Ibn Majah 2007 / 1985 records the operational framework for wife-beating. The Quranic anchor (Q 4:34, treated under entry q03) authorises the beating; the hadith elaborates the procedural limits.

The substantive issues are addressed in entry q03. The Ibn Majah contribution: the operational rules — not on the face, not severe, no bone-breaking, no marks. These limits are framed as protections but presuppose the underlying permission.

Key points:

1. The procedural limits as protection. The classical jurisprudence's 'not on the face' and 'not severe' rules are framed as protections for women. They prevent the most extreme physical harm and limit the visibility of marks. Al-Nawawi, in his Sharh Sahih Muslim, specifies that the permitted striking must not be painful, injurious, or directed at the face — a restriction echoed across all four Sunni legal schools.

2. The protections presuppose the practice. The limits exist because hitting is permitted. A morally serious framework would prohibit hitting altogether, not regulate its severity. Jonathan A.C. Brown — himself a Muslim convert and Georgetown Islamic-studies professor — acknowledges in Misquoting Muhammad (Oneworld, 2014) that all classical schools prohibited striking the face, yet simultaneously affirmed the underlying permission: any physical harm was grounds for compensation and divorce, since the Prophet had restricted striking one's wife to a blow that leaves no mark. Brown's careful documentation makes the point against apologists: the limits were real, but so was the presupposed entitlement to strike.

3. The 'no marks' standard. Classical fiqh's 'no marks' principle is striking: the beating should not leave visible marks. This is, in effect, requiring the violence to be invisible to outside observers — protecting the husband from social or legal consequence rather than protecting the wife. Kecia Ali, in Sexual Ethics and Islam (Oneworld, 2006), documents how the classical jurists structured the husband's corrective authority over a wife's nushuz (disobedience) — including the disciplinary-hitting permission — as a coherent legal regime premised on male guardianship, not as an aberration requiring apology.

4. Modern application. The framework continues to operate in conservative Muslim communities. Family-court rulings in some jurisdictions have applied versions of the framework. Modern domestic-violence prevention efforts in Muslim contexts often have to engage with the textual basis. Robert Spencer, in The Complete Infidel's Guide to the Koran (Regnery, 2009), notes that the Quranic sanction of wife-beating has historically made substantive reform within Islamic law 'a virtually insurmountable obstacle.'

5. The fundamental issue. The framework's existence — divine permission with procedural limits — establishes that hitting your wife is religiously sanctioned. No procedural elaboration changes the substantive permission.

The analysis from entry q03 applies fully here.