Domestic Violence and the Islamic Tradition

Ayesha S. Chaudhry is Assistant Professor of Islamic 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. Her teaching and research interests include Islamic law, Qur'anic exegesis, and feminist hermeneutics. She is currently working on a collaborative project of inter-faith feminist hermeneutics, which explores and challenges the limits of feminist interpretations of patriarchal religious texts in the three Abrahamic faiths. She is also developing methods for bridging the academic and community divide by translating her research interests into theatre based performance art that might appeal to a wider audience. This project is entitled "Cover Story" and explores the meanings of multiple intersecting political discourses surrounding Muslim women's sartorial choices.

[T]his work should be applauded as the first sustained analysis of the phrase 'beat them' in the Sunni exegetical and legal sources from the medieval and modern periods. Chaudhry has exposed the variation in interpretations on this command admirably, and has managed to write a book that is as enjoyable to read as it is interesting. Though it engages with the tradition, this book also represents a theological response to a difficult Qur'anic passage, and is an important contribution to the growing movement of Muslim feminist reinterpretations of the Qu'ran.

• PART I: HISTORICAL ROOTS OF A CONTEMPORARY DEBATE; PART II: RESTORING AUTHORITY IN THE LIVING COMMUNITY