The relationship between Islam and domestic violence is disputed. Even among Muslims, the uses and interpretations of Sharia, the moral code and religious law of Islam, lack consensus. Variations in interpretation are due to different schools of Islamic jurisprudence, histories and politics of religious institutions, conversions, reforms, and education.^[1]

Domestic violence among the Muslim community is considered a complicated human rights issue due to varying legal remedies for women by the nations where they live, the extent to which they have support or opportunities to divorce their husbands, cultural stigma to hide evidence of abuse, and inability to have abuse recognized by police or the judicial system in some Muslim nations.

According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary definition, domestic violence is: "the inflicting of physical injury by one family or household member on another; also: a repeated or habitual pattern of such behavior."^[2]

Coomaraswamy defines domestic violence as "violence that occurs within the private sphere, generally between individuals who are related through intimacy, blood or law... [It is] nearly always a gender-specific crime, perpetrated by men against women." It used is as a strong form of control and oppression.^[3]

In 1993, The United Nations Declaration on the Elimination of Violence Against Women defined domestic violence as:

Physical, sexual and psychological violence occurring in the family, including battering, sexual abuse of female children in the household, dowry-related violence, marital rape, female genital mutilation and other traditional practices harmful to women, non-spousal violence and violence related to exploitation.^[4]

The discussions in all four Sunni law schools institutionalised the viewpoint of the Quranic exegeses by turning wife-beating into a means of discipline against rebellious wives.^[30]

Ayesha Chaudhry has examined the pre-colonial Hanafi texts on domestic violence.^[30] Her findings are as follows. Hanafi scholars emphasised the procedure of admonishing, abandoning and hitting the wife. The Hanafi jurists say that it is the husband's duty to physically discipline his wife's arrogance (nushuz). While Hanafi scholars admonish husbands to treat their wives with kindness and equity, they do not recognize the principle of qisas (retributive punishment) for injuries sustained in marriage, unless they cause death, permitting the husband to hit his wife without any liability. Their only condition is that the beating must not kill her; this view was taken from Hanafi scholar Al-Jassas and within this framework they emphasised the need of following the sequence of admonishment, abandonment and hitting.^[31] However, al-Jassas also says that the reprimand should only be "A non-violent blow with siwak [a small stick used to clean the teeth] or something similar to it.^[24]

According to Ayesha Chaudhary, unlike Hanafi scholars who were more interested in protecting a husband's right to hit his wife for disciplinary purposes, the Malikis tried to stop husbands from abusing this right.^[30] The Maliki scholars only allowed striking a rebellious wife with the purpose of rectifying her. They specified that the strike should not be extreme or severe, must not leave marks or cause injuries and that the strike must not be fearsome, cause fractures, break bones, cause disfiguring wounds while punching in general and punching her in the chest were unacceptable and that the strike could not harm the wife. The Malikis held that a husband would be legally liable if the hitting led to the wife's death. They also did not allow a husband to hit his wife if he did not believe the hitting would cause her to stop her arrogance.^[32] The Shafi'i scholars upheld the permissibility of wife beating but encouraged avoiding it and did not hold the imperative "wa-ḍribūhunna" to mean an obligatory command. Shafi scholars also restricted what the husband could do in regards to hitting his wife, that he should only hit his wife if he thinks it will be effective in deterring her from her arrogance; he should hit her in a non-extreme (ghayr mubarrih) manner; he should avoid hitting her face, sensitive places, and places of beauty and not hit her in a manner that causes disfiguration, bleeding, that he should not hit the same place repeatedly, loss of limbs, or death. According to Shafi scholars a husband is permitted to hit his wife with a cloth, sandal and a siwak but not with a whip.^[32] The views of the Hanbali scholars are a mix of the positions of the other three schools of law.^[30]

Evidence of judicial records from the sixteenth century on wards show that Ottoman judges who followed the Hanafi school allowed divorce because of abuse. This did this partially by borrowing rulings from other schools of thought and partially by blending abuse with blasphemy since they reasoned a "true Muslim would not beat his wife."^[33][34]

A number of women in British India between the years of 1920 and 1930s left Islam to obtain judicial divorce because Hanafi law did not permit women to seek divorce in case of cruel treatment by a husband. Mawlana Thanawi reviewed the issue and borrowed the Maliki rulings which permits women to seek divorce because of cruelty by the husband. He expanded the grounds of divorce available to women under Hanafi law.^[35]

Domestic violence is considered to be a problem in Muslim-majority cultures, where women face social pressures to submit to violent husbands and not file charges or flee.^[49]

In deference to Surah 4:34, many nations with Shari'a law have refused to consider or prosecute cases of "domestic abuse."^{[50][51][52][53]} In 2010, the highest court of United Arab Emirates (Federal Supreme Court) considered a lower court's ruling, and upheld a husband's right to "chastise" his wife and children physically. Article 53 of the United Arab Emirates' penal code acknowledges the right of a "chastisement by a husband to his wife and the chastisement of minor children" so long as the assault does not exceed the limits prescribed by Shari'a.^[54] The Council of Islamic Ideology, a constitutional body of Pakistan that advises the government on the compatibility of laws with Islam, has recommended authorizing husbands to ‘lightly’ beat disobedient wives.^[55] When asked why is beating a wife lightly permitted, the chairman of Pakistan's Council of Islamic Ideology, Mullah Maulana Sheerani said, "The recommendations are according to the Quran and Sunnah. You can not ask someone to reconsider the Quran".^[56] In Lebanon, KAFA, an organization campaigning against violence and the exploitation of women, alleges that as many as three-quarters of all Lebanese females have suffered physically at the hands of husbands or male relatives at some point in their lives. An effort has been underway to remove domestic violence cases from Shari'a driven religious courts to civil penal code driven courts.^[57][58] Social workers claim failure of religious courts in addressing numerous instances of domestic abuse in Syria, Pakistan, Egypt, Palestine, Morocco, Iran, Yemen and Saudi Arabia.^[59] In 2013, Saudi Arabia approved a new law on domestic violence, which sets penalties for all types of sexual and physical abuse, in the workplace and at home. Penalties can be up to a year in prison and a fine up to 13,000 dollars. The law also provides shelter for the victims of domestic violence.^[60]

According to Pamela K. Taylor, co-founder of Muslims for Progressive Values, such violence is not part of the religion, but rather more of a cultural aspect.^[61] In the academic publication Honour, Violence, Women and Islam edited by Mohammad Mazher Idriss and Tahir Abbas, it is said that there is no authority in the Quran for the type of regular and frequent acts of violence that women experience from their abusive husbands. Furthermore, the actions of many Muslim husbands lack the expected level of control in two elements from the verse, admonishment and separation.^[38] The separation dictates not only the physical separation, but also abstinence from marital sex.

According to Ahmad Shafaat, an Islamic scholar, "If the husband beats a wife without respecting the limits set down by the Qur'an and Hadith, then she can take him to court and if ruled in favor has the right to apply the law of retaliation and beat the husband as he beat her."^[20] However, laws against domestic violence, as well as whether these laws are enforced, vary throughout the Muslim world.

Some women want to fight the abuses they face as Muslims; these women want "to retain the communal extended family aspects of traditional society, while eliminating its worst abuses, by seeking easy ability to divorce men for abuse and forced marriages."^[101]

In Malaysia, the largest government-run hospital implemented a program to intervene in cases where domestic violence seems possible. The woman is brought to a room to meet with a counselor who works with the patient to determine if the woman is in danger and should be transferred to a shelter for safety. If the woman does not wish to go to the shelter, she is encouraged to see a social worker and file a police report. If the injury is very serious, investigations begin immediately.^{[67][nb 11]}

Though some Muslim scholars, such as Ahmad Shafaat, contend that Islam permits women to be divorced in cases of domestic violence.^[20] Divorce may be unavailable to women as a practical or legal matter.^[116]

The Quran states: (2:231) And when you have divorced women and they have fulfilled the term of their prescribed period, either take them back on reasonable basis or set them free on reasonable basis. But do not take them back to hurt them, and whoever does that, then he has wronged himself. And treat not the Verses of Allah as a jest, but remember Allah's Favours on you, and that which He has sent down to you of the Book and Al-Hikmah [the Prophet's Sunnah, legal ways, Islamic jurisprudence] whereby He instructs you. And fear Allah, and know that Allah is All-Aware of everything.^[117]

Although Islam permits women to divorce for domestic violence, they are subject to the laws of their nation which might make it quite difficult for a woman to obtain a divorce.^[3]

Most women's rights activists concede that while divorce can provide potential relief, it does not constitute an adequate protection or even an option for many women, with discouraging factors such as lack of resources or support to establish alternative domestic arrangements and social expectations and pressures.^[118]

• AHA Foundation, non-profit for women's rights in western countries
• Dowry death
• Female infanticide
• Femicide
• Gender roles in Islam
• Glossary of Islam
• Islamic feminism
• Peaceful Families Project - Muslim organization
• Sharia#Women
• Taliban treatment of women
• Violence against women
• Women and Islam

Other

• International Journal for the Psychology of Religion
• Outline of domestic violence
• Victimology
• Violence against women
• Women's rights