to bar a man from his legal right to a second wife.
When any condition was violated it led automati-
cally to divorce. However, during the nineteenth-
century reform period modern laws eliminated the
ability of women to insert conditions in their mar-
riage contracts.
It has been a commmon misinterpretation that
Islam condones violence against women. In the
Qur±àn there is a controversial verse stating: “As to
those women on whose part ye fear disloyalty and
ill-conduct, admonish them [first], [next], refuse to
share their beds, [and last] beat them [lightly]; but
if they return to obedience, seek not against them
means [of annoyance]” (4:34). First, it is important
to state that punishment is reserved for disobedient
(nàshiza) wives. In Islamic law the husband’s obli-
gation in marriage is to provide for his wife; in
return she owes him obedience (†à≠a). In Yùsuf ≠Alì’s
translation cited here, he interprets the the original
Arabic “i∂ribuhuna” as “beat them [lightly]” when
in fact the phrase literally means “beat them.” This
is because of dominant interpretations in juridical
writings of tafsìr(Qur±ànic interpretation) that
have settled the matter. In his interpretation of this
verse, Ibn Kathìr cautions men to “refrain from
severe reprimand... beat them non-violently and
do not break their bones” (Ibn Kathìr i, 386). In
another passage Ibn Kathìr states that jurists pro-
hibited men from beating and disfiguring their
wives. Some juridical writings prescribe more than
divorce for abusive husbands. Condemnation of a
husband who abuses his wife can be found in the
writings of nineteenth-century Syrian jurist Ibn
≠âbidìn in his Radd al-mu™tàr ≠ala durr al-mukhtàr,
where he addresses the issue of a man who beats his
wife in a chapter entitled “Excessive Beating.” He
writes of a man who beats his wife excessively and
“breaks bone,” “burns skin,” or “blackens” or
bruises her skin: “if he does so without justification,
ta≠zìris mandatory” (Ibn ≠âbidìn iii, 190). Ibn
≠Abidìn does not state what form the punishment
should take. Interestingly, Ibn ≠âbidìn’s writings
from the nineteenth century are consistent with the
formulations of the Sharì≠a court case from Aleppo
mentioned earlier in which ta≠zìrwas given as pun-
ishment to Fà†ima’s abusive husband. Muslim
jurists repeatedly admonished men who committed
violence against their wives and the Sharì≠a court
upheld their position.
Amira Sonbol’s exploration of the nineteenth-
century reform era in Egypt has noted the detri-
mental effects of legal reform on women’s rights.
Looking at the relationship between †à≠a and ∂arar
she found that in the nineteenth century the burden122 domestic violence
of proof on women plaintiffs increased. Further-
more, disobedient wives had their rights gradually
taken away by their husbands who wielded new
state-endorsed authority over their wives. Included
in a husband’s new-found power was the institu-
tionalization of the bayt al-†à≠aor “house of obedi-
ence” in which a husband could forcibly confine his
wife if she was disobedient. Nineteenth-century
personal status laws also allowed a wide range of
discretion as to what disobedience entailed: some
husbands interpreted it as taking a job, shopping,
or visiting friends (Sonbol 1998, 287). Sonbol
found that increasingly women had difficulty chal-
lenging these cases in court and often lost. Dalenda
Larguèche’s study of the incarceration of women in
Tunisia shows a striking similarity: disobedient
wives could be sent by a judge to Dàr Juwayd, a sys-
tem of domestic prisons, for correction. There was
an increase in the number of these prisons in the
nineteenth century. These institutions were used to
modify the behavior of disobedient wives “so as to
‘bring them around’ to the prescribed norms of con-
duct and morality” (Larguèche 1996, 260). Both
Sonbol and Larguèche problematize the connection
between obedience and ∂ararin the modern period
as the patriarchal state commingles with the Sharì≠a.
These pioneering studies question the notion that
modernization is a springboard for progress as sev-
eral areas of the law drastically limit the legal
options afforded women in earlier periods.
Although in the rubric of Western law, murdering
a wife in a crime of passion has been placed in the
same legal category as domestic violence, this is not
the case in Islamic law. There is no mention in the
juridical texts of condoned or permissible murder
of a wife. However, some modern laws, such as
Jordan’s Penal Code (1960), contain clauses for
“excuse for murder” or offer reduced sentences for
men who murder a wife or a female relative sus-
pected of sexual misconduct (Sonbol 2003, 193–4,
Abu-Odeh 1996, 143). Authors such as Amira
Sonbol and Lama Abu-Odeh have argued that there
is a legal connection between “excuse for murder”
and “crimes of passion” in the European tradition
through the focus on circumstance and the criminal
intent of the murderer. Modern legal reforms bor-
rowed from French criminal codes freed the crimi-
nal of responsibility so long as the element of
surprise was present (Sonbol 2003, 196). In con-
trast, crimes of passion, prejudicially called “honor
crime” in the context of the Islamic world, have
mistakenly been associated with Sharì≠a despite
their stark connexion with tribal law. The areas
with the highest instance of honor crime, namely