Sibling violence in the Qur'an: A psychological perspective on the abel-cain and the prophet Joseph stories

Abstract

Although the family is the safest environment for each member, sometimes violence and abuse can come from the family members. Violence causes family relationships to dete-riorate as in all other relationships among people. Sibling violence, as a form of domestic vio-lence, can sometimes have dire consequences that can result in family breakup, death or long-term loss of one of the siblings. In this study, sibling violence, which has the potential to harm family relations in such a way, will be discussed in the context of two stories in the Quran. It is aimed to contribute to other disciplines that study on this subject by examining the attitude of Islam against this violence, which affects the family, and the solutions of the Qur'an to sib-ling violence. These stories in the Qur'an are the story of Prophet Adam's two sons who nar-rate an incident of violence that result in the brother killing his brother, and the story of Prophet Joseph and his brothers who narrate the sibling violence resulting in long-term loss. Both stories provide clues to the prevention of violence in the light of the causes of sibling violence and the behavior of the victim sibling in the development of events. In addition, be-cause of the fact that these stories have taken place in the family of the prophets, they give people the message that sibling violence can happen in any family.