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New York: Muslim women confront domestic violence, but deny Islam plays a role in it

Sep 25, 2009 11:36 am By Marisol Seibold

As usual, conspicuously absent from the discussion is any acknowledgment of Islam’s role in encouraging and perpetuating spousal abuse. By lacking the will to face those texts and teachings forthrightly, Robina Niaz is only hobbling her own efforts to help other Muslim women. “Her ‘duty’ is helping Muslim women heal after abuse,” from CNN, September 25:

NEW YORK (CNN) — Toward the end of her marriage, Rabia Iqbal said she feared for her life.

Iqbal, a native New Yorker, had a strict Muslim upbringing. Her parents immigrated to the United States from the tribal areas of Pakistan and when she was 16, they arranged her marriage to a 38-year-old man. She claims her husband turned violent during their 10 years of marriage.

When she finally left him, she did not know where to turn. Going home wasn’t an option, she said.

“My parents … made clear that they would disown me,” Iqbal said. “My father even said … ‘You’re lucky you live in America because if you lived back home, you would have been dead by now.’“

She was hiding out in her office at work when a friend put her in touch with Robina Niaz, whose organization, Turning Point for Women and Families, helps female Muslim abuse victims.

“It was such a relief … to speak about things that … I thought no one would understand,” said Iqbal, who has received counseling from Niaz for more than two years and calls Niaz her “savior.”

“Robina understood the cultural nuances … the religious issues,” Iqbal said. Video Watch Iqbal tell her story »

A devout Muslim, Niaz stresses that there is no evidence that domestic violence is more common among Muslim families.

There is violence in every society. There is domestic violence in every society. But Muslims are able to point to chapter and verse of their own scriptures and find direct sanction for it in Qur’an 4:34. It does not matter that the verse prescribes other measures to “discipline” one’s wife (not a term that comes up when marriage is partnership, rather than ownership). When all is said and done, Allah says it’s okay to hit your wife.

“Abuse happens everywhere,” said Niaz. “It cuts across barriers of race, religion, culture.”

But, she said, Muslims are often reluctant to confront the issue.

And why might that be?

There’s a lot of denial,” she said. “It makes it much harder for the victims of abuse to speak out.”

There sure is a lot of denial.

When Niaz launched her organization in 2004, it was the first resource of its kind in New York City. Today, her one-woman campaign has expanded into a multifaceted endeavor that is raising awareness about family violence and providing direct services to women in need.

Niaz said she firmly believes that domestic violence goes against Islamic teachings, and considers it her religious duty to try to stop abuse from happening.

“Quran condemns abusive behavior of women,” she said, noting that the prophet Mohammed was never known to have abused women. “Allah says, ‘Stand up against injustice and bear witness, even if it’s against your own kin. So if I see injustice being done to women and children, I have to speak up. It’s my duty.”…

In order not to be completely disingenuous, the first sentence would have to imply the assumption that it is conceivably justifiable and possible to hit one’s spouse without it being abuse. As for Muhammad, Sahih Muslim, a collection of hadith accepted as most reliable (along with Sahih Bukhari) by Sunni Muslims, records the following from his favorite wife (and child bride), Aisha:

“He struck me on the chest which caused me pain, and then said: Did you think that Allah and His Apostle would deal unjustly with you?” (Sahih Muslim, book 4, no. 2127).

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