen Lebacqz (Cleveland: Pilgrim, 1999), 35556. Hassan makes the case, based partly on Urdu words (like the Urdu word salahiyat meaning capacity vs. the Arabic word lit meaning righteous) that Q 4:34 is suggesting that if all women decide to rebel against their roles as child-bearers then the community has an obligation to discipline them. Barlas, Believing Women in Islam, 189. Mubarak, Breaking the Interpretive Monopoly: A Re-Examination of Verse 4:34, 28485. Mubarak, Breaking the Interpretive Monopoly: A Re-Examination of Verse 4:34, 264.

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33. 34. 35.

36.

37.

38. 39.

40. 41. 42. 43. 44. 45. 46. 47. 48. 49. 50. 51.

52. 53.

Mubarak, Breaking the Interpretive Monopoly: A Re-Examination of Verse 4:34, 275. Barlas, Believing Women in Islam, 188 and Mubarak, Breaking the Interpretive Monopoly: A Re-Examination of Verse 4:34, 28586. Barlas, Believing Women in Islam, 188 and Mubarak, Breaking the Interpretive Monopoly: A Re-Examination of Verse 4:34, 286. See n. 12 above for discussion on punitive and symbolic. Farid Esack, Islam and Gender Justice: Beyond Simplistic Apologia, in What Men Owe to Women: Mens Voices from World Religions, ed. J. C. Raines and D. C. Maguire (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2001), 195, and Ali, Sexual Ethics and Islam, 112. Shaikh, Exegetical Violence: Nushuz in Quranic Gender Ideology, and A Tafsir of Praxis: Gender, Marital Violence, and Resistance in a South African Muslim Community. Shaikh, A Tafsir of Praxis: Gender, Marital Violence, and Resistance in a South African Muslim Community, 5. Farid Esack makes a similar critique of Sadiyya Shaikhs article in What Do Men Owe to Women: Islam and Gender Justice: Beyond Simplistic Apologia, http://uk.geocities.com/faridesack/fewhatdomenowe.html. I use the website for some of these references, since the text of the presentation includes ideas that are not present in the printed version of this article in the edited volume. Shaikh, A Tafsir of Praxis: Gender, Marital Violence, and Resistance in a South African Muslim Community, 4. Shaikh, A Tafsir of Praxis: Gender, Marital Violence, and Resistance in a South African Muslim Community, 5, 12. Shaikh, A Tafsir of Praxis: Gender, Marital Violence, and Resistance in a South African Muslim Community, 12. Shaikh, A Tafsir of Praxis: Gender, Marital Violence, and Resistance in a South African Muslim Community, 4. Wadud, Quran and Woman. Amina Wadud, Inside the Gender Jihad: Womens Reform in Islam (Oxford: Oneworld, 2006). The translation of waribuhhunna as scourge is Pickthals translation. Wadud, Inside the Gender Jihad, 200. Wadud, Inside the Gender Jihad, 200. Wadud, Inside the Gender Jihad, 204. Wadud, Inside the Gender Jihad, 204. Khaled Abou El Fadl, Speaking in Gods Name: Islamic Law, Authority and Women (Oxford: Oneworld, 2001), 213, and Wadud, Inside the Gender Jihad, 200. Moosa, The Debts and Burden of Critical Islam, 123. Moosa, The Debts and Burden of Critical Islam, 12425.

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54. 55. 56. 57. 58. 59. 60. 61. 62. 63.

64. 65.

66. 67. 68.

Esack, Islam and Gender Justice: Beyond Simplistic Apologia, 19596, 202; Ali, Sexual Ethics and Islam. Ali, Sexual Ethics and Islam, 132. Esack, Islam and Gender Justice: Beyond Simplistic Apologia, 2025. Esack, What do Men Owe Women?, http://uk.geocities.com/faridesack/ fewhatdomenowe. html. Esack, What do Men Owe Women?, http://uk.geocities.com/faridesack/ fewhatdomenowe.html. Esack, What do Men Owe Women?, http://uk.geocities.com/faridesack/ fewhatdomenowe.html. Moosa, The Debts and Burden of Critical Islam, 121; Ali, Sexual Ethics and Islam, 133. Esack, What Do Men Owe Women?, http://uk.geocities.com/faridesack/ fewhatdomenowe.html; Wadud, Inside the Gender Jihad, 203. Esack, What Do Men Owe Women?, http://uk.geocities.com/faridesack/ fewhatdomenowe.html; Wadud in Inside the Gender Jihad, 2034. The obvious exception here is Sadiyya Shaikh, who does not draw on tradition for authority in her work. Her approach does not fall squarely into the Idealist or Reformist categories. Khaled Abou El Fadl, Conference of the Books: The Search for Beauty in Islam (New York: University Press of America, 2001), 182. Esack, What do Men Owe Women?, http://uk.geocities.com/faridesack/ fewhatdomenowe.html; El Fadl, Speaking in Gods Name, 14445, 6263; Ali, Sexual Ethics and Islam, xxiv. Moosa, The Debts and Burden of Critical Islam, 12526. Moosa, The Debts and Burden of Critical Islam, 12526. Moosa, The Debts and Burden of Critical Islam, 122.

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