Christians Under Attack

The three major translations of the Qur'an from Arabic into English by Muslims were completed early in the 20th century.  Though working independently, each translator came to the same conclusion concerning verse 4:34 - namely that it commands husbands to beat their wives in a manner that causes pain - if the circumstances agree.  This agrees with the traditional interpretation that Islamic clerics have held since the time of Muhammad.  After all, the Qur'an plainly states that men are in charge of women.

Enter the modern age, when wife-beating isn't as trendy as it used to be, and suddenly contemporary Muslim apologists living in Judeo-Christian societies are having epiphanies as to the original meaning of verse 4:34.  Apparently the true intention of the verse was hidden from Islamic scholars and ordinary Muslims for fourteen centuries and it is only now coming to light that hitting a woman for any reason is "completely against Islam," which coincides, curiously enough, with the popular revulsion for such a practice (at least in the West).

Muhammad used the Arabic word 'idribuhunna' in the verse, which is derived from 'daraba' and usually does mean "to beat."  Another derivation, however, means "to go abroad," which leaves our desperate apologist with an exit strategy, it seems.  This is what Muhammad must have truly meant, they tell us.  If a man can't get his little woman to come to her senses, then he should move out of his own house and back in with his parents until she does.

Sure, sure.  This sounds like Islam, doesn't it?  The religion that sprang out of the harsh Arabian Peninsula to lay waste to an ever-widening swath of homes, fields and hapless populations with shocking brutality, the religion that cannibalized entire cultures and turned vibrant people into terrorized, subordinate slaves and dhimmis... is really just intended to bring out the Alan Alda in your man after a hard day of pillaging.

But how realistic is it that Muhammad, who taught that women should be made to share their marital bed with three other wives at their husband's discretion (but stoned for adultery), who established the "triple talaq" rule that a woman can be thrown out of the house at any time, who did not disapprove of his men raping women captured in battle... how likely is it that Muhammad would be telling a man to move out of the house rather than use physical force to keep his woman in line?

Not likely. Not likely at all.

Fortunately, we don't have to guess at what Muhammad's position on wife-beating actually was and which meaning of 'daraba' he intended, since the Hadith records at least one instance in which he struck his own (underage) wife in the chest while she was lying in bed.  This would be Aisha, his favorite wife, and he did so because she left the house without his permission.  Now, if he treated his favorite wife this way, one can only imagine how he might have acted toward his other wives, concubines and slaves.

Naturally, the apologists leave this little tidbit out of their arguments.  Neither do they educate their audience of another case that is recorded in one of Islam's most sacred books in which a woman came to Muhammad for help after being beaten so badly by her husband that "her skin was greener than her clothes."  The prophet simply rebuked the woman and sent her back to her man with explicit instructions to have more sex.

Look, we're all in favor of Muslims bringing their religion out of the 7th century, but if this can only be done through strategic omission and fringe sophistry, then we have to ask what is the point of salvaging Islam?  Why not just pick another religion that's closer to what you want Islam to be?

Oh, that's right the Religion of Peace threatens murder for anyone who leaves.

Never has this means of intimidation been more necessary than in the information age, when many Muslims are learning for the first time about the history and true teachings of their religion, and how poorly it contrasts with others.

posted by 2006 TheReligionofPeace.com.