6.4.6 Domestic Violence and Family Breakdown

Most ethnic communities among the Muslim population have very close family structures.  This in itself should be a strong stabilising factor.  However it is put under strain in poorer communities by the corrosive effects of racialism, unemployment and social deprivation, and in first-generation migrants by the need to maintain immediate family connections overseas.

It is probably fair to assert that overall, the Muslim population is no more prone to domestic violence than any other community in Britain, and that family breakdown is less common than in other communities.  (The lack of statistics based on faith groups makes these assertions hard to prove or disprove.)  However some ethnic groups within the Muslim community are very much more prone to domestic violence than others (though further work needs to be done before clearer advice can be given).  In those groups where domestic violence is endemic, a multi-faceted approach needs to be taken.  Direct intervention by the criminal justice system on an individual case may be proper and successful, but may then cause the more pervasive problems to be buried deeper in the community.  A multi-faceted approach would include:

· education to raise awareness of the criminal nature of domestic violence in the ethnic language of the target group,

· involvement of the younger generation in campaigning on the issue, since among the younger generation there is less acceptance of the tolerance of ‘traditions’ of domestic violence,

· co-option of Muslim religious authorities, i.e. local imams and more notable figures that are respected by the target community, who can verify that Islamic practice is opposed to domestic violence,

· involvement of GPs and other health workers that serve the target community or who are ethnically rooted in it, to demonstrate that the effects of domestic violence aren’t as well hidden as perpetrators suppose,

· involvement of relevant community bodies such as Muslim Women’s Helpline, who for all their efforts, are little known among first generation migrants.

There is no correlation between any particular Islamic factor and proneness to domestic violence.  It may be supposed that the existence of the Shari’ah Hudood penalty of death for adultery, and specific sanctions in certain Hadeeth of chastisement of wives for some misdemeanours might create an environment that leads to domestic violence.  Apart from some cases of obsessive behaviour, those Muslim men who have a religious-based understanding of these sanctions are most likely to be aware of stringent conditions that go with them and exhortations towards compassion. 

On the other hand most domestic violence is impulsive, not pseudo-judicial, and probably occurs as frequently in the Muslim community, practising or knowledgeable or not, as the rest of the population.  The Ta’alaq divorce has been described above, and it is noteworthy that a husband may declare a ‘Ta’alaq’ in the same circumstances as he may become violent.  One could therefore consider the ta’alaq as an institutional safety-valve by which wives may become detached from their violent husbands before serious harm is caused.  Obviously that is only part of the domestic violence issue, but knowledge of this factor might also assist in persuading religiously inclined victims that there is a decent way of ending a violent situation.