Yemen and Jordan, are regions that have large pop-
ulations of recently sedentary Arab tribes and are
best understood in that context.
Although this entry illuminates the way in which
domestic violence was treated in the Ottoman and
modern periods there is no comprehensive study
dealing with the issue of domestic violence. With so
few studies on ∂araravailable it is not possible to
perform a comparative study at the moment. By the
same token, with a dearth of information available
it leaves the path open to future researchers to pur-
sue this area of much needed study.
Bibliography
Primary Sources
M. Ibn ≠âbidìn, Radd al-mu™tar ≠ala durr al-mukhtàr,
7 vols., Cairo n.d.
I. Ibn Kathìr, Mukhtaßar †afsìr Ibn Kathìr, 3 vols., Beruit,
1981.
al-Qur±àn, trans. Yusuf ≠Alì, Beruit n.d.
SMH (Sijillàt al-ma™kama £alab), Aleppo court records,
Syrian National Archives, Damascus, Syria.
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L. Abu-Odeh, Crimes of honor and the construction of
gender in Arab societies, in M. Yamani (ed.), Feminism
and Islam. Legal and literary perspectives, New York
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C. Imber, Ebu’s-su≠ud. The Islamic legal tradition, Stan-
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D. Larguèche, Confined, battered, and repudiated women
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history, Syracuse, N.Y. 1996, 258–76.
A. E. Sonbol, Law and gender violence in Ottoman and
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Elyse SemerdjianSouth AsiaIn South Asia, violence against women takes
many forms, ranging from slapping, pushing, hit-
ting, and kicking to dowry-killings, acid-throwing,
nutritional deprivation, stove burning, polygamy,
unilateral divorce, and sexual abuse. Information
on violence against Muslim women in Nepal, Sri
Lanka, Bhutan, and the Maldives is almost non-
existent. The print media has focused largely on
Bangladesh and Pakistan – two Muslim majority
countries in South Asia – and India, where about
125 million Muslims live. In these three countries,
women’s groups, non-governmental organizations,
south asia 123and feminist voices have been effective in dissemi-
nating information on gender violence and articu-
lating women’s responses. Most of this information
has concentrated on public violence and trafficking
in women and girl children; very little data have
been collected on domestic violence, which is usually
considered a private matter until murder, suicide,
or attempted murder within a family takes place
(Khondker 1994). Even so, many suicide cases go
unreported and no government statistics or system-
atic police records exist for domestic violence.
Violence against women is part of the history of
South Asia (Jayawardena and De Alwis 1996).
Over time, Islam in South Asia has been experi-
enced, interpreted, and practiced differently under
colonization, imperialism, and nationalism and in
the process has been transformed. In 1947, after
200 years of British rule, India was divided into two
parts: India, a predominantly Hindu state, and
Pakistan, a Muslim state. Since then, Islam as a reli-
gion has played a vociferous role in the subconti-
nent. Despite the separation of Muslim Pakistan
from India, religion failed to hold Pakistan to-
gether. In the 1971 liberation war, Bangladesh, a
province linguistically and culturally separated
from the rest of the provinces of Pakistan, emerged
as an independent country. During the liberation
war, Pakistani military forces, all Muslims, con-
ducted countless acts of violence on Bangladeshi
women (more than 80 percent of the population
were Muslim) through individual rape, gang rape,
torture, and killings (Mascarenhas 1975, Imam
1986). This war in the Indian subcontinent culmi-
nated in a public outcry about male violence
against women and ushered in what Kabeer (1988)
describes as “a feminist consciousness,” one that
revealed the common thread of women’s oppres-
sion across classes and religions.
Contrary to the pervasive perception of the family
in South Asia as a tightly knit, well-integrated, pri-
mary-support kinship organization, gender-based
domestic violence occurs throughout Muslim
women’s lives regardless of sect, class, education,
geographical location, or rural/urban variation. In
India, for example, female genital mutilation to
control female sexuality is practiced among Bohra
Muslims (an Ismà≠ìlìShì≠ìsect); however, within
South Asia this custom is never recognized as do-
mestic violence (Ghadially 1991). In Bangladesh, it
is accepted that a husband can inflict several sorts
of violence: sexual, psychological (for example, a
threat), or vicarious (smashing a plate, beating a
child, or damaging something) (Shailo 1994). In
Pakistan, a 1989 survey conducted by the Women’s