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By FATIMA KHAN-WISE
South Africa’s femicide crisis cannot be understood through statistics alone. The Quran offers an ethical framework for obtaining justice, dignity, responsibility and collective accountability and to move society from reaction to prevention.
Over the past two months, nine women were found dead in Ekurhuleni, near Johannesburg. Police have not confirmed a serial killer but issued public warnings due to the concerning pattern. South Africa suffers from one of the world’s highest femicide rates, with one in three women facing violence, a crisis declared a national disaster last November. Ekurhuleni reflects a broader systemic crisis.
This crisis is reflected in the latest national crime statistics: murders fell by 5.9% to 5 427 between April and June 2026. Yet 569 women were murdered, 1 052 survived attempted murder, and of 9 201 rape cases – over 100 a day – 8 814 involved women and children.
What does it mean when a national indicator improves while women keep suffering violence? Behind every statistic is a human being, someone’s daughter, mother, sister, wife, friend.
The Quran does not address human relationships only through prohibition and punishment. It establishes a moral framework grounded in justice, dignity, responsibility, mercy and the rejection of transgression. Violence can therefore be understood not only as a criminal or social problem but as a socio-moral disruption, a breakdown in the ethical order that should govern how human beings treat each other.
When responsibility becomes domination
One of the central Maqasidi concepts relating to gender-based violence (GBV) is qiwāmah, reflected in the Quran (Sura An-Nisa, 4:34–36).
Qiwāmah is often understood as male authority. Yet an ethical reading connects it to responsibility, protection, preservation and accountability, rather than domination.
If authority is understood as entitlement, power can become control. If authority is understood as responsibility, power becomes an obligation to protect. It cannot mean that masculinity grants permission to control, intimidate, silence or harm. Responsibility demands restraint, justice and accountability.
This is particularly relevant in South Africa, where gendered power hierarchies and harmful constructions of masculinity contribute to GBV. The Quranic framework asks: “Are we using power to protect, or to control?”
We are responsible for one another
Responsibility for preventing GBV cannot rest solely with individuals. The Quran expands it into the community through wilāyah. In Sura At Tawbah (9:71), believing men and women are described as awliyāʾ of one another. Wilāyah conveys closeness, support, care and responsibility, a relationship of mutual ethical guardianship.
If men and women are responsible for one another, then violence against women cannot remain simply a “private matter”. Wilāyah asks something from all of us.
It asks what we do when we hear the threatening argument next door. What we do when a woman tells us she is afraid. What we do when a friend jokes about controlling his partner.
The Quranic framework calls believing men and women to promote maʿrūf and prevent munkar. This transforms GBV from an individualised problem into a matter of collective responsibility.
A community practising wilāyah would therefore not ask only: “Why didn’t she leave?”
It would also ask: “Why did we allow her to face this alone?”
Recognising the abuse of power
In relation to GBV, two important Quranic concepts – baghy and ẓulm – can be applied.
Baghy refers to transgression and excess, while ẓulm refers to injustice, imbalance and wrongdoing. Together, they provide a language for understanding exploitation, domination and abuse of power.
GBV can therefore be understood as more than an isolated act of violence. It is an ethical violation in which power is exercised in a way that violates another person’s dignity. This is where karāmah (human dignity) becomes central.
The Quran describes humanity as honoured by God (Sura Al Isra, 17:70). From this ayah, dignity can be understood as universal, regardless of faith or identity. To demean, humiliate, exploit or harm another person is contrary to the Quranic moral vision.
It can begin with humiliation, control, entitlement, misogynistic language, silence, victim-blaming and a community deciding that what happens inside another person’s home is none of its concern.
The Quran’s social ethic in Sura Al Hujurat (49:10–13) addresses social harm while affirming human dignity and communal accountability, forming part of a broader framework to prevent harm from becoming normalised.
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The application of Sura At-Takwir
Few Quranic questions are more haunting when placed alongside violence against women than that posed in Sura At Takwir:
“For what sin was she killed?” (Sura At-Takwir, 81:8–9)
The verses refer specifically to the female infant buried alive, a condemned practice of pre-Islamic Arabia. Yet the rhetorical force is profound: the victim asks why she was killed.
The moral burden is placed where it belongs, not upon the victim but upon the act of violence and those responsible for it.
The sanctity of human life
In Sura Al Ma’idah (5:32), in the context of a decree concerning the Children of Israel, killing a person unjustly is described as though one had killed all humanity, while saving a life is likened to saving all humanity.
The women behind South Africa’s statistics
When a woman is murdered, the question should not simply be: “How many?”
We must also ask: “Who was she?”
And perhaps, in the spirit of Sura At Takwir: “For what sin was she killed?”
From punishment to prevention
A Quranic response to GBV cannot stop at punishment after violence occurs.
Law, shelters and survivor support are essential but must be accompanied by deeper ethical transformation. Legal measures alone cannot transform the moral, cultural and relational conditions in which violence is reproduced.
A theory of socio-moral disruption and ethical restoration
The Theory of Socio-Moral Disruption and Ethical Restoration calls for moral consciousness, relational accountability, regulation of harm and collective responsibility. It complements existing interventions by moving from reaction towards prevention and long-term transformation.
This means educating boys and men about responsibility, challenging interpretations of religion that turn responsibility into entitlement, creating communities where survivors are believed and supported, and encouraging religious leaders to address harmful attitudes rather than remain silent.
And it means understanding that preventing harm is itself a moral obligation.
But numbers, while necessary to document the scale of suffering, can never communicate the full reality of a human life.
GBV in the context of Palestine
The perspective of what the numbers reflect is particularly important when placing it in the context of Palestine.
Just as we must see the woman behind the statistic in South Africa, we must also see the Palestinian behind the statistic.
The Quranic principle of karāmah does not allow human worth to depend on geography, nationality, religion or political circumstance. Human dignity is rooted in our shared humanity.
The question “For what sin was she killed?” must compel us to look beyond statistics, whether the statistic is a murdered woman in South Africa or a Palestinian life lost amid devastation.
The ethical principle is the same: see the human being. Recognise their dignity. Refuse to normalise their suffering.
Conclusion
We need to change what we count. Statistics reveal patterns, expose crises and help measure whether interventions are working. But statistics alone cannot transform the values that produce violence.
Qiwāmah asks us to understand responsibility as protection rather than domination.
Wilāyah asks us to understand that we are responsible for one another.
Baghy and ẓulm teach us to recognise transgression, injustice and the abuse of power.
Karāmah reminds us that every human being possesses dignity that must be protected.
And Sura At-Takwir leaves us with a question that should disturb our conscience: “For what sin was she killed?”
Not only by counting how many women have died, but by asking what kind of society allows their deaths to become statistics. Not only by seeing the women behind the statistics, but by seeing every human life behind every statistic. Because behind every number is a person. A name, a family, a story, a future, ultimately a life that mattered.
Fatima Khan-Wise recently completed a Master’s in Islamic Applied Thought cum laude. Her dissertation explored gender-based violence in South Africa through a Quranic Maqāṣidi ethical framework. Her thesis specifically examines domestic and intimate-partner violence, and its broader ethical framework provides an important lens through which to understand the moral and relational conditions that allow violence to persist. She is also the founder of Sharing Hope, a nonprofit working locally and globally to improve the lives of children.
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