Exposing the darkness within: Domestic violence and Islam
By Hayley Gleeson with Julia Baird, ABC:
Most Muslims believe Islam abhors violence. So why do some say the Koran sanctions “lightly” beating your wife? An ABC News investigation into religion and domestic violence reveals the fight within Islam to stop the abuse of women and prevent imams from telling victims to stay and obey.
Refraining from beating up women is now, we’re told, a core Australian value.
As Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce put it last week: “There’s no polite way to beat up your wife. If you want to beat up your wife, you can’t become a citizen of this nation. It’s as simple as that.”
So who does believe there is a gentle or prudent way to strike a woman you are married to? Was Mr Joyce referring to some of the diverse and often divergent Muslim community in Australia?
It has taken many decades to ensure Australians recognise intimate partner violence as a crime that must be exposed, not endured. In no small part thanks to former Australian of the Year Rosie Batty, large swathes of the country are now conscious of the prevalence and myriad destructive forms domestic violence takes.
But one significant cultural factor influencing the way perpetrators act and victims respond has been barely discussed and is poorly understood: religion.
In an ongoing ABC News investigation, we look at the ways Islam, Christianity and other religions are being forced to confront the darkness in their own midst, the fact that some of their followers at times condone or tolerate domestic violence, and to grapple with how best to combat it.
This week, Islam.
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