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<\/a><\/p>\nSo this morning I\u2019m dragging my way through the morning routine, waiting for the coffee to brew, helping the kids find socks and reminding the two elementary school boys that yes, they do have to wear underwear as they are dressing for school.\u00a0 I was up way too late last night.\u00a0 It seems my husband and I have our best discussions late at night, after the kids are in bed and the house has finally settled down to silence.\u00a0 We talk about everything from the trivial to the profound, and since he\u2019s gotten so involved with the community here he has a lot of stories to tell.<\/p>\n
About once a month he leads the prayer on Friday, giving the khutbah at different masjids in the area that don\u2019t have a full-time Imaam.\u00a0 When he\u2019s at loss for a topic he asks me (won\u2019t that chap the hide of some of the menfolk \u2013 you ask your WIFE for a khutbah topic?) and I told him that I think one of the biggest issues in the Ummah today is the oppression of women.\u00a0 So the last couple of weeks he has hit the topic pretty hard, telling the men that if they have corruption in the home, their entire lives will be corrupted, and by extension the Ummah will be corrupted.\u00a0 It\u2019s a hard message, and one that rarely gets discussed.<\/p>\n
Domestic violence exists in every culture, in every country, and cuts across all religions and socioeconomic groups.\u00a0 It is not exclusively a Muslim problem, but Muslims have to take the rose-colored glasses off and admit that it exists, and is quite common, in some societies.\u00a0 Traditionally, it has been kept quiet, swept under the rug, ignored.\u00a0 Women have been expected to simply put up with it as a part of life.\u00a0 They have been told it\u2019s their fault.\u00a0 They have been told they should pray and be patient.\u00a0 They have been told it\u2019s their husband\u2019s right.\u00a0 Let me say, in my most rational, uber-logical voice, that this is a load of crap and women need to stand up and yell, in the words of that famous \u201cNetwork\u201d reporter Howard Beale,<\/p>\n
I\u2019m mad as hell and I\u2019m not going to take it any more!<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n If you keep doing what you\u2019ve always done, you are going to get what you\u2019ve always gotten.\u00a0 If we are quiet, if we are polite, if we simply assume that being smacked around every so often is part of our lot in life, nothing will change.\u00a0 So now, I\u2019m telling everyone, men and women, that a change needs to happen.\u00a0 It needs to happen now.\u00a0 It needs to happen so that we have some chance of teaching the next generation a better way.\u00a0 It needs to happen so women won\u2019t be hurt and killed.\u00a0 It needs to happen because only by curing the ills of the family can we cure the ills of the Ummah.\u00a0 It needs to happen because I\u2019m damned tired of getting messages from women asking me what they should do when their husband beats them.\u00a0 Beats them in front of the children.\u00a0 Beats them as a sort of perverted sexual foreplay.\u00a0 Beats them for being late with dinner.\u00a0 Beats them just because.<\/p>\n I know that this is a tough issue.\u00a0 It is a Gordian knot of complexity, but we have to tease out the threads of its cause and solve it.\u00a0 Now.<\/p>\n The insanity of domestic violence, the irrationality of it, is what strikes me.\u00a0 I grew up in a family that was lacking in overt displays of affection, but my dad never raised a hand to my mom, never abused her physically or mentally, so it is totally outside my sphere of understanding as to why people would think it\u2019s okay for a man to hit a woman.\u00a0 Imagine that a lady is walking down the street and a stranger comes up to her and smashes her in the mouth.\u00a0 Then he pushes her down and stomps on her stomach.\u00a0 People would be calling 911 and maybe some courageous guy would tackle the attacker and hold him down.\u00a0 He\u2019d be arrested, charged with assault, tossed in jail, and hopefully locked away for a good long time.\u00a0 Why, why the hell, can you tell me, do we consider it a crime when a stranger does it, but when a woman\u2019s most intimate partner, her protector, her life partner does it, it\u2019s just par for the course?\u00a0 If she shows up with a black eye and and a swollen lip, people turn away at her shame.\u00a0 I\u2019m not talking about the justice system here.\u00a0 Things have gotten a lot better for victims of domestic abuse and the system, while certainly not perfect, is changing for the better.\u00a0 No, I\u2019m talking about the situation in our community, in our mosques, in our sisters\u2019 teas and our brothers\u2019 halaqahs.\u00a0 The silence is deafening and our silence is our sin.<\/p>\n My husband, may Allah bless his efforts, is trying to make inroads with the men, so I\u2019ll start with the ladies.\u00a0 First and foremost, let me tell you that there is nothing in Islam that gives a man the right to beat up his wife.\u00a0 Yeah, yeah, there is a verse in the Qur\u2019an that gives a man permission to strike his wife in a certain way, in certain very limited circumstances, but as a practical matter, it is never allowed because the steps that men are supposed to take before this symbolic strike becomes necessary rarely ever take place.\u00a0 I know it can be confusing but let me try to explain:<\/p>\n Okay, first of all, husbands and wives should always deal with one another with kindness and compassion.\u00a0 They should both be striving for the same thing, which is Jannah, and thus they are a team and should never devolve into any type of master \/ servant relationship.\u00a0 They are equal in the sight of Allah.\u00a0 That being said, the verse does exist.\u00a0 Here\u2019s what it means:<\/p>\n Say a man, Bob, has a wife, Sarah.\u00a0 Sarah and Bob are a typical Muslim couple (what, you don\u2019t think Bob can be a Muslim name?), moderately religious.\u00a0 Now, imagine one day that Sarah, who works as a data entry clerk in a travel agency, comes home and says the \u201cgirls\u201d are going to have a night out on the town next week and she wants to go with them.\u00a0 She\u2019s the only Muslim in her office and she doesn\u2019t want to miss out on a chance to bond with the ladies.\u00a0 Bob reasonably points out that it\u2019s not appropriate for Sarah to go out with a bunch of women who will be dressed in skimpy clothing and visiting bars and clubs.\u00a0 Sarah frets; she really wants to go out with the girls.\u00a0 \u201cI won\u2019t drink, I\u2019ll just go to be with them and have fun.\u201d.\u00a0 Bob says no, and he thinks that is that. Sarah, usually pretty rational, nevertheless sticks in her toes and says \u201cI\u2019m going!\u201d.\u00a0 Now, Bob does not want her to do something that is clearly forbidden in Islam, so does he smack her to get his point across?\u00a0 No.\u00a0 He is not allowed to touch her.\u00a0 What can he do?\u00a0 He can talk to her.<\/p>\n Bob goes online and finds some fatwas at her favorite Islamic website and shows them to her.\u00a0 He tells her reasonably that there is no way that it is allowed for her to go to bars and hang out with non-Muslim women in \u201cloose\u201d circumstances where there will be men coming around to flirt with them.\u00a0 She reads, she thinks about it, and still she says she wants to go.\u00a0 Can he hit her now?\u00a0 No.\u00a0 He has no right to hit her.\u00a0 Bob gets on the phone and calls Sarah\u2019s mom and asks if she can talk some sense into her daughter, and he also calls the Imaam at their mosque and asks him for advice.\u00a0 Sarah is resistant to all advice, stubbornly insisting she just wants a bit of fun and why can\u2019t she do what she wants.\u00a0 Bob offers to take her to dinner; he offers to reserve a bed and breakfast for them.\u00a0 No.\u00a0 She says, no.\u00a0 Can he smack her now?\u00a0 Nope, can\u2019t touch her.<\/p>\n He tells her sadly that he cannot accept her behavior and that he is withdrawing from her physically.\u00a0 He takes some pillows and blankets and makes up the sofabed in the guest room, sleeping separately from her.\u00a0 No kind touches, no hugs, no physical intimacy.\u00a0 Still, Sarah cannot see what she is doing is wrong.\u00a0 Bob is frustrated.\u00a0 He has tried everything.\u00a0 He\u2019s talked to her, showed her scripture, brought in family for counseling, sought advice from the Imaam, and withdrawn.\u00a0 Yet Sarah is still determined to go out to the bar with her friends.\u00a0 What options does he have left?\u00a0 Well, he has one more tool.\u00a0 He can strike her.\u00a0 Brutal! you say.\u00a0 That animal!\u00a0 you object.\u00a0 But he is limited even now.\u00a0 He is not allowed to strike her with anything larger than a toothbrush, and the hit must not be hard to leave a mark, and cannot be on the face.\u00a0 It is not a \u201cDamn you woman, don\u2019t defy me!\u201d hit.\u00a0 It is a \u201cThis is the last step before I have to take the painful decision to divorce you\u201d tap that will, God willing, wake her up to her seriously bad behavior.\u00a0 And if it is felt this won\u2019t do any good, then he\u2019s not even allowed to resort to that.<\/p>\n So, you see, that\u2019s what this hitting is all about.\u00a0 It is a light, symbolic, last resort tap to remind a woman who is doing something seriously wrong that she is endangering her marriage.\u00a0 It\u2019s sad that anyone would need to resort to it, but if it wakes her up and keeps the marriage from being broken, it is the lesser of two evils.\u00a0 It should also be said that Muslim men should always strive to live according to the example of\u00a0 the Prophet Muhammad, may Allah\u2019s peace and blessings be upon him, and if they do that, domestic violence would disappear because he never hit a woman. Chew on that.<\/p>\n In the real world, men who hit are not hitting because their wives want to run off with the pool boy or dance naked in a bar.\u00a0 They are hitting because they can, and this abuse is never, ever countenanced in Islam.\u00a0 They hit because they grew up in a house where violence was common.\u00a0 They hit because it\u2019s typical in their home or their village.\u00a0 They hit because that is their \u201cnormal\u201d.\u00a0 We have to create a new normal, because it simply has to stop.\u00a0 How?\u00a0 That\u2019s for the next post.\u00a0 My brain hurts and this topic makes me sad so I\u2019m going to take a break and play with my kids for a bit.\u00a0 Finish my coffee, round up my library books, figure out what to make for lunch.\u00a0 Think about how thankful I am to have a good husband who would never raise his hand against a woman.\u00a0 Yeah, gonna do that for a while.\u00a0 InshaAllah I\u2019ll be back in a bit\u2026<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" So this morning I\u2019m dragging my way through the morning routine, waiting for the coffee to brew, helping the kids find socks and reminding the two elementary school boys that yes, they do have to wear underwear as they are dressing for school.\u00a0 I was up way too late last night.\u00a0 It seems my husband […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":81,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-226","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n