Ayesha S. Chaudhry: Domestic Violence and the Islamic Tradition

Abstract

Scholarly material outside of the social sciences rarely considers personal struggles as a legitimate investigation of a topic. Yet, Ayesha S. Chaudhry, in Domestic Violence and the Islamic Tradition boldly ventures on this pursuit by linking her personal struggles with the Qur’anic verse 4:34. Her journey to research this verse began when Muslim scholars assured her that she would feel more at ease with 4:34 if she knew the Islamic tradition well. This charge prompted her to explore the notion of an ‘Islamic tradition’ itself. Ultimately, Chaudhry argues that the precolonial Sunni tradition to which contemporary Sunni scholars appeal bears little resemblance to what they claim as a source for egalitarian gender relations. The book, Domestic Violence and the Islamic Tradition is a critical overview of the evolution of interpretations of 4:34, of marital violence, and of competing notions of gender justice in preand post-colonial Islams. It offers a thorough and unflinching critique of the verse from different time periods, regions, and multiple scholars in a part-by-part, almost word-by-word, analysis that recognizes the spiritual, ethical, moral, emotional, and theological dilemma ensued from 4:34. Instead of offering her own interpretation of the verse and the issues it accompanies, Chaudhry demonstrates what can be broken down into two compelling points: first, the differences in interpretations are due significantly to the disparate cosmologies of preand post-colonial scholars. Second, contemporary engagements with 4:34, such as the more egalitarian readings of 4:34 of Ali (2004) and Bakhtiar (2007), expand and enrich the pre-colonial Islamic tradition because of the diverse methodologies and interpretations of the former and of the lack of creative