Yet another re-interpretation of the Qur'an

A new English translation of the Qur'an by an American-Iranian woman, Laleh Bakhtiar, has re-interpreted the meaning of the word "daraba" (usually means to "beat" or "hit") in Chapter 4, verse 34 about treating the ill-conduct/disloyalty/straying of a woman.

A feminist interpretation of the Qur'an serves to challenge the patriarchal readings that are often unfair to women and ignore the rights given to them by God.

However, there are several problems with this phenomenon of Qur'anic re-interpretations.

Such readings are often done by individuals whose training in Islamic scholarship is sketchy at best. A Mujtahid (a person who practises ijtihad) needs to have certain qualifications. Among many factors, these include expertise in the Arabic language, literature, and philology as well as being a high calibre Qur'an scholar. These qualifications are often missing in individuals claiming a more egalitarian reading of the Qur'an.

Unfortunately, these individuals treat the Qur'an not as a divine revelation, but as a literary text, and approach it as such. Their reinterpretations are often biased towards supporting a certain agenda (whether is it's patriarchal, feminist, gay-friendly, etc), rather than an effort to pursue the truth.

To return to Bakhtiar's new translation, the article states that she is not an Islamic scholar and that "she does not speak Arabic, but she learned to read the holy texts in Arabic while studying and working as a translator in Iran in the 1970s and ’80s."

One blogger said Bakhtiar's attempt "is an example of bending out of shape and doing verbal acrobatics in order to come up with an acceptable interpretation that may be a good "public relations" gesture..." hinting that her interpretation is apologetic to Western readers. The blogger notes that when and if a Muslim man beats his wife it's not because the Qur'an asks him to do so. Therefore the impact of Bakhtiar's re-interpretation is limited.

Indeed, it is problematic to even attribute wife beating to Islam. Stories about Western men beating their wives is not pinned on them being Christian, Jewish, or of other religious affiliation. It is simply labelled as "abuse."