New Translation Prompts Debate on Islamic Verse

New Translation Prompts Debate on Islamic Verse

Anyone who has heard of the Quran knows what verse she had an "inspiration" about. Even after over a thousand years of people who studied the Quran for decades and whose native language was Arabic (hers wasn't), it took an Iranian-American to discover that the Quran doesn't say to beat your wife. Yes we Americans know everything, don't ya know? (said with voice dripping with sarcasm).

"I decided it either has to have a different meaning, or I can’t keep translating,' said Ms. Bakhtiar, an Iranian-American who adopted her father’s Islamic faith as an adult and had not dwelled on the verse before."

And magically she found a different meaning, what a coincidence. Everyone keeps trying to say it doesn't say to beat your wife. Ok, so only tap or scourge her? If you look up scourge in a dictionary, one meaning is: "to punish, chastise, or criticize severely.". Hmm why would you do that to an adult?

"There are at least 20 English translations of the Koran. “Daraba” has been translated as beat, hit, strike, scourge, chastise, flog, make an example of, spank, pet, tap and even seduce."

Seduce? I don't think I've read that Quran.

"The verse 4:34, with its three-step program, is often called a reform over the violent practices of seventh century Arabia, when the Koran was revealed. The verse was not a license for battery, scholars say, with other interpretations defining the heaviest instrument a man might employ as a twig commonly used as a toothbrush."

Well that's still hitting, in case you didn't realize it! And where does it say a twig? They are just trying to make excuse it and make it palatable to the West. When will these men realize that women are ADULTS, not children that need punishment or a time-out? Hitting is hitting. Full stop.

“The whole idea is not to punish her,” said Ingrid Mattson, an expert in early Islamic history at the Hartford Seminary and the first woman to be president of the Islamic Society of North America. “It is like a fear of sexual impropriety, that the husband takes these steps to try to bring their relationship to where it is supposed to be. I think it is a physical gesture of displeasure.”

And what about if she fears sexual impropriety on the part of the man? Are woman the only ones who do that? I think not, or else women would be doing them only with other women.

I just cannot stand the gender-bias in Islam. And that is what it is. Women are treated like children because we don't have an extra appendage. Hello, we have brains! (Which men might notice if they stopped looking at our butt or our chest).

Le Sigh. I really, really don't want my daughter to be treated like this. I hope to DOYC (Deity of your choice) that her dad doesn't try to get her to marry a Muslim.

A.