The infamous 4:34-Verse on Society issue, not spouse issue

[Arnold Yasin Mol]

4:34 Men are the protectors and maintainers of women. They shall take full care of women with what they spend of their wealth. God has made men to excel in some areas and women to excel in some areas. Men must see to it that women are provided for, and that they are able to stand on their feet in the society. So, righteous women are obedient to God’s Ordinances and guard their moral values even in privacy, the Values that God Commands to be guarded. If you (the society) experience(s) rebellion from women against the Permanent Values, and they stand up against you, apprise them of possible consequences. Next, (you, the husbands will) leave them in their resting places apart from you. And keep admonishing them with examples that they stop rebelling, else they may receive chastisement through a court of law (just as rebellious men would) If they pay heed to you, seek not a way against them. God is Most High, Great.       
[‘Qawwam’ = Protector = Maintainer. ‘Nushooz’ = To stand up 2:259, 58:11, to stand up against, to rebel against the society, to rebel against the Permanent Values / ‘Wa’az’ = To apprise of consequences 2:231, 3:66 / ‘Dharb’ = Example 13]

This common misconception with the infamous verse 4:34 is all because of erronous explanations of the Quran that were written 300 after the blessed Prophet under the influence of non-Quranic sources. The rulers of the Islamic states seperated State from the Quran, and so the Quran had to be re-intpretated to fit the new circumstances. As the Quran is a Divine consitution, many verses and meaning were twisted to make the Quran a religious book instead a book that is meant to rule and free mankind. The Quran was the liberator of women, and the first writing in known human history to give the women the equal status of men. It gave her the right to vote, to own wealth, to trade, to choose her own spouse, to have alimony, to inherit and the list goes on and on. Like the famous Muhammed Iqbal said: "If I was an atheist, I would have believed the Quran was written by intelligent women. "
This verse has been twisted to take away the rights that were originally given by God to women. The word Qawwam was twisted into 'Owner' or also 'Master' instead of its original Arabic meaning of 'Protector/Provider'. The word Darb has more then a 100 meanings, and from all of these meanings, they choose it to mean 'To beat women'. This contradicts not only the global message of the Quran, this also goes against the strict warning of the Prophet to never hit women.

To compensate the narrations that say the Prophet forbid wife-beating, they say the Prophet forbid wife-beating but that God allowed it! What a blasphemy.

Darb coming from the verb Dharaba is one of the most misunderstood words in the Quran. It has over a 100 meanings because the meaning of the word is determined by the object it relates too. Darb means to hit, beat, move, march on, to move from one place to the other, to bring forth a parable and many more. For example:

"idribbiAAasaka alhajara" is normally translated with "hit the rock with your staff". But Asa does not immediately mean 'staff'', it refers to a state of unity, and with the staff it refers to the fingers unitying on its handle. Asa also means people or nation, as they are united. Al-hajara means rock or stone.

idribbi comes from Darb, and is refered to the rock. You can idrib the rock. Like I said before, Darb is determined by the object and the actions you can do with the object. So you can idrib=hit the rock, and you can also idrib=move the rock. This verse is from the story of Moses and is commonly mistranslated as Moses hitting the rock with his staff so water comes out. This is of course not only illogical, it is directly taken from the Bible. The Quran explains itself, and it is against the belief in the supernatural. Allah works His Will through fixed Laws given by Revelation and Nature.

So the verse means that Moses his people had to move the rock so they could access the water that was underneath it, which is logical as in the desert, water from the air is collected on the cold rock at night and then drips down to the ground. During the day, the rock protects the ground underneath against the sunrays, and thus water is always to be found in the ground underneath rocks.

The same logical approach also accounts for 4:34.
In verse 4:34 we are told to Idribuuhun the women if they rebel against the society or family. So what can we idrib with women:

-We can idrib=hit the women, which is the common interpretation.
-We can idrib=seperate from the women
-We can idrib=admonish them with examples
-We can idrib=have sex with them

So what is more logical in 4:34? We first read that we must talk to them, then leave them alone in the bedroom to show you are serious, and then... what? Hit them? Does that really make sense? Does that really convince them, or just make them afraid of you? Also what does rebellion mean here? Can the rebellion be determined by the man himself? Or must this be done by the State? Must we seperate from them?

First of all, this verse does not refer to husband and wife, it uses the words Rijaal=men and Nisa=women in general. Also the verse gives the command that the men should be the providers of women, and thus must be the breadwinners in society. In today's Western society, we see that women try to achieve the same full carriere as men. They postpone childbirth, to pursue a carriere, and in this way don't have children in their best biological years.

This has become a severe problem in the Western world where women have children at a later age and thus risk deformed and diseased children, premature births and miscarrieges. Geneacologists say this a very harmful practice which must be stopped, and are even saying the government must step in and make sure women choose having children before having a carriere. Do you see how important this issue is?

So the infamous verse 4:34 is not about husband and wife relationship at all. It is about the roles of men and women which they must perform in society. Men must be the breadwinners, women must take care of the children. Of course they can and must work, but they must not postpone children in preference of a carriere as this will burden her and society with deformed children. If they do not listen, then society must try to admonish them, and if that doesn't help, then the State must step in and determine the matter.

This sounds weird maybe, that the State must step in when it comes to choosing carriere instead of children. But it is happening today in the West! Holland is now trying to seek a way, where women get the oppertunity to freeze their carriere so they can have children in the best biological phase of their life, which is between 21 and 30. The Quran is trying to help mankind to stay as close to their biological being as possible so they can develop in the best way as society and individual. There have been many studies on the best age for childbirth, but the common agreement is:

"The latest of three Danish reports about reproductive history informs readers that “fetal loss is high in women in their late 30s or older, irrespective of reproductive history. This should be taken into consideration in pregnancy planning and counselling.”

In Japan, the goverment had to step in:
"Gender equality has been a distant dream in Japan but a drastic national population decline is forcing the government to take steps to help women -- if only to encourage them to have more children."

"Japan has the highest number of elderly people and the lowest number of young as a percentage of its population.
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has pledged to bring in policies that will prevent the falls in birth rates.
The falls have raised serious concerns about the country's future economic growth and how it can fund its pensions."

This is a global problem:
"Japan isn't alone in worrying about the need to encourage births.
In the 25-nation European Union, the average birth rate is around 1.5, dropping to less than 1.3 in some countries, including Greece, Spain, Italy and new EU member nations in eastern Europe where fertility rates slumped after the collapse of communism. Last month, President Vladimir Putin called population declines of hundreds of thousands a year one of Russia's most serious problems and urged parliament to offer financial incentives for families to have more children.
"

This verse has nothing to do with beating your wife, it also has nothing to do with husband and wife relationship. So the attempts made by reformists to say this verse is about seperating from your wife is also false, as this verse is about the assigning of roles of the sexes in society. We know we can seperate from our wives if we want too, this is already explained clearly in other verses, also interpretating this verse as 'seperating from your wife' does not stop spouse-abuse. Only culteral development can do this. When the Islamic rulers seperated State from the Quran, the true meaning of this verse was changed as the State didn't accept the Quran as an authority on state-affairs. So the meaning was determined by the new Quranic status of only ruling individual life instead of State. The common understanding that this verse is about spouse relationship by both present sides has limited this important Quranic verse to a home situation, instead of an important society matter that is a very present problem in today's developed societies. Again the Quran shows it has the solutions for the problems of Mankind, will they not use their senses?

21:10 O Mankind! Now We have revealed unto you a Book that is all about you and it will give you eminence. Will you not, then, use your sense?
[Dhikr from Dhakara means eminence, give status, praise, commemorate, extol]


Sources:

-QXP3 by Dr.Shabbir Ahmed (not online yet) [QXP2
-[Letters to Tahira by G.A.Parwez
-[Lane's Lexicon Arabic-English Dictionary
-Dictionary of the Holy Quran by Abdul Mannan Omar
-Commentary on Al-Quran, a contemporary translation by Ahmed Ali
-Arabic Dictionary by Raghib
-[Evolution of Thinking by Arnold Yasin Mol

Scientific Articles on Birthrate and Economical problems:
-[Maternal age and fetal loss
-[Japan: Wooing Women as Birth Rates Drop
-[Japan birth rate shows rare rise
-[Japan's Birth Rate Drops to Record Low of 1.25 Babies Per Woman
-[Culture and the Recent State of the Economy

note: For the meaning of Darb meaning sex, see Raghib: Darab al-Fahl an-naqah= the stud-camel covered the she camel

[UmeAimon]

Asalm Elikom brother,

As much as I agree with the fact that dharab in the verse does not mean beating women but taking action/stopping forcefully when the women revolt, but I agree more to someone’s interpretation of rebellion (as going against nature) is reference to homosexuality not to refusing to bear children or to marry altogether.
Not bearing children cannot be regarded as a punishable crime by society even when collective because this collective behaviour is result of some other actions. The need to bear children comes as natural to women as bearing children itself and is kind of engraved in women’s psyche. Allah SWT has designed women for this purpose and set her role of equal importance and worth as of a man's in a society. A medium through which human race continues! What’s happening in Japan and other European countries is the result of degrading of this role. It is the consequence of disadvantage they have top suffer whethter it be physical, psychological or economical be`cause the society itself does not help, when she adopts this role especially as a mother.
They are only reacting to the sex obsessed society, which regards young and unaltered bodies to be the best and source of economic gain and acceptance, by refusing to accept the role which is of no worth, the role they were meant to be in the first place …

Allah’s too great to allow punishment for something that is a reaction to another social crime, crime as it has deprived women of their natural role. He only wants guilty one punished, the root cause just as in case with thieves.

Plus did Allah force marriage? If marriage is not forced in the religion so can’t be bearing children, as to avoid children one can avoid getting married. But homosexuality can very well be the cause of these two things, which is not natural…

Nevertheless there has been no shortage of unwanted orphans which Allah reminds again and again to take care of, and prophet set example by adopting one.

Hope I was able to convey my point of view. My English like many other things needs lots of improvement so I try to stay as simple as I can :)

Thank you for your time.

A sister

[Arnold Yasin Mol]

Salaam Aleikum dear sister!

I think the difference is that you interpretate Daraba as 'forceful' punishment, while this in reality is not immediately the meaning of the word.

As I explained in my small article, when something like the unbalance of women's status and role shifts, it is important to renew the balance on both sides. But the women themselves must be encouraged also. In this context, Daraba means 'to stop the behaviour through giving examples'. Daraba has more then a 100 meanings depending on the object or subject.

Nushooz also doesn't immediately imply 'rebellion', Nushooz means: `to rise / go above`, as can be seen for example in verse 58:11, where it is used for standing up.

I believe in 4:34, it means that females in society rise above their natural state. This can interpretate as for example, not having children, or having at a too late age. It can also refer to for indeed your interpretation, as homosexuality or prostitution.

And there are probably more interpretations possible.