Errors in Translations of the Quran... 4:34
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Peace StopS.
Quote It has been translated as that for centuries. By experts. People who studied Classic Arabic have confirmed to me that it does mean exactly that and contemporary scholars also agree. All literature, whether Tafsir or sunnah or sira all agree that a physical punishment is acceptable.
How about this the following explanation of
434 God prohibits wife-beating by using the best psychological approach. For example, if I don't want you to shop at Market X, I will ask you to shop at Market Y, then at Market Z, then, as a last resort, at Market X. This will effectively stop you from shopping at Market X, without insulting you. Similarly, God provides alternatives to wife-beating; reasoning with her first, then employing certain negative incentives. Remember that the theme of this sura is defending the women's rights and countering the prevalent oppression of women. Any interpretation of the verses of this sura must be in favour of the women. This sura's theme is ``protection of women.''
peace.
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How about this the following explanation of
434 God prohibits wife-beating by using the best psychological approach. For example, if I don't want you to shop at Market X, I will ask you to shop at Market Y, then at Market Z, then, as a last resort, at Market X. This will effectively stop you from shopping at Market X, without insulting you. Similarly, God provides alternatives to wife-beating; reasoning with her first, then employing certain negative incentives. Remember that the theme of this sura is defending the women's rights and countering the prevalent oppression of women. Any interpretation of the verses of this sura must be in favour of the women.
Yes, you COULD re-translate or re-interpret it like that. But why would you want that when it is perfectly clear in the original version?
Why would anyone mention a physical beating - or Market X to stay with your analogy - if it should or will never come to that?
Does the Koran contain superfluous sentences or words?This sura's theme is ``protection of women.''
Are you quite sure? In my opinion, it is the opposite. This is where men are told they are allowed multiple wives (not the other way around), that men are allowed sex with female slaves, men are allowed a portion of a woman's wealth, men receive double the inheritance under several circumstances, women are confined to the house for life for "lewdness" - men are not, wives can be "replaced", men are "in charge" of women, need to clean themselves if they have been in contact with women and 90% of the rest of this chapter has nothing to do with women. The only sentence or aya I know of which is different and closer to what you claim is 4128. Other than that women are mainly considered as wombs.
If I am wrong, then please correct me, but that is what I read and understand.
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Peace StopS.
Since I am not a scholar or expert , nor do I claim to be one, why would you believe me? .
Trying to explain that some scholars and experts could be wrong , may be a waste of both our time.
Thank you.
Peace. -
Woman lives Biblically in Tennessee for one year; Rachel Held Evans says calling husband 'master' was 'weird'
A woman who lived Biblically for a year in Tennessee said the experience was both rewarding and at times, weird.
http//www.clarionledger.com/article/20121018/NEWS/121018004/Woman-lives-Biblically-Tennessee-one-year-Rachel-Held-Evans-says-calling-husband-master-weird-
http//www.ibtimes.com/woman-lives-biblically-rachel-held-evans-calls-husband-master-cuts-hair-writes-about-it-photo-848329
http//rachelheldevans.com/biblical-womanhood/
I had posted this in another thread...she even lived outside in a tent during her menses...wow!
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The greatest question anyone ever asked me regarding 434 was this "Can the wife do the same to the husband if he is disobedient?"
;D
Peace,
Amina
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Peace StopS.
Since I am not a scholar or expert , nor do I claim to be one, why would you believe me? .
Trying to explain that some scholars and experts could be wrong , may be a waste of both our time.
Thank you.
Peace.Hi, That's why I asked you personally, you, not some scholar, what your opinion was.
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Peace StopS.
I think along the following lines
Men and Women Endowed With Unique Qualities
432
You shall not covet the qualities bestowed upon each other by God; the men enjoy certain qualities, and the women enjoy certain qualities. You may implore God to shower you with His grace. God is fully aware of all things.The theme is " protection of women" God goes on to say this
450
Note how they fabricate lies about God; what a gross offence this is!Just because " multi meaning words "are used in Qoran, people can mistranslate and abuse the meanings of some verses to exploit women!
For example people claim " beating a wife" is allowed and polygamy is allowed .
God discourages polygamy
Polygamy Discouraged*
4129
You can never be equitable in dealing with more than one wife, no matter how hard you try. Therefore, do not be so biased as to leave one of them hanging (neither enjoying marriage, nor left to marry someone else). If you correct this situation and maintain righteousness, God is Forgiver, Most Merciful.Traditions are justified and encouraged, even if it means creating " contradictions" with the scripture.
Peace.
Of course
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Peace StopS.
I think along the following lines
Men and Women Endowed With Unique Qualities
432
You shall not covet the qualities bestowed upon each other by God; the men enjoy certain qualities, and the women enjoy certain qualities. You may implore God to shower you with His grace. God is fully aware of all things.The theme is " protection of women" God goes on to say this
450
Note how they fabricate lies about God; what a gross offence this is!Just because " multi meaning words "are used in Qoran, people can mistranslate and abuse the meanings of some verses to exploit women!
For example people claim " beating a wife" is allowed and polygamy is allowed .
God discourages polygamy
Polygamy Discouraged*
4129
You can never be equitable in dealing with more than one wife, no matter how hard you try. Therefore, do not be so biased as to leave one of them hanging (neither enjoying marriage, nor left to marry someone else). If you correct this situation and maintain righteousness, God is Forgiver, Most Merciful.Traditions are justified and encouraged, even if it means creating " contradictions" with the scripture.
Peace.
Of course
I agree with you totally with what it is supposed to mean and what it should say. Alas, why does the Koran mention something ambiguous?
Why not say men are NOT in charge of women. Humans can only have one permanent partner? Women are NOT tilth. Men are NOT allowed to rape a woman - and vice versa. Men are NOT allowed to physically abuse a woman - and vice versa.So it would actually be quite easy and would absolve you of trying to ignore what you don't like and cherry-pick what you accept personally.
Nobody would "mistranslate" or "misinterpret" anything.
Just take a look at your example If you correct this situation and maintain righteousness, God is Forgiver, Most Merciful.
What does this mean? What is the meaning of "correct this situation"?
What is the meaning of "maintain righteousness"?And if you don't "correct" the situation, God is not forgiving? Or do you need to be correct AND be righteous? But if the God were "Most Merciful" there would be forgiveness even if a person made a mistake. Right?
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Peace StopS.
Unfortunately, many things in life are " ambiguous" and we make things more difficult. Is this to do with God or humans?
I would argue the " language" as interpreted by humans does not help.
Also , if you make a mistake, God is forgiver most merciful.
Peace.
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Peace StopS.
Unfortunately, many things in life are " ambiguous" and we make things more difficult. Is this to do with God or humans?
I would argue the " language" as interpreted by humans does not help.
Also , if you make a mistake, God is forgiver most merciful.
Peace.
.... and that is why we are back with faith .... -[
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I have written an article on verse 434 of the Qur'an, a verse which has commonly been misinterpreted to justify violence against women. I have created a website to publish this article www.quranverse434.com
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salaam aqua,
Your article suffers from multiple problems as highlighted here
http//free-minds.org/forum/index.php?topic=9599954.msg347142#msg347142"withdraw/turn away / go away from them"
Requires the tashkeel of present day Arabic Quran to be incorrect
This alleged usage in 434 occurs in 435 with the preposition "Aan", thus making Quran seems inconsistent IF it did mean that in 434
No identical example of this DRB usage in Quran
No explanation of how the authority are notified
It is unclear to what extent one separates, how they can do so without being unjust etc
No supporting marital example in Quran
My view Impractical result when inserted into 4128-130 and somehow requires iAAradan to be a positive thing and potentially makes Drb/3rD similar"cite them" www.Quran434.com
Works perfectly with the tashkeel in the present day Arabic Quran
Several identical examples of this DRB usage in Quran, including when humans are the direct object as in 434
Explains how the authority is notified by 435, and provides perfect logical/sequential coherence
DRB use is clear and simple to implement practically
581-4 provides perfect coherence in terms of marital example
When inserted into 4128-130 provides a complementary practical and coherent solutionIn fact there were more issues in your article. If you begin your own thread for your article I'd be happy to highlight them for you to respond to.
Interestingly, in your work you do not reference www.Quran434.com where you clearly got a lot of information from.
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Peace all.
What if the word did mean beat, but in the American sense of 'beat it,' go away from them? That is what I believe. Supported by the fact that God only ever advocates violence once, in the sense of self protection. Other than that, He advocates peace. Technically, the woman should fight back in self defence, the Koran tells her to. And incidentally, what level of beating are we talking about and who determines this? Think of all the different 'Muslim' communities across the world!! -
There is no indication, none at all, in the whole of Qur'an that women owe obedience to men, be it as husbands or as anything else.
It may be conjectured that time and the need to have the Qur'an support the nearly universal belief in marital authority, that is, the authority of husband over wife and, generally, male authority over females. 4.34 was picked for the purpose and was wholly turned into something completey different of what it says. In fact, transformed into a weapon of female destruction.
So let us look at it as it is
For one
In the whole of the aya, the question is not about husbands and wives, no indication of that, and that case of husbands and wives would merely be a subset of the whole human set of males and females.
For second
Men (males) as such are not addressed but in the third person masculine plural. Equally, females are not addressed as such but in the third person feminine plural . The addressee in this aya is the second person mixed plural, referring back to the address in 4.29 where ??Oh you who believe!? (second person mixed plural) and in the following ayas up to 4.42 the addressee does not change, it is always ?you who believe?, second person mixed plural. And then en 4.43 the addressee is repeated ??Oh you who believe!? ?Ya ayuha is allathina amanu?, the set of the believers, women and men, as a set, as a community. No husband is told to do anything to any wife nor any set of men to do anything to any set of women. It is the community who is told to do something with respect to the women (women, not wives) from whom nushuz is feared.For third
No wrong has been done by any women. In the hypothesis that there is "fear", that is, no fact has been reported or detected,nothing has been done, but somebody may fear this or that, then in view of that something is adviced to dispel. But since no wrong has been done by anybody, no punitive measure of any kind can be taken, otherwise it would amount to a blanket freedom for the believers to act on suspition, without any justification. The Qur'an, we know, in many other passages, rejects absolutely such way of conducting affairs. So the beating part falls flat on all counts. It is Preposterous.What is enjoined is to take steps in order to dispel any confusion or unfounded suspitions. Clear the air. The meaning of idribuhunna in this sense is clear, it entails to make the women in question aware of what is being said about them, so that they can preclude any unpleasant developments because of those "fears", and if there is any ground for them, to set course to dispel them.
Again it does not have to be wives. Women also exist out of the marriage bond. Just as men.
As to the next aya, where it is about couples. That is another thing where in fact it deals with couples. And it is also the community who is addressed, not the men nor the women. Which, if anything, makes it clear that what has been previously said refers to all men and women, not just to couples.
For fourth
The madaji3, which has been uniformly and self servingly given a sexual meaning, are the sleeping places. Neither it basic meaning nor the Qur?an usage relate to couple or to coupling. It is devoid of any cohabitation or matrimonial meaning. Modernly beds (which I suspect were not a common implement at the times of the revelation amongst the common Arabs) have been turned into a euphemistic synonim of sex. Modernly. If we reject that hadithism be blown back on the qur'an in order to impose on it fabricated meanings, I cannot see why XIX or XX or XXI century?s euphemistic ways of hinting at sex should be taken as proven facts. The Qur?an when it hints at sex does not do it that way. There is no instance of that at all. The Qur'an does not give to the madaji3 any sexual connotation. Unless death is considered something sexual, which could be, but not common.
From being a wonder of balance, clarity, meaning and sense, 4.34 has been turned into a vipers nest where every nook has been used to pander a malecentric worldview, where everything revolves around males, husbands, as rightful holders of the title of the species. As per the bible, the male is the humang being, the basic, the fundamental holder of humanness and women existence springs from the need of the male, nor because they as such females are the main beeing, they are ancillary to the real human being, the one created for his own sake. Women have not been created for their own sake, but for the men?s sake. The bible says that and in this place, free-minds, almost everybody holds onto that conception, if not deliberately or consciously as default setting. Therefore there is no way that those who have such default settings are going to ever digest 4.34.
It is so ingrained in the minds that when anyody imagines any humanity in the past or in another planet the images are usually males. In history films, in antropology films, it is almost always men who are shown, except where some female bare breasted can be picked just to give a finer hint of the "savages".
So in this 4.34, whe whole of interpretations, even here, in free minds, are a function of males, always from the point of view of males as the central pieace around which revolves everything else. There is no way to get the full meaning of 4.34 with such and heliocentric, sorry male centric mindset.
In fact, from the species point of view, not only the male are not the central but manifestly very much peripheric. And I do not mean any disdain with that but point to the fact that from the species point of view, females are more biologically, undisputably central while males are just as central as they strive to be making themselves useful. That is manifest in 4.34. They have to make themselves useful maintaining and taking care of women. Like we could say to a certain extent women are born, while men are self made or are nothing at all. Many times, like prophets, they have been real men who have made themselves and roved themselves, and the Qur'an is full of such beautiful examples, but many times too males who have not followed the right examples have made themselves a nuisance, not useful members of humanity and very frequently plainly distructive.
So we can keep dreaming and thinking that the "hidden" (al ghaib) that the devored women (qanitaat) keep because Allah guarded it, is something that pertains to the "males" (they heliocentric world is nothing in comparison to this self-centering) and of course, there is no way that it can refer to precisely something which is specific to women, like conception and the incepetion of regnancy, however evident it is that they, the women guard it and that Al-lah guarded in them. No, of course, that is meaningless. What does the reproduction of the species has to do with women that should matter much. No, no way. What matters about women is their usefulness for the human titlehodler, the male.
So with these lame intepretations of an aya that in itself, when stripped of contrived and self-serving contortions is plain, clear and blanced we are just showing how blind and ridiculously we can be, where even the most glaringly obvious we reject as if it burned our eyes.
Good luck, freeminders, enjoy your default settings undisturbed, and keep playing with 4.34 to your hearts content. That is what it was meant for.
Salaam
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Peace Wakas,
I really appreciated looking into your article on the (in)famous 434 at http//www.quran434.com/wife-beating-islam.html. I finally actually got around reading your whole article. I think you nailed down the true action after the talk to the wife and abandoning her in bed. Making the current marital problem known must be a priority rather than pretending there are no problems, and as traditionally thought, beat the crap out of her. And I think you solved the issues that the new-old interpretation has with separation which does not add up totally.
I felt I had to read it because I currently have a problem explaining that verse to my former sectarian wife that finally has begun to leave the idolatry behind, but want reasonable and logical explanations, and I could not do that myself, but after reading your cross-references to other instances in "Qur'an" I was able to understand that the can hardly be a physical hit. That was a deep-rooted problem due to the fact it is so very indoctrinated even into the very dictionaries which can explain why it has been so hard to find a viable alternative interpretation for it.
Not sure if I have given you any credit for your works before, brother Wakas, but I thank you for your efforts and I can imagine it has taken you countless hours to analyze and find the answers we have been looking for.
You also solved minor errors due to the correction of the word in the context elsewhere in The Book. Hit a dead body with a heifer, sounds a bit weird.
God bless you
