Domestic Violence and the Islamic Tradition

Assistant Professor of Islamic Studies and Gender Studies in the Department of Classical, Near Eastern and Religious Studies and the Institute for Gender, Race, Sexuality and Social Justice at the University of British Columbia, Ayesha Chaudhry has produced the first comprehensive study on the marital discipline of wives, or what she misleadingly terms “domestic violence.” Whilst I disagree with her views (she would classify me as a neo-traditionalist according to her useful breakdown of post-colonial viewpoints), I welcome this book as an important step towards profound studies of presently relevant questions in Islamic law. The book begins with an emotional testimony – and rightly so because it treats a very loaded topic – about our author’s struggles with balancing her Islamic faith with what she could not ethically accept as being ‘right’, even though, she thinks, sanctioned by the Qur’an.