Why does the Qur'an give husbands the right to beat their wives? This sounds like pure savagery. Are women to be treated as animals? This has always distressed me.

Walaikum assalam wa rahmatullah,

The Qur’an does not give any permission to “beat” women. Rather, it is established from the sunna of the Messenger of Allah (Allah bless him and give him peace) that a woman may seek to terminate her marriage on account of physical abuse.

To understand the Qur’anic verses regarding ‘hitting’, its limits, and context, please refer to the answers related to this found on in our site's archives.

It is important, also, to understand what the Qur’an is: it is not the speech of a human in which temporal moral guidance is laid out for humans. Rather, it is the very Word of Allah, the Creator of all things. Its guidance is not temporal nor bounded by time: it is Allah’s showing His creation the paths to all true good in this life all good and ultimate felicity in the Next.

And Allah alone gives success.

Wassalam.

Faraz Rabbani