By Dr. Yusuf Malik Frederick, PhD
Black Crescent Wellness Foundation
🕯️ Introduction: The Hidden Trauma Within Faith
At the Black Crescent Wellness Foundation, our research continues illuminating the often-overlooked intersections between faith, identity, and trauma. One of the most pressing yet underexamined areas is the link between Spiritual Abuse (SA) and Intimate Partner Violence (IPV) in American Muslim communities. While SA has increasingly become a subject of psychological inquiry, its subtypes—particularly domestic violence and IPV rooted in religious contexts—demand more urgent and nuanced attention.
📚 Understanding Spiritual Abuse and Its Subtypes
Spiritual abuse occurs when religious beliefs or leadership are weaponized to control, manipulate, or inflict harm on individuals. It becomes especially insidious in domestic environments, where faith is used to justify psychological, physical, or emotional violence within intimate partnerships. In Muslim communities, this form of abuse often remains invisible, shielded by cultural taboos, religious misinterpretations, and systemic patriarchy (Chowdhury & Winder, 2022; Siddiqui & Noor, 2022).
🧕 American Muslim Communities and the Complex Reality of IPV
Although American Muslims make up about 1% of the U.S. population, they are disproportionately spotlighted in media portrayals of domestic violence, accounting for nearly 10% of such stories (Ali et al., 2022). This skewed visibility reinforces damaging stereotypes, obscuring the fact that DV/IPV rates among Muslims are consistent with national averages (Kulwicki & Miller, 1999; Alkhateeb, 1999).
Notable studies have shown:
- 18–20% of Muslim women in Dearborn, MI, experienced spousal abuse (Kulwicki & Miller, 1995).
- A 1993 survey estimated that 10% of Muslim women and children experienced physical abuse (Alkhateeb, 1999).
- A 2007 Sound Vision study found 31.5% of Muslims reported physical abuse, while 40% experienced verbal abuse at home.
These figures are consistent with national statistics showing that 1 in 3 women in the U.S. experience physical domestic violence, with 48.4% reporting emotional abuse (Ali et al., 2022).
⚖️ The Role of Religion in Abuse and Silence
Islamic teachings introduced radical improvements in women’s rights centuries ago. However, patriarchal interpretations and cultural customs continue to distort these teachings, enabling coercive control and religiously justified abuse (Siddiqui & Noor, 2021; Jayasundara et al., 2014). In many cases:
- Male perpetrators use religious texts to validate dominance and obedience.
- Victims are discouraged from seeking legal or psychological help.
- Faith leaders prioritize family unity over survivor safety (Gezinski et al., 2019; Hulley et al., 2023).
Religious environments often foster internal conflicts for survivors, who may struggle with both their spiritual identity and their safety. In some cases, increased religiosity is prescribed as a solution rather than trauma-informed support (Powell & Pepper, 2021).
🧩 IPV as a Form of Spiritual Abuse
Scholars now argue that Intimate Partner Violence constitutes a distinct subtype of spiritual abuse when:
- Religious narratives are used to justify harm.
- Victims are shamed into silence by religious or communal pressures.
- Faith-based justifications are employed to deny access to money, mobility, or medical care (Chowdhury, 2023; Bagwell-Gray et al., 2021).
These patterns are not exclusive to Islam. Research across Christianity (Oakley & Humphreys, 2019), Judaism (Adelman, 2001; Kalvari, 2022), and Islam (Ghafournia, 2017) reveals that abusers in religious communities often use sacred texts and clergy endorsement to reinforce control.
🌍 Systemic Power and Religious Justification
The abuse dynamic is further complicated when religious leaders themselves are abusers, or when they refuse to intervene, citing scriptural or cultural reasons (Mulvihill et al., 2023; Eidhamar, 2018).
One example of this is found in Orthodox Judaism, where a woman requires her husband’s consent for divorce via a get. Abusers can withhold this consent to exert coercive control (Gueta & Levy Ladell, 2024)—a practice now recognized as religious IPV.
🧠 Psychological Impact and Barriers to Support
Victims of religious IPV often experience:
- Deep spiritual confusion
- Isolation from religious communities
- Fear of divine punishment
- Limited access to culturally competent services
Survivors may be told to:
- Be more patient or pious
- Stay for the sake of children
- Avoid shaming the community
This guidance is not only unhelpful—it is harmful (Chaudhry, 2020; Gezinski et al., 2019). The absence of faith-sensitive and trauma-informed services further discourages reporting and help-seeking.
🔎 Why Research Matters: Toward Solutions
There is a critical need for further research into how American Muslim survivors of IPV navigate spiritual abuse. Future studies should:
- Investigate how religious justifications are employed in abusive homes.
- Explore how survivors reconcile faith and trauma.
- Examine the role of religious leaders in enabling or challenging abuse.
A faith-based but survivor-centered approach is necessary to empower Muslim women while engaging with sacred traditions in contextually meaningful ways (Hammer, 2019; Istratii & Ali, 2023).
✅ Recommendations for Action
At Black Crescent Wellness Foundation, we advocate for:
- Culturally and religiously competent DV services
- Clergy training on abuse identification and referral
- Community education that challenges patriarchal misinterpretations
- Survivor-led faith healing circles and trauma recovery programs
We aim to foster spiritual safety and psychological healing spaces, where survivors are not forced to choose between their faith and their freedom.
📚 References (APA Style)
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