For family honor, she had to die. . .
"Heshu Yones, a West London teen, fought off her father for a frantic 15 minutes. She ran from room to room in her family home one Saturday afternoon until he cornered her in a dingy bathroom, held her over the tub and slit her throat.The father, a onetime Kurdish freedom fighter from Iraq, told authorities that his only daughter had to die. The 16-year-old had sullied the family name, he said, by dating without his permission."
Here's more on honor killings by the numbers.
Posted by Discoshaman at November 27, 2005 11:05 PM | TrackBackThe article you cite seems to treat the honor killing as a 'cultural' rather than a religious tradition — as something evidently rooted in the intertwining of familial & economic life in some societies that are closer to their pre-industrial forms than our own. Do you know whether honor killing has any clear root in broadly accepted understandings of Islamic teaching, current or past? Or are we looking at a practice that's been sustained in societies that have adopted Islam, but that has no necessary connection to Islam as religious system? (Or are both possible accounts partly true somehow?)
Posted by: paul bowman at November 28, 2005 01:20 AMHi there!
I'm not an expert on the region, but I'm happy to answer to the best of my knowledge.
One thing to consider is that your question isn't necessarily applicable to the region we're discussing. Many Americans have come to think of culture and religion as two divisible objects. That wasn't the case for most people in the West a few centuries ago. Nor is it the case today for most people in the Middle East.
Also, Islam has a strong tendency to efface much of local culture when it takes over. Ask the Persians if you need an example. My Iranian friends who are patriots are angry to this day about it.
Even were that not the case, the cultures in question aren't new converts to Islam, as say, some of the regions of Africa. Islam is historically intertwined with the local folkways at this point.
I don't know to what extent the practice has explicit Koranic support. But I tend to be concrete about these issues -- I'm more interested in how Muslims view an issue than what the debatable text says. And everywhere from the Pacific Rim to London where you have MUslims you have honor killings. And they're practically the only ones doing them.
On any practical level, honor killings are a Muslim practice.
Here's a quick article on the numbers of these things: http://www.atsnn.com/story/103165.html
Posted by: Discoshaman at November 28, 2005 03:18 AMWhen I read these accounts I was struck with the similarities of these killings with those of defiled women in the OT. I don't want to be controversial but it seems that the OT tradition/law was that if it was found that a female was not a virgin at marriage, or was raped and no one heard her scream, she was to be stoned to death or must marry her aggressor (see Deut. 22:13-30). I don’t know what to do with passages such as these. It seems a zeal for purity can be taken way too far. Yet, these honour killings seem to have an origin which is not just Muslim. Cringe.
Posted by: missmellifluous at November 28, 2005 06:22 AM"Yet, these honour killings seem to have an origin which is not just Muslim."
Yes and no. Much of Muslim doctrine is a bastardization of the Judeo-Christian biblical tradition. For example, one of the Scriptural justifications for Mohammed being the Prophet comes from a pretty laughable interpretation of a passage in Deuteronomy.
One source I read said that the killings predated Islam and grew out of patriarchalism, etc. It was from a pretty ideological source though, so I'm not quite willing to take it at face value. If you dig up anything solid, please let me know and I'll post it up. :)
One thing isn't disputable though -- honor killings definitely had a Middle Eastern origin, but Islam has carried it around the globe to cultures which never knew it before.
The people who are killing women in the name of honor are doing it both for tribal (or clan or familial) reasons AND in the name of Islam. Again, the two aren't separable to many Muslims.
In fairness, I'd point out that family and religion aren't separable in my mind, either. Ours is a Christian family in a real, covenantal sense.
Posted by: Discoshaman at November 28, 2005 07:50 AMPaul-
Funny coincidence. . . I was just about to answer your blog notification request email.
We're back, incidentally. ;)
Posted by: Discoshaman at November 28, 2005 08:27 AMHere is a link I found this morning that could fit this blog.
Late abortion followed 'honour killing' of young father by British Muslim family
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/11/27/nabor27.xml&sSheet=/news/2005/11/27/ixhome.html
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