Honour Killing - An Islamic Practice?

If we google honor killing we will find page after page of websites stating "Islamic Honour Killing", "Honour Killing is an abhorrent Islamic practice", "Islamic crime of honour killing", "Muslim honour killings", etc. I have also had to refute this on this forum a number of times. This post is not an attempt to dismiss honour killings, indeed an abhorrent crime, usually against women, all too often practiced by Muslims but this post is an attempt to examine the claim or belief that this is an Islamic or purely Muslim practice, rather than a purely cultural one. According to the report of the Special Rapporteur submitted to the 58th session of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights in 2002 concerning cultural practices in the family that reflect violence against women (E/CN.4/2002/83): The Special Rapporteur indicated that there had been contradictory decisions with regard to the honour defense in Brazil, and that legislative provisions allowing for partial or complete defense in that context could be found in the penal codes of Argentina, Ecuador, Egypt, Guatemala, Iran, Israel, Jordan, Peru, Syria, Venezuela and the Palestinian National Authority. Scotland Yard believe there were 12 'honour killings' in the UK last year and said they were not restricted to Muslims, but also occurred in Sikh and Christian families. BBC NEWS | UK | England | London | 'Honour killing' father begins sentence . If we google the following names we will see that honour killings are not only a Muslim form of murdering a family member: Faten Habash - Christian from Palestine Miriam Atef Khella (shot and husband killed) - Coptic from Egypt Doaa Fares - Druze from Israel Geeta Aulakh - Sikh from London, UK Sunita Devi and Jasbir Singh - Hindu from India These are all horrific murders of young people by cultures who believe they can remove a blot on their communal or family honour by killing their own family/tribe members ... barbaric, yes ... a religious practice, no. Religion remains an important part in many peoples lives, not least in those societies for honour based violence. A majority (but by no means all) of current known cases arise in Muslim cultures or sub-cultures, leading some to conclude that there must be textual backing for the practice, and that therefore an honour killing is a religiously mandated murder. Although some honour killers do justify their

crimes by their religion, many others act in the name of tribal, caste, class, nationalist or other identities. An honour killing, seen as an act of vigilante murder, has no support in the key Islamic texts, and similar crimes have been recorded in Hindu, Sikh, Druze, Yezidi and some Christian societies. Anatomy of honour-based violence | Stop honour killings! I would rather die than lose my honour...Our whole life is founded on honour. If we lose it, we have no life, we become swine. If we lose our honour, we are just like swine. Were no better than animals. Sirhan, age 35, interviewed in ABC documentary The Lost Honor of Sirhan after serving a six month sentence in Jordan for killing his sister who had fallen victim to rape, 2003 This is the mentality we are up against and my problem with all the "Islamic honour killings" stuff is twofold: 1. It accuses Islam of something it is not responsible for, does not advocate and does not in any way approve of. 2. It allows the practice to continue because Muslims shrug and say it's not Islamic and then ignore it and non Muslims simply shrug and say what do you expect from Muslims and then ignore it. Honour killings are horrific crimes of murder and we must educate ourselves on the topic so we can educate others and stamp out this practice in the Middle East and Asia. Brinda Karat, the AIDWA general secretary. "A large number of caste fatwas are being issued every year by the dominant castes in the country against inter-caste marriages. The most unfortunate part is that it is increasing every year,'' she claimed. Among the worst-affected areas are Punjab, Haryana and western Uttar Pradesh. In Muzaffarnagar district, 13 `honour killings' were reported in the first nine months of 2003, while in 2002 there were 10 such killings and 35 couples were declared missing by the police. "About 10 per cent of murders in Haryana and Punjab are honour killings,'' Ms. Karat claimed. The Hindu : Victims of 'honour killings' recall horror We also have to accept that honour killings occur in Western societies. We have both the temporary insanity and crime of passion plea in cases where a spouse is murdered due to infidelity. In such cases the murderer is often charged with manslaughter rather than murder. Honour is something our legal systems still recognises, even though we have moved on from it being a community issue.