Islam and Honour Killing

OK, this isn't the start of a new series or anything. But I've published all of the "Islam 101" articles I have written online, and they have been read by people, and I recently had a private request from a reader to write one specifically about honour killing, which I covered briefly in my article "Islam Oppresses Women". I was hesitant at first, but eventually decided to grant the request, and here's the result, relatively brief since it was a "made to order" piece, but just as juicy. Enjoy:

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ISLAM AND HONOUR KILLING

It seems that honour killings are widespread in the Islamic world. But just how widespread are they? How much of a problem is honour killing within Islam? And does it have anything to do with Islam?

The answer to the latter question is slightly more complicated than yes or no. Islamic spokesmen will, of course, state that there is nothing in Islamic teaching which would encourage such a thing. This may be technically correct. But the commonality of honour killing in the Islamic world, coupled with other important evidence, suggests that these murders may be fostered by cultural attitudes of shame and honour, rather than an emphasis on individual responsibility, which have been inculcated by Islamic values.

For example, in 2003 the Jordanian Parliament voted down, on Islamic grounds, a provision designed to stiffen penalties for honour killings, claiming that the laws "violated religious traditions and would destroy families and values". In a sad but inevitable consequence of this, a man who in 2007 murdered his sister because he thought she had a lover was given only three months in jail, which was suspended for time served, allowing him to walk free. But even before that, honour killing was hardly treated harshly in Jordan. In 1994, a sixteen year old girl was tied to a chair by her thirty-two year old brother, who then slit her throat and ran out into the street shouting, "I have killed my sister to cleanse my honour!" Her crime was that she had been raped by another brother, a twenty-one year old, and her judge and jury were her own uncles, who decided that she was too much of a disgrace to the family to be allowed to live. In the end, the killer was given a 15-year sentence, which was later reduced to seven.

Another country rife with honour killings is Pakistan. In 2006, the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan estimated that about a thousand women are killed for honour there every year. In 2001, a Pakistani woman had both her eyes, nose and ears gouged out by her husband, because he wrongly suspected she was having an affair. He was arrested, but male relatives shook his hand and decided that she "must have deserved it".

In Iraq in 2003 a seventeen year old shot his mother and half-brother because he thought they were having an affair, and killed his four year old sister because he thought she was their child. He claimed that he did all this to "cleanse its [his family's] shame". The same year in Baghdad, another woman was killed by a male relative for suspected adultery. The killer cut off her left hand to display as proof to tribal leaders that the deed had been done.

In Egypt in 1997, a man whose daughter had eloped cut off her head and carried it down the street proclaiming, "Now the family has regained its honour." In Iran in 2002, a man beheaded his seven year old daughter because he suspected that she had been raped by her uncle. He said: "The motive behind the killing was to defend my honour, fame and dignity". Some people called for this man's death under Islamic law, but ironically only the father of the victim can demand the death sentence.

Honour killings are also extremely common in Palestine. In Gaza in 2005, five members of Hamas shot a woman to death, brutalised her corpse, and savagely beat members of her family, because they believed that she had been engaging in "immoral behaviour". In 2003, a Palestinian girl became pregnant after her brothers raped her. Her mother demanded that she kill herself, and when the girl refused, the mother killed her by wrapping a plastic bag around her head while she slept. "This is the only way I could protect my family's honour", the mother said.

But no longer is this culture of honour killing confined to the Middle East. This practice has now come to eastern Europe with Muslim immigration. A Turkish woman was killed by her brothers in 2005 for leaving an arranged marriage. One young Muslim in Germany thought she deserved her death, saying, "Well, she lived like a German, didn't she?"

And now, with the murders of Aqsa Parvez and the Said sisters, honour killing has apparently come to the West, too. It may not be widespread at the moment, but it will spread unless something is done about it.

So what CAN be done about it? Muslim leaders will no doubt continue to deny that it has anything to do with Islam, claiming that honour killing is a cultural practice. But it is not as simple as this. In many parts of the Islamic world, religion and culture are fused together; these lands are enmeshed and permeated with their religion, so much so that a dinstinction is not always easy to find. Muslims often tell us that Islam encompasses all areas of life, leaving no aspect untouched, and this is so - Islam's culture of shame and honour has left its mark on the Islamic world. Not only do many Muslims commit honour killings, but they also often imbue it with religious significance, and justify it by invoking Islam, as was the case with the Jordanian Parliament.

And so it becomes increasingly encumbent upon Muslim leaders around the world to work against this culture. It is all very well repeating endlessly that Islam does not justify honour killings, but such denials are not working in any way to prevent people from committing them based on religious principles. What are these same Muslim leaders doing to teach against the attitudes that lead to honour killing? Without them taking action, the problem is unlikely to go away.

Indeed, it's likely to increase.