The Evolution of the Jurisprudential Foundations of the Permissibility of Striking the Wife: A Critical Re-reading of the Transition from Disciplinary Guardianship to Emergency Defense in the Process of Inferring the Rulings on Nushūz

The challenge of interpreting verse 34 of Sūrat al-Nisāʾ and its prima facie conflict with the standards of human dignity have made a precise re-reading of the arguments for the permissibility of striking [the wife] necessary in contemporary jurisprudence. Using a descriptive-analytical method and an intra-religious critical approach, the present study examines the evolution of the inference of this ruling in the Imāmī heritage in order to explain its transition from custodial authority to emergency defense. The findings indicate that later scholars, moving beyond rigid adherence to outward meanings, imposed strict negative and positive constraints on the absoluteness of the verse: first, by invalidating the theory of preventive punishment, they made the permissibility of striking contingent upon the actual occurrence of the sin and rejected the interpretation of “fear” as “knowledge.” In the next step, by establishing a hierarchically ordered system and the governance of the rule of reason, they made the legitimacy of chastisement conditional upon complete despair of the effectiveness of the previous stages (admonition and abandonment). Finally, by carefully distinguishing between taklīfī (obligation-generating) and waḍʿī (declaratory) rulings, they emphasized the husband’s strict liability (ḍamān qahrī) to pay diya even with the intention of correction, and, by proposing the theory of uncovering corruption (kashf al-fasād), they made the legitimacy of the act conditional upon achieving the desired outcome (absence of aversion and injury). The conclusion is that in the final jurisprudential reading, striking the wife is not an authoritative right but an emergency measure that is practically impossible to occur; due to the high risk of prohibition and liability, it is effectively removed from the family’s upbringing system.