We have been following the continuing plight of girls and women in some Muslim countries, particularly the occurrence of “honor killings” where relatives murder women for simply seeking to marry the men who they love or refusing become child brides after payment to their families. This long litany of cases has left few delusions but a new case in Pakistan still shocks the conscience. Sajjad Ahmed, 26, and Muawia Bibi, 18, were murdered in northeastern Pakistan for getting married without the approval. The two newlyweds were tied up and then decapitated by their relatives.
The savagery and deception of this crime defies the imagination. The family lured the two newlyweds back to the village of Satrah in Punjab province. The family then murdered the couple and turned themselves into police. The United Nations estimates that over than 5,000 women are murdered by family members in honor killings every year. In the last year, 869 women were victims of honor killings.
As I have discussed previously, I have participated for years in a program to help train lawyers and judges in dealing with cases involving the “cultural defense” where a defendant claims a tradition or religious practice as a mitigating factor or even an outright defense to crimes or civil claims. I have long drawn the line in the use of the cultural defense on such violent acts. However, there remain troubling outliers in the cases. In January 1985, Japanese immigrant Fumiko Kimura tried to commit oyako-shinju (or parent-child suicide) after learning of her husband’s infidelity. She walked her infant daughter and 4-year-old son in the frigid ocean off Santa Monica. The children drowned but she was rescued. While she had lived in the United States for some 14 years, she claimed the cultural defense (even though oyako-shinju is illegal in Japan). She was successful. Kimura received just one year in jail and five years’ probation. She then reunited with her husband.
Such defenses are likely to resonate with many in Pakistan due to the deep religious and cultural foundations for these acts. What is mindboggling is that these families believe that this is God’s will and that they are the paragons of morality in lying to a newlywed couple and then decapitating them. It is the grotesque result of cultural imprinting of these extreme views of morality.
Source: CNN
Kudos: Bert Gieseman
This is Islam, what do you expect? …And, how much money does the US give Pakistan?
Michelle wrote “Marriage is NOT fornication and it is NOT adultery”
True and irrelevant. Women are third-class citizens in Islam, so there’s lots of backstories that need to be applied. For example, read the Koranic passages about how the testimony of a women is worth half that of a man. My referenced passage of Koran 33:33 is another.
Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini married a ten-year-old girl when he was twenty-eight, calling it a “a divine blessing.” He advised: “Do your best to ensure that your daughters do not see their first blood in your house.” He did that because of the example of ‘M’ who married his favorite wife Aisha when she was 6-7 and he was in his fifties; they consummated the marriage when she was 9-10. I’ve mentioned that to Muslims who immediately tell me that I have the dates wrong, but dates are a matter of public record.
“My own niece went against all family advice and married without approval … she was welcomed back home”
But that rarely happens in India and Islamic countries. I wonder where they got those crazy ideas.
“Do not confuse hadith/Buhhari with the Quran”
I don’t, but Muslims often appear to do so.
“There is plenty of domestic violence in our country without you judging all of another country”
And I’m not excusing that. But it’s funny how India and Islamic countries are a never-ending source of misogynist news.
And you completely ignored the second and third paragraphs in my previous post. That is the explanation for how Islamists obtain a violent view of the Koran.
I agree with Michelle. I think the Professor’s point is how strangely different these other places are. But, as unfortunate as they are, let’s save the outrage for what is going here–the place where we need to act.
Once again, us Westerners trying to tell these people what their cultural writings should mean to them is a waste of time. What we read, and what it means to us as opposed to them is lost in translation–and not just in the words, but in the cultural reference points. Look at Christianity in this country. I bet the Pakistanis read stories about our snake-handling West Virginian Christians and wonder what that is all about. I wonder what that is all about. Plenty of wacky stuff here to fix!
Michelle wrote “we need to clarify that there is nothing in the Quran or established Islamic teaching that accepts or justifies honor killing”
The Koran is not arranged chronologically like the Bible. It is arranged by size of chapters. One must study the Koran to know the chronological order of the chapters.
‘M’ wrote somewhat non-violent Koranic passages at the beginning of his career because he was not free to express himself fully. Later he wrote the really nasty passages. According to the principle of abrogation, his later passages supersede his earlier ones. That’s why liberals can find peaceful passages and point to Islam being a religion of peace, while Muslims understand that only the later, violent ones are relevant.
Your statement is factually incorrect:
Koran 4:15 “If any of your women are guilty of lewdness, take the evidence of four (reliable) witness from amongst you against them; if they testify, confine them to houses until death do claim them. Or God ordain for them some (other) way.”
Koran 24:2 “The woman and the man guilty of adultery or fornication — flog each of them with hundred stripes: Let no compassion move you in their case, in a matter prescribed by God, if ye believe in God and the last day.””
Koran 17:32 “Nor come nigh to adultery: for it is a shameful (deed) and an evil, opening the road (to other evils).”
Koran 33:33 “stay quietly in your houses, and make not a dazzling display.”
Al-Bukhari: The Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) said, “Whoever guarantees me that he will guard his chastity, I will guarantee him Paradise.”
Hadith: “The woman is awrah. When she goes outside (the house), the devil welcomes her.”
The word “awrah” means “object of shame” or “external female genitals.”
Marriage is NOT fornication and it is NOT adultery. For starters. Not even if you go against your family in the marriage. My own niece went against all family advice and married without approval(good reason for not being approved) and when her husband turned out to be worse than anyone even feared, she was welcomed back home with loving, caring arms and a minimum of “told you so’s”.
Do not confuse hadith/Buhhari with the Quran, either. They are sayings and are not considered inspired. Thank you.
Oh, and what some nutjobs do in Pakistan could be compared to what some nutjobs do in our country-people who don’t want divorce, don’t approve of a marriage, or just don’t like spouse anymore. Hit and runs, murder plots, revenge murder of children, killing pregnant wives/girlfriends. Read the local news! There is plenty of domestic violence in our country without you judging all of another country based on a criminal act done by a few. At least they turned themselves in, which is more than perpetrators of domestic violence do in our country.
Michelle – I cannot remember the last “Honor Killing” by a Westerner.
My point exactly, whatever we think Pakistanis should do with fellow Pakistanis is none of our business, even such a shocking episode as this. Issac points out what we should really be concerned about is the gross inequities in our own system. Plenty of shocking stories here too.
On the ‘good country’ scale Pakistan is waaaaay down the list.
Regardless whether or not the actions of a murderer are understood, rooted in some backward society’s culture, or based on emotions, murder is murder. The Japanese woman’s actions of killing her children resulting in one year in jail shows the other deplorable extreme our courts go to. They lock up someone for smoking pot and give a free pass to someone who murders their children. Something is wrong here. But what do you expect from the land of the ‘Twinky Defense’. The appropriate sentence is life in prison for murdering your children. In Pakistan the murderers should be given the maximum for hate inspired murders. Whether or not there is a reason to kill is the decision of the state, not the individual, some religion, or an easily manipulated tradition.
The actions of the California court are not much different than the actions of the radical Islamic Sharia courts.
Jonathan, we need to clarify that there is nothing in the Quran or established Islamic teaching that accepts or justifies honor killing. That people do this does not make it acceptable to the majority of Muslims that I know-and I know more from Asia, Arabia(Levant)and Africa than I do from the US, though I am living here again.
Our collective shock at these actions prove we have no common reference point with this culture. These constant discussions of “we should do…” and “they are supposed to do….” are ridiculous. We just need to stay out and just sell them stuff we make in this country. Of course, we could try leading by example, too. I am sure they find us sending drones over to rain down death and destruction on their school kids a fairly shocking activity as well.
The Telegraph’s story, “Pakistan girl burned alive for rejecting marriage proposal,” is another angle on that. Sidra Shaukat refused to marry Fayyaz Aslam, so he entered her house, doused her with petrol, and set her alight.
The never-ending series of rapes in India, often ending in murder, is yet another angle. The Telegraph has enough stories to make you retch.
The throwing of acid on a woman’s face is all too common in India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Islamic countries. It should be severely punished, yet it is not.
Japan is also a piece of work. As I wrote in “Japan’s revisionism of its comfort women guilt is a retreat into ignorance and isolation,” Japanese people are quite insistent on demanding that people around the world forget the crimes which it committed during WWII.
And I believe that Japan is the only country in the group of Europe, North America, Japan, South Korea, Australia, and New Zealand which allows its citizens to kidnap a child in violation of court decisions, travel to Japan, and ignore the wishes of that person’s former spouse and his country’s court system
The concept of “cultural defense” in the U.S. is the logical consequence of allowing people to import their country’s hatred, fairy tales, and bias. We started by allowing religious nuts to slaughter animals the way they do in the old country. We continued by allowing burkas and face veils to be worn in public. And now we make politically-correct excuses for premeditated murder.
While (presumably) many more women than men are killed in “honor killings”, in this case, the groom suffered the same “plight” as women.
How come liberals always focus on the horrors that women suffer, but forget the men?
This is one reason why this was important in the long term and big picture:
“After a long and difficult conflict, we now have the opportunity to see Iraq emerge as a strategic partner in a tumultuous region. A sovereign, stable, and self-reliant Iraq that can act as a force for moderation is profoundly in the national security interests of the United States and will ensure that Iraq can realize its full potential as a democratic society.” ~~ US Embassy in Baghdad, Iraq website.
The US has limited cultural reach over there. An “Iraq that can act as a force for moderation” can make a difference on these issues. The terrorists understand the pivotal importance of Iraq on multiple levels. Bush understood the long-term, big-picture importance of Iraq. Revisionist critics of the Iraq mission refused to understand this.
Reblogged this on Oyia Brown and commented:
Brain washing! There is no defence.
I can see not liking your son-in-law, but this is a bit much. However, does this allow the relatives of the husband to ‘honor’ kill the relatives of the bride?
As long as we do not have a president with spine and conviction for doing something positive for the countries still living in dark age religions, we will sadly continue to hear stories like this with the same frequency. Our current president would instead talk about developing an international blasphemy law……
Giving the practice of cold blooded murder a name that contains ‘honor’ makes it sound almost acceptable. Maybe changing the name to ‘vicious, evil, premeditated daughter/son murder’ would give it a proper tone. There is no honor among thieves…..or murderers……
Anything is permissible when one pretends to have a sky-monster on one’s side.
Pirate Territory. Not a nation state. Pull out now like your father should have. That means you Obama.
Reblogged this on L'horreur islamique.
Say….. How was the wedding cake?