Justice and Family Issues in Shia: Dealing with Domestic Violence

Abstract

The fact that domestic violence against children or women exists in Shia communities across the Muslim World cannot be denied, however the causes of such violence are not different from other communities. In fact, personal, geographical, cultural and economic issues are considered to be as effective elements in domestic violence as in other parts of the globe and, like there, this violence sometimes is justified through the misinterpretation of the contexts of religious sources. Religion should be studied in its entirety together with all its rulings and conditions, however in justifying violence and promoting acts of force based on religion, the emphasis is only on those interpretable subjects that indeed have selective and personal aspects. Family issues in the Shia tradition depend on a dynamic jurisprudence. Hence, some jurisprudents have attempted to interpret religious laws in a correct and up-to-date manner and expressed some new thoughts about women, such as equalizing the amount of blood money between men and women, preferring women over men as caretakers of children, or disapproving of ill-treatment of women by men. These new approaches have been reflected in the laws of Iran as the most populated Shia State. The method of the current research is an analytical method based on Islamic sources combined with a statistical approach. The current research focuses on the basis of justice in Shia families and the causes of domestic violence. The findings of this research show that the justice in Shia families is based on the balance of rights instead of equity.