THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Volume X, Issue # 249, September 29, 2008
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
Government Committed to & Acting in Accord with Conservative Principles
Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity
DOES ISLAM JUSTIFY HONOR KILLINGS?
By Supna Zaidi
CULTURE, RELIGION, IDEOLOGY, & HONOR KILLINGS: WHAT DRIVES A MUSLIM FATHER TO MURDER HIS OWN
DAUGHTER IN THE NAME OF FAMILY HONOR, SHOW NO REMORSE FOR HAVING DONE SO, & THEN RAVE & RANT AT
BEING SERVED HAM SANDWICHES WHILE IN PRISON, DEMANDING THAT HE BE PROVIDED HALAL FOOD INSTEAD?
WHAT IS THE ROOT CAUSE OF SUCH BEHAVIOR -- TRIBALISM, ISLAM, OR ISLAMISM?
FULL STORY:
Sandela Kanwal wanted a divorce for unknown reasons. Maybe her husband in Chicago was a wife-beater. Maybe she just
didn't like him. We don't know. For months, she had been trying to get her father to end her unhappy marriage, and, in July,
2008, Sandela tried again. This time, Chaudhry Rashad strangled his daughter to death. When the police arrived, he stated
that he did nothing wrong and later demanded that he be provided halal food while in jail.
What kind of an ideology causes a man to show no remorse for murdering his own daughter, but rants and raves at being
served ham sandwiches while in prison? The media picked up the story quickly and asked, "Is Islam to blame?"
On CNN, Zuhdi Jasser, of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy, tried to paint Rashad as a backward cultural
aberration, stating:
"It [the honor killing of Sandela] has nothing to do with
Islam. This is a tribal, medieval mentality that is seen in
tribes in Pakistan and India, and often is not even seen
in Islamic communities. It's basically part of the
ignorance of the tribal community.
On Fox News, Irshad Manji, on the other hand, stated that these killings are often done in the name of Allah and
compared them to honor killings in the last century in Italy, which were carried out by Catholics. She notes that these
killings are often done with the name of "Allah dripping from their lips."
The media and moderate Muslims like Jasser and Manji miss the point. The victim was not Islam, but a 25-year-old girl. An
honor killing is defined as the murder of a girl or woman who has allegedly committed an act that has shamed and
embarrassed her family. For the family to show its community that the family has reasserted control, the woman is killed.
Thus, "harm to reputation" is a partial or complete defense to murder. No passage in the Koran discusses honor
killings, but Muslim clerics justify them and secular Muslims either do not punish them or pass laws to mitigate
punishment for them. With this, Muslims make honor killings a part of Islam.
Honor killings are justified under Islam in some Muslim countries such as Saudi Arabia. For example, tenth-grade textbooks
teach Saudi children that it is permissible to kill adulterers. In April, 2008, a girl was killed by her father for talking to a boy
on Facebook, an online social networking website. A leading Saudi cleric, Sheikh Ali al-Maliki, was outraged that
girls had access to such websites where they could post pictures of themselves and otherwise "behave badly," but showed
no concern over the girl actually killed.
Honor killings are justified as a necessary part of culture in other Muslim countries such as Jordan, which is technically a
secular kingdom with a representative parliament. In 2001 King Abdallah presented a bill outlining stiff penalties for honor
killings, but Parliament rejected it, stating, "it [punishing honor killings] would encourage adultery and create new social
problems." Four years later, honor killings accounted for one-third of all violent deaths in Jordan in 2005, where perpetrators
received as little as six months in prison under the penal code.
Secular Iraq offers no punishment. Consider the following anecdotal evidence. This year, a 17-year-old named Rand
Abdel-Qader was killed by her father because she had a crush on a British soldier. The arresting Iraqi sergeant stated:
". . . not much can be done when we have an ‘honor killing' case.
You are in a Muslim society and women should live under
religious laws."
The father also killed his wife, who left him after the murder of their daughter. He will not be prosecuted for either murder in
Iraq.
Leaving honor killings at the doorstep of illiterate villagers, as Jasser does, ignores the problem on a humane level in favor
of intellectual debate. The more secular, educated elites of Muslim countries may not be so backward as to commit such
crimes themselves, but they know it is happening and prefer to look the other way. The upper and middle classes have a
responsibility as civic and political leaders to defend women through education, the law, and enforcement of meaningful
punishments. The "Qatif Girl" case in Saudi Arabia is a good example. Attorney Abdul Rahman al-Lahem represented a
gang-rape victim who was punished for being with non-related men (the rapists) without a chaperone. Al-Lahem lost his
license for bringing the case to the media. Following international pressure, the disciplinary committee at the Justice
Ministry in Riyadh agreed to return the license.
Irshad Manji's analysis hit closer to the truth, but is incomplete. By bringing in Catholic honor killings a century ago,
Manji throws in the "you too" defense — the "you" being the West — and implies that such murders will fall out of favor
as societies modernize and become more secular.
Neither Jasser nor Manji addresses the issue of accountability. Chaudhry Rashad was not raised in a vacuum. If moderates
reinforce the line that honor killings are "dripping" with Allah or are part of Eastern culture, those prone to such violent
acts will continue on the same path. No Muslim will claim theological authority to enforce change from the mosque. Nor
will Muslims be forced to act now if the implication from Manji is that culture takes centuries to evolve. But, if everyone
starts pointing the finger at Muslim society collectively and asks, "why do you let this happen?" maybe change will finally
come.
Such reorientation away from divine "Islam" to fallible, human "Muslims" would move violence such as honor killings from
the margins of society into the spotlight.
This will allow the current tangential debate of whether such killings are religious or cultural to finally end so we can focus
on the girls who continue to be killed daily.
LINKS TO RELATED TOPICS:
Islamism & Jihadism -- The Threat of Radical Islam
Page Three
Page Two
Page One
Middle East -- Arabs, Arab States,
& Their Middle Eastern Neighbors
American Foreign Policy -- The Middle East
International Politics & World Disorder:
War, Peace, & Geopolitics in the Real World:
Foreign Affairs & U.S. National Security
Page Two
Page One
Islamist Terrorist Attacks on the U.S.A.
Osama bin Laden & the Islamist Declaration of War
Against the U.S.A. & Western Civilization
Islamist International Terrorism &
U.S. Intelligence Agencies
Counterterrorism & U.S. National Security
U.S. National Security Strategy
Supna Zaidi is Assistant Director of Islamist Watch, a project of the Middle East Forum. She can be reached at
zaidi@meforum.org.
The foregoing article by Supna Zaidi was originally published in Pajamas Media, September 27, 2008, and
can be found on the Internet website maintained by the Middle East Forum, a foreign policy think tank which seeks to
define and promote American interests in the Middle East, defining U.S. interests to include fighting radical Islam,
working for Palestinian Arab acceptance of the State of Israel, improving the management of U.S. efforts to promote
constitutional democracy in the Middle East, reducing America's energy dependence on the Middle East, more robustly
asserting U.S. interests vis-à-vis Saudi Arabia, and countering the Iranian threat.
(Article URL: http://www.meforum.org/article/1988)
Republished with Permission of the Middle East Forum
Reprinted from the Middle East Forum News
mefnews@meforum.org (MEF NEWS)
September 29, 2008
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THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
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Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
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