Studying the corporal punishment of the wife in the Qur'an and hadiths with a semantic approach to the word "striking"

The style of "spousal' interaction in the family is one of key issues discussed in Islam. Since in the Islamic lifestyle, men are in charge of managing and steering the family towards perfection, the question arises as to whether it is permissible for man to resort to corporal punishment as a means of disciplining his wife. In particular, Islamophobia propaganda has been accompanied by an exaggeration of domestic violence by men, with some attempting to justify abuse and unfair treatment of and corporal punishment of a woman by her husband based on a particular interpretation of a Qur'anic verse (Nisa: 34). Using a descriptive-analytical method, this paper, this paper aims to present a new interpretation of this verse by reviewing and criticizing diverse stances of exegetes on the content of the verse through a semantic analysis of the word “Zaraba” (striking), particularly the lawmakers’ disregard for the known meaning of this term.   Therefore, drawing on the knowledge of semantics and the tradition of the Infallibles, copious evidences are presented for the lawmaker’s inattention to the famous meaning of " “striking" and the reader’s focus on its other meanings, which indicates the semantic evolution of the word ‘striking”. The Qur'an, prohibiting corporal punishment in any ways, only sanctions it in three cases (legal retribution, jihad, hudud and ta'zir) under certain conditions.