Sheikh Muhammad Nur Abdullah, ISNA President and Member of the Fiqh Council of North America, states the following: “A special incident happened in which `Aishah doubted the Prophet’s loyalty to her. Driven by high level of jealousy, she followed him, and he was going to visit the graves of his companions in Al-Baqee’. When he was returning, he saw a shade of a person running in front of him, so he chased the person (who was `Aishah), and when he got to his house, he found `Aishah out of breath, so he found out that she was following him thinking that he was going to another wife. Therefore, the Prophet got angry and pushed her, not struck or beat her as some translations may go. There is a big difference between the Arabic word, dafa’ which means to push, and daraba which means strike or beat. The second one was never been his characteristic in his whole life. And with pushing, this is the only incident that happened, and it has its own implications and details.
In many hadiths the Prophet said it clearly that hitting and beating wives is very condemned and prohibited in Islam. rather, it was not his attitude to even beat anyone. As Anas said, I served the Prophet 10 years and I never saw him hitting a child or anyone.”