Rereading Hadith on Domestic Violence: A Hermeneutical Analysis of Contemporary Interpretations

Abstract

Domestic violence, locally known as Kekerasan dalam Rumah Tangga (KDRT), continues to affect Muslim households in Indonesia and elsewhere, with some practitioners drawing on selective readings of Prophetic hadith to justify or minimize such conduct. This article employs a qualitative library-based methodology to analyze hadith traditions related to spousal relations through the lens of modern hermeneutical theory. Drawing on the hermeneutics of Gadamer, the double-movement approach of Fazlur Rahman, the critical hermeneutics of Paul Ricoeur, and the maqasid al-shari'ah framework, the study argues that authentic hadith consistently reflect a prophetic ethos of mercy, dignified treatment, and the prohibition of violence against women. Interpretations that appear to permit disciplinary striking are examined against their textual, historical, and jurisprudential contexts and shown to be either contextually constrained or methodologically questionable. The study further demonstrates that patriarchal cultural assumptions have often shaped the transmission and reception of hadith-based rulings in ways that obscure the moral trajectory of Islamic law toward the protection of women's dignity and bodily integrity. A responsible contemporary hermeneutics of hadith, the article concludes, must foreground the prophetic model of non-violence, the objectives of Islamic law, and the imperative of protecting victims as the primary frame for reading ambiguous texts.