Quran Permits Wife Beatings

Muslim population is the second largest in the world only after Christanity. Indonesia has the largest Muslim population closely followed by India. In fact, Muslims are a majority in about 45 countries, while another 30 countries have sizable Muslim minorities . Many of the latter are in the west . Hence it is necessary to understand and appreciate the widespread religion and its practices.

The Guardian published in March 2007 a news item by Kate Connolly that a German Judge, Christa Datz-winter, refused a Moroccan woman a fast track divorce on the grounds that because she and her husband came from a Morrocan cultural environment in which it was not uncommon for a man to exert a right of corporal punishment over his wife. That is what the claimant had to reckon with when she married the defendent. When confronted, the Judge invoked the Quran to support her argument and in the court read from verse 34 of Sura four of the Quran , An-Nisa ( Women ), in which men are told to beat their wives as a final stage in dealing with disobedience.

The verse reads " --- as to those on whose part you fear desertion , admonish them and leave them alone in sleeping places and beat them."

( Claimants lawyer protested ," When Christians are arguing for a divorce they donot use the Bible" Later the Judge was removed and another appointed on the basis ' One thing must be clear: in Germany only German law applies '. )