A friend of mine passed along this New York Post column about a Pakistani immigrant's strangling his daughter -- in Georgia, outside Atlanta -- because she cheated on her husband and "wanted to end her arranged marriage."
The crime, which the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports on, is awful; and this murderous practice should be condemned more broadly, as should fellow community members and police who turn a blind eye to this sort of behavior, or to similar "honor" violence that falls short of killing.
But at the same time, I'm not sure that I'd cite this as an example of the barbarism or menace of Islam, as I've seen some do. It probably is connected in some measure to Muslim attitudes towards women and towards sexual behavior. But unfortunately very similar practices are common in many cultures, including our own.
To begin with, it remains the law in America (and I suspect many other Western countries) that if a spouse -- who will usually be the husband -- kills the other spouse shortly after discovering the spouse's adultery, the killing may be classified as a manslaughter rather than a murder. Manslaughter is generally treated as a far less severe crime, with far lower penalties.
It's true that the killing has to be done in the "heat of passion," and the ostensible theory is that the crime is in some measure more understandable and more forgivable because of its emotional basis, not that the crime is justified as a matter of honor. Still, my sense is that much of people's sympathy with the killers has to do with the fact that they were dishonored, and not just distressed or angered for reasons unrelated to their sense of their own honor. And in any event, regardless of the rationale, the law does make killing of an errant spouse into something less than murder -- not the same as the killing of a daughter for her dishonoring the family name, but not very far from that, either.
What's more, until the 1970s, this very same state of Georgia sometimes allowed spouses to kill their spouses when necessary to stop or prevent an act of adultery with no criminal consequences at all -- such killings were considered entirely justifiable, and not just mitigated from murder to manslaughter. See Scroggs v. State, 93 S.E.2d 583 (Ga. App. 1956). Even in the 1975 case that rejected this rule, one judge praised the rule and would have retained it. From 1915 to 1925, Texas courts took the same view, though apparently limited to husbands killing their wives. See Cook v. State, 180 S.W. 254 (Tex. Crim. App. 1915).
And until the 1970s, Georgia, Texas, and two other states expressly allowed husbands to kill their wives' lovers. (Some of the states extended this privilege to wives as well, and some didn't have a "heat of passion" requirement.) One of the cases elaborating on such a statute, State v. Greenlee, 269 P. 331 (N.M. 1928), specifically argued that the law "recognizes the ungovernable passion which possesses a man when immediately confronted with his wife's dishonor." Plus it is generally believed that juries have often acquitted the killers in such situations -- including fathers who killed their daughters' lovers, precisely on "honor" grounds -- even independently of the law. To quote another Georgia case (from 1911, quoting an earlier case from 1860), "What American jury has ever convicted a man for slaying the seducer of his wife or daughter?" That has likely changed in considerable measure since 1911, but my guess is that it remained largely true at least until recent decades.
And that's just the legal system's toleration (partial or complete) of such killings. As a matter of practice, many murders and even more assaults in America each year stem from adultery, perceived adultery, or even just a desire for a divorce.
Naturally, none of this remotely justifies the Pakistani father's killing of his daughter (though under some of the broader manslaughter statutes, such as the "extreme emotional disturbance" statutes that track the Model Penal Code, it's possible that his act would be mitigated to manslaughter).
But it does suggest that we shouldn't treat this sort of "honor" killing as somehow especially telling of some unique regressiveness on the part of Muslim or Pakistani culture; unfortunately, this isn't that different from the regressiveness of some American subcultures, and of the law in some parts of America until a few decades ago. And while we should react with outrage at this honor killing, we should likewise react with outrage at the much more typical (for America) killings of non-Muslim wives and girlfriends -- and husbands and boyfriends -- who seek to leave a relationship, or who have even committed adultery.
Related Posts (on one page):
- Killing of Sexual Partners as Mere Manslaughter:
- "Honor" Killings, Muslim and Otherwise:
(Several years go, a wronged wife offed her husband by running him over with her Mercedes (IIRC) several times. The prosecutor, in her closing argument, said it best: "If your husband is cheating on you and you want revenge, take him to the cleaners." Much more sensible, IMHO.)
I believe Italy used to have a law like this. There was a movie from the 1960's or thereabouts called "Divorce, Italian Style" where said law was a major plot point. The main character wanted to be rid of his wife, so he tried to arrange things so that his wife would have an affair and he would "discover" her in the act and kill her. Under the law, such a killing would get him a sentence of 3 to 9 years, and he figured his high social status would put him at the low end of that range.
Also, it's the phenomenon of "if I have to live by these new rules, I'm sure going to make sure HE follows them."
My objection is to claims that this is somehow a uniquely Muslim problem that is especially telling of the special problems of Muslim culture.
You've sort of touched on two different issues that make the American laws different, the fact that they have mostly been rejected, though only fairly recently, and the fact that they have mostly focused on the person who was "wronged" because they were cheated on. I wonder if another difference isn't also important. Do other countries have the concept of a mens rea? Obviously, you can argue that lessening the degree of culpability under the rubric of mens reas is just another way to allow patriarchal and violent tendencies to be excused, and that's definitely true at least in part. But it seems to me that if a criminal system focuses only on the act, then the excusing or lessening of these crimes is even more reprehensible. After all, it isn't only in these situations that we excuse someone because they have no mens rea. We also excuse those so insane they are incapable of distinguishing between right and wrong, those who act in reasonable but mistaken self defense, etc. All of these focus on the mens rea of the defendant.
That being said, as long as they're on the books, I think this sort of thing absolutely qualifies. Violent crime? Check. Committed with the intent to terrorize others like the victim? Double check.
String the SOB up.
Well Paw and Ma were so durn sore
They woke me up one night
There was an awful cussin'
And Ma said Paw was right
They was awaitin' sister Bess
Who never kept her word
The sun came up as Bess came in
And this is what I heard
Slap her down again, Paw
Slap her down again
Make her tell us more, Paw
Tell us where she's been
We don't want our neighbors
Talkin' 'bout our kin
Slap her down again, Paw
Slap her down again
I think you are missing something quite important here. Killing someone due to adultery touches on a farily primal emotional nerve -- jealousy.
The urge to kill your daughter in a honor killing, however, is quite something else. It is a reaction to deprivation of property. One can be jealous without treating one's wife like property. But the father is not jealous of his daughter's lover, he is treating the daughter's lover like a thief. And that attitude of propertization, while not unique to Islam and once existed in Anglo-American law, is very different from our modern tolarence of jealously.
I don't doubt that jealousy is primal, but family honor is as well, and I don't see why one is any more a justification than the other.
Great post, Prof. Volokh.
One is distance in time. In stark contrast to the heat of passion caught in the act situations that get/got leniency here. 'Honor killings' often occur much later. This shows an obvious premeditation, which I think would increase the level of criminality considerably under our system...
Another difference is the way the whole family participates in a conspiracy to regain said honor. Any who might help an American plan & execute (pun unintended) the killing of an adulterous spouse would be in huge legal trouble and would be expected to talk the relative out of murderous vengeance.
People are not perfectly rational beings. Violence and intense emotions are relatively normal human activities. For this reason, simply imposing dissociated ideals on people with no regard for their actual experiences can lead to anarchy.
The law of in flagrante delicto, for all its faults, attempted to recognize the often primitive nature of human emotions in the intensity of their passion.
It may well be possible for society to move gradually away from it. But when judges make decisions that totally and utterly ignore the overwhelming power emotions can sometimes have on ordinary in ordinary situations -- for example, court rulings that failure to withdraw in the middle of orgasm if a person one has been having sex with for an hour suddenly says no constitutes full criminal rape -- diminishes rather than increases the law's justice. Justice is not the extent to which the law conforms to ideals of abstract perfection. It is the law's ability to reach people and affect their behavior as they are, in their present state.
Rational laws are not necessarily good for people. People are often not rational. Why should one assume that rational laws will always the right solution? Why should any rational person assume that conformance to theories of reason is any better an indicator of potential success than empirical evidence of people's concrete experience? Judges, in our society ask if laws conform to ideals. They aren't empowered, or trained, to ask if they actually work, whether their net effect is to improve or to harm people's lives. Nature is so often counter-intuitive and so actually doing experiments and collecting evidence so often surprises what our reasoned intution expects. Judges, of course, have no ability to experiment and our adjudication of the validity of laws isn't based on such a method of inquiry. But why shouldn't we expect that sometimes our laws will sometimes have the same counter-intuitive qualities that nature's laws so often seem to have, so often proving our best-reasoned hypotheses wrong? Sometimes the most senseless-seeming laws may be the ones that work.
http://www.law.com/jsp/article.jsp?id=1088439688811
In rejecting the reasoning of Mazza, the Pennsylvania court illustrated the cultural gap involved. Mazza had basically beaten Huuffaker up and slashed his tires, the jury who had decided the case had not only refused to award any counterclaim but specifically found it justified, and in addition to upholding the damage awards, the Court of Appeals had upheld this part of the verdict, essentially saying that one is completely legally excused from an assault in these circumstances even if no longer from a murder. Perhaps we should be grateful that a few bruises was all the physical damage that was done, and perhaps providing people an outlet less than murder may have a net result of fewer murders.
The article says North Carolina abolished heart balm torts. It hasn't.
http://www.rosen.com/ppf/Law/Divorce/rosen/201/articles.asp
I think the aspect of these honor killings that Americans find especially disturbing is that they aren't done in the heat of passion, but very deliberately, often with the approval or even participation of other family members. Also, the rationale for these killings is often not adultery, but such things as not being religious enough, dating a boy without parental permission, seeking a divorce or even being raped
Because, of course, we all know that it's only in the most rural of areas that there are any remaining traces of barbarism.
As for adultery, that's a different matter entirely. I'm actually appalled that you seem to think adultery is not a crime at all, that a married woman is entitled to betray her husband if she likes to. The fact that so many people seem to hold such an attitude shows how degenerate our society has become. Perhaps this also explains the divide between those who see same-sex marriage as a terrible blow to the institution and those who just can't comprehend what the problem is.
It occurs to me that the abstraction required to compare these two cases seems to eliminate the basis for the original criticism, which seemed to be that a foreign culture is introducing (additional) barbarism, menace, and unique regressiveness relative to American culture.
Where does he say that?
It is certainly true that these killings are prevalent in tribal societies which include Afghanistan, Kurdistan, Pakistan, India and even Turkey. We therefore frequently encounter them in the UK among immigrant communities.
The killings are not confined to cases of adultery but extend to girls who do not wish to marry the choice of their parents, or who wish to marry across tribal or sectarian divides.
Religion really has nothing to do with this - but with the view of women as "property" - a father's to dispose of before marriage and a husband's to dispose of after marriage
and that is a view of women deeply ingrained in many cultures. Indeed - a woman had more rights in Islamic law than she did here in England before the passing of the Married Women's Property Acts in Victorian times.
While the cultural issues may be mitigation, it is really quite important in these cases to balance them against the deterrent role of criminal sentencing. There is a message to be got home: "There is no religious dimension to this, such practices are forbidden by all faiths - these are customs born of ignorance. However you may treat your women back home, here we do things differently - and if you chose to live here you play by our rules" - and I say this as a 60+ year old male member of a minority - and there are many other Muslims in this country who are active in cultural education programs to combat a barbaric phenomenon.
Using the mere existence of a 'heat of passion' defense to link the American justice system to middle-east tribalism is just odious.
Either you don't understand the reason behind that defense, or you choose to ignore the fact that heat o f passion does not only apply to sexual jealousy, or you failed to do basic research into honor killings and find out that many of them would not qualify under the current restrictions of that defense.
I am astounded that a person involved with law would make such basic errors, and can only conclude that your desire to make the comparison blinded you to the fatal problems with the analogy.
Heard it before.
I'm surprised anybody wanted to waste pixels on that old theme.
Nevertheless, honor killings occur in Canada (Sikhs)
In the United Kingdom, they occur in immigrant Christian and Sikh families as well.
Furthermore, while each such murder is an abomination, Scotland Yard believes that there were 12 last year - not exactly the "thousands" posters fervently believe in.
Finally, just like most regular Americans don't go around lynching minorities neighbors or running them out of town before dusk, most Muslims dont go around killing our wives and daughters.
Also, honor killing is uniquly Muslim, and has nothing to do with Arab culture that predates Islam by centuries. So lets use it to call all Muslims savages, and all Americans super civlized, and awesome!
The difference between "honor" and "justification" is more than semantics; one demands that a person act (your family's honor is at stake!), while the other may excuse the action once it occurs (you might face a reduced sentence if you meet the right criteria).
"Compulsion to act" and "ex post pardoning" are quite different--and failing to acknowledge this distinction is intellectually dishonest.
Well, of course. Why would anyone but a Muslim kill someone for being insufficiently Muslim?
In the Middle East, honor killings are certainly not just in the domain of Islam. Jordanian Christians kill their daughters over offenses of perceived dishonor. Furthermore, this practice isn't widespread in the largest Muslim country, Indonesia, or other Muslim regions outside the Middle East. There is much more explanatory value describing this phenomenon as a trait of the tribal culture of the Middle East than a practice of Islam.
Granted, there is probably a sexist double-standard at play in Western law. But a crime of passion defense does makes some sense if it happens in the few moments after leaning of the indiscretion...
They'd been dropped in order to avoid annoying the Asians. It's a Brit thing, apparently. Anyway, upon addressing additional attention to the cases, they have run into resistance from the community.
SURprise.
The numbers, IIRC, were in the low hundreds.
If posters want to say that Islam hasn't managed to extirpate pre-Islamic culture, I can go with that. But the extraordinary connection between Islam and the societies in which it is dominant make that a bit....tough to believe. Just a bit. And, as it works out, the attitude of the community is interesting.
Jordan, for example, an enlightened society, still refused a couple of years ago to extend honor killing penalties, as a matter of religious freedom. No reference to hillbilly Islam needing to be fixed. None.
Gee, wasn't I called a commie just the other day when I staked out the position that it was illegitimate to kill someone in defense of property.
I'm so confused.
The entire self-defense discussion post-Heller on this blog (particularly by the likes of Richard Aubrey, ejo and Clayton Cramer) have reveled in the idea that blowing away someone who looks at you crosswise is perfectly legitimate even if they don't pose a threat to your personal safety.
I take issue with this premise. Reducing a murder to manslaughter (or making it second degree, etc) is ostentisbly in recognition of the wrong committed by the victim that provoked the killing. The emotional factor only goes to degree, the precipitating misdeed is the moral difference.
Or would you say that "castle doctrine" killing is ostensibly justified by the emotional response of thieves' intent to make exclusive use of property once under your exclusive control?
While the facts are still developing in that case, the Dallas case referred to by Sam Hall is a clearer example of the temporal distinction between such an "honor" attack from the immediacy of the stimulus that allows a jury to differentiate between a premeditated murderer and a spouse who kills someone in the heat of discovery of sexual infidelity. In that case the girls had left athe home but were lured back apparently days or weeks later for the purpose of their murder. In the NY case, taking the assailant at his word as to his motivation, he seems to have been acting on the basis of something other than a single emotionally charged betrayal of his views of the sister's familial and cultural obligations. He describes her going to clubs, dressing in a manner that he considered dishonorable and making plans to leave the family and it is doubtful that they all occurred within minutes or hours of the attack. This seems to be a significant distinction from the cuckolding cases. Additionally, what "right" or even "interest" cognizable to modern Western culture does the NY brother have to control, or even object to, his sister's actions that is truly comparable to a spouse's expectation of fidelity, a virtually universal expectation among Western couples? Should the expectation of control which he may have from his cultural background be considered from a public policy standpoint to be "valid" enough to serve as a basis for reducing intentional muder to manslaughter where the victim offended that expectation and caused emotional upset? Of course, should outrage at the flouting of the cultural expectation of fidelity in marriage be sufficient as a partial excuse for what would otherwise be an intentional murder? Modern American society may say not, i.e. don't run him over, "take him to the cleaners". Should there be an objective standard as to the "acceptability" of the basis for the excusatory emotional state or should it be simply a question of whether he was, in fact, on whatever subjective basis, reacting emotionally to such an extent that he should be at least partially excused? Would that encourage honor killings/attacks? It appears that this issue will come up in this country more often than we may think now, despite the somewhat excusatory disavowal of any religious basis for such attacks in the linked report as to the NY case.
Sorry about that.
Arabs and hillbillies are the same in one way. Make eye contact with one of them by himself and you've got a friend for life.
In groups, the hillbillies go the stock car races.
J. F. Thomas
Dah. In Honor killings you don't kill the guy that seduced your daughter (stold your property). You kill your daughter!
Big diff.
If someone is taking you new gold rims, you shoot the SOB. You don't get the rims back then destroy them because they let themselves be stolen.
What you are saying makes no sence. You kill the thief not the property.
This is why honor killings are so bad.
Kill the guy who raped your daughter, Americans will understand even approve but they will problity send you to jail.
Let the rapist go and kill your daughter. Americans will never understand, should never understand, and they should convict you of capital murder and fry your ass.
The two are no where near the same. As has been said above.
Stupid moral equalivalence when there is none. Not even close.
Do try not to bleed on the floor when you cut yourself with a rusty wit.
I gather, although IANAL, that first degree murder requires premeditation. How long is the emotion which causes a murder allowed to run (days, weeks?) before it ceases to be a reason to drop to, say, second degree murder?
IOW, while I'm white hot with anger, I'm whitehotangrily planning the murder, whitehotangrily recruiting my sons, brothers, nephews, and neighbors to help me, and organizing same.
Eventually, the premed ought to be dominant, oughtn't it?
You'd think so. But as EV points out:
No, that's not the same as your second example. But it's close enough that it should give us pause. So when you say:
First of all, I'm not certain whether you're directing that at EV's post or just to J.F. Thomas. If it's the latter, than this point doesn't apply to you, only to those commenters who did accuse EV of drawing false equivalences.
Of course you're right that we should reject false moral equivalences, but EV hasn't suggested otherwise, nor has he drawn any. He compares behaviors which admittedly overlap only marginally. But he draws the comparison to illustrate similarity, not identity. His purpose isn't to blur moral distinctions. It's to warn us off from going overboard trying to squeeze each fact and nuance into a manichean world view. And his argument stands on the same logical ground as rejecting a false moral equivalence, the only difference being that he's rejecting a false moral polarity. Both fallacies over-generalize by conflation. So it's at least a little ironic that some commenters would recognize the flaw in a false equivalence, yet obliterate the difference between that and what EV actually said.
It's understandable that we'd want to contrast our enemy's flaws with our own strengths. But it doesn't concede any moral high ground to recognize that not every story can end with that contrast drawn in its starkest terms. And acknowledging the inevitable grey areas isn't the same thing as blurring the areas that are indeed black and white.
Yes, Scotland Yard will 'fess up a dozen in Britain. Who knows how many more are written up as accidents, suicides, whatever?
What happens when such a lynching does occur? It's a huge deal: the perpetrators are hunted down and punished, the victims are compensated, it's treated like a crime. Does the same thing happen in a Muslim community when there's an honor killing? If not, why not?
Likewise, that we consider adultery to be morally contemptible doesn't mean that we think people should be thrown in prison for it (while some states have criminal bans on adultery, my sense is that they've been enforced quite rarely throughout American history, perhaps more rarely than restrictions on expression that we now consider protected). And it certainly doesn't mean that we think people should be killed for it, much less that killing for it is "noble."
But beyond this, your argument is hardly a defense of Stucky, because it doesn't say anything at all about "honor," which to Stucky is some sort of you-know-it-when-you-see-it touchstone for when killing is noble.
Pakistani families murder girls for refusing arranged marriages.
Arab families murder girls for "impurity" - loss of what is called ird. This impurity is viewed as a form of contamination which defiles the entire family. It is not guilt for sinful acts, as it applies to rape victims.
Both of these classes of "honor killings" share a fundamental similarity - the killer asserts that his honor, or that of his family, is intolerably injured by the actions (or condition) of another party, even though these actions do him no harm.
The vengeful spouse reacts to an injury to him or her; he may, as a point of honor, feel required to punish the offender. But that also applies to the traditional code duello.
Eugene's posts do point out that this form of killing is not something specific to Muslim peoples or societies, and I feel he's been very fair in his assessment.
On the other hand in several comments to the post there seems to be a lack of differentiation between "Muslim" culture and "Islamic law"; they certainly do not equate. Muslim cultures are diverse and are certainly not informed only by Islamic theology and law, but by their ethnic and regional cultures as well and the proximity of those to the rule of law and its application. I've found that in many cases of Honor Killings, there is an element of lawlessness in the society due to tribal influences, etc. that is not found in many other Muslim societies. With Muslim societies spanning from Morrocco to China, it seems a bit premature to condemn them all while (from what I have seen) most cases that have arisen in the American context are limited to people of Palestinian and Pakistani origin; hardly indicative of the entire "Muslim" world.
To compare Islamic to American law here would seem to be the more logical parallel.
Here we're dealing with two issues:
1- Parents killing a child.
2- Spouses killing one another.
Classical Muslim jurists held two opinions on a parent’s murder of his/her child. Many held that while the parent would not receive the default punishment of execution, they still would be liable for other forms of punishment such as jail time, etc.
Another group of jurists held that a distinction should be made based on mens rea. Those parents that murdered with malice aforethought would be executed like any other murder. If there is evidence that the parent did not possess mens rea, then the parent may not be charged with murder, but may still be liable for a lesser charge that do not necessitate execution. They hypothesized on a parent that was reprimanding their child physically but then was carried away through anger or some other factor to mistakenly kill the child. No difference was made in classical books as to the genders involved.
As for spouses killing each other for infidelity, then no difference was made as to mens rea. Murder in this case was murder, even if (as stated in the books) a man were to find his wife in bed with another man. Any murder committed would be charged as such.
The whole point here is that the act in and of itself was never tolerated by Muslim jurists as a question of law, even though (and sadly enough) tolerance of such has crept into some (certainly not all nor most) Muslim cultures.
Why is it tolerated in Muslim cultures? Ask a social scientist. As a question of law however it has always remained constant.
While we're asking social scientists...?
Point is, it's happening, and, as you point out, in communities with certain distinctive backgrounds.
Except in Texas where I believe the family was from Egypt.
So let's be cautious about (name here) and not others.
My point is that Eugene brought the question up as one of law. If that is the case, then "Muslim" law doesn't tolerate such acts, in fact compared to the statutes mentioned Islamic law seems a tad bit more stringent.
If you want to paint it as a "Muslim" issue, thats not possible, except in a very broad sociological sort of way in that it is present in some "Muslim" societies. If it was a purely religious phenomenon we would see it through out the Muslim world. But we don't.
If it was a purely tribal phenomenon we would see it through out the Tribal world. But we don't.
Peculiarly enough, in societies that are very religious and at the same time very tribal, we don't see any instances of honor killings, namely all GCC countries. I have never heard of such acts in the west African areas of the Muslim world, nor in Southeast Asian parts. As other commented the same happens in Arab Christian populations (specifically Levantine), and there was a case last year with a (I believe) Zoroastrian girl in Iraq. Hindus and Sikhs seem prone to this as well, and we still have a number of cases in the Latin American world as well as rural America where things like this persist.
If we're to discover the effects of religion or culture, we'd have to research it. There does seem to be common traits amongst many of the cases. They come from countries that are not only economically and socially repressed, but are religiously repressed as well. People cannot freely practice Islam or any other religion for that matter. In many of these societies "religion" becomes merely cultural practice, and is used to vindicate all sorts of oppressive acts when in fact the edicts of that religion are against such acts. If I recall it was one of the Islamist parties of Jordan that demanded honor killings be punished more staunchly and not dealt with any differently than murder. Populist parties opposed. Go figure.
Looking at those cases that have presented themselves in the States, I named those nationalities that many (if not most) cases have emanated from. You're right, there does need to be more thorough research done before attributing it to any one nationality or background. But knowing the nationalities of those involved will help in a case study.
There does seem to be a common denominator amongst all of the cases in the states (including the dallas case): when asked it does not seem the men we're very "religious" muslims and were unknown at their local mosques.
This is all besides my whole point, i.e. that as a question of Islamic law it has never been ambiguous. For us Americans, racial discrimination is unambiguous as a question of law and we probably have more sophisticated laws than many other countries, but with all that racism is still present in our society.
If we really want to know why it is happening (and continues to)then social scientists are the ones to ask. Because in the end of the day, for many laws are made to be broken.
Maybe we ought to ask the Islamic jurists to get off their asses and make a difference.
Consider that the perp is usually helped by members of his immediate family. Call that active cooperation. And he's helped by others in the community in a passive sense in that they don't drop the dime, nor answer honestly when asked. So call that passive cooperation.
There are a lot of folks who are accessories either before or after. It isn't just one nut-case perp. And I suspect that, sooner or later, some of these folks aren't going to be found to be practically unknown at the mosque.
In the UK, Muslim cops tell the local nutcases where Muslim girls are hiding in police-sponsored safe houses. Mobs show up to support the outraged father and brothers. This is, as I say, more than one nut-case perp. You're coming close to making the case for closing up immigration for specific nationalities, or even deporting those already here.
When Muslims reject the idea of "honor" killing, and of the moral inferiority of "infidels" and the legitimacy of spreading their creed by violence, they will be on the road to civilization. Until, then let us not pretend that their religion is anything other than excuse for barbarism.
Some people find it helpful to read the thread before commenting.
Fat man read it. As did I.
I said, more or less, "yeah, America's just as bad, probably worse. Old theme. Seen it before."
Question is why the history of such is considered relevant to the issue at hand. Considering that the history of such includes state-sanctioned punishment and public reproach. Among other things. And no scriptural backup.
Same o. It's as if the prof were a...hm... professor or something.
IN ISLAM IT IS FORBIDDEN FOR A MUSLIM WOMAN OR GIRL TO MARRY A NON MUSLIM MAN.
IN ISLAM IT IS OK FOR A MUSLIM MAN TO MARRY A NON MUSLIM WOMAN.....AS LONG AS HE TRYS TO CONVERT HER TO ISLAM....AND RAISE HIS KIDS AS MUSLIM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
sooooooooo........the question is........what are you supposed to do when a muslim woman falls for a non muslim? the answer has always beeennnnnn people.....honor killings or other forced crap!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
sooooo I don't want to hear anymore that this is not an Islamic problem. Not one muslim in this world can argue what I just said!
Does
suggest that he read
?
Read the part I mentioned, about how it's just as bad here.
I read it.
Didn't like it.
As to who and where --not in Indonesia--it would be interesting to see for sure. Since, if that's true, the world's largest Muslim nation has fewer honor killings than Britain. Hard to follow that.
However, pointing out that, if true, some Muslims don't does not contradict the assertions that some Muslims do.
IMO, the only misreading is the "only" piece. And we find that Christians in Jordan, a predominantly Muslim country, have picked up some bad habits from their neighbors. Some may insist that hillbilly cultural traits have survived a thousand years of Islamic pressure to stop. Okay. But how do you explain the Christians...? They have the pre-Christian, pre-Muslim cultural traits too? Are these Christians from the earliest times, before the Arab conquest of the ME, or are they Christians from the post WW I protectorate status?
The problem with that, Richard, is that EV never said "just as bad." You and Fat Man and others accused him of saying it, but he never did. And there's a big difference between "just as bad" and "too similar to pretend they have nothing in common."
I don't know whether it's true, but if it is, it's not so shocking if honor killings are more culturally Arab than Muslim.
I don't pretend to know. There were certainly pre-Islamic Christian Arabs, but which contemporary Christian Arabs, if any, are their descendants, I have no idea.
There are circumstances where "too similar..." is useful.
There are circumstances where it means "just as bad so shut up already".
This is one of the latter.
WRT Indonesia: You think Indonesia has fewer immigrants from pre-Islamic cultures than Britain does? My guess is there is a problem with the reporting.
Keep in mind that ten percent of the folks surveyed thought that the Bali bombings were a justified way of "defending the faith". The Bali bombings were in response to the UN--with the Aussies in the lead--depriving the locals of their slo-mo genocide of Christians on East Timor. IOW, slo-mo genocide is part of the faith, or at least the privilege to do so, is part of the faith. Stopping it is attacking the faith and blowing up the night club is defending the faith.
So I'd be interested in the reporting, not the reports.
Pat Robertson or Jerry Falwell say something nutty and all Christianity is supposed to apologize, and the thing never goes away. Years later, it will be hauled out to show how dumb fundies are.
After Beslan.... A couple of Muslim clerics nobody ever heard of said it wasn't Islam and...the entire thing is in the memory hole. Far, far down the memory hole.
It's all good. For one side.
I will be awaiting the multi-volume re-writing of Marshall Hodgson's great work that LM and nhertel are sure to publish soon. Mere assertion does not make it a fact. The great thing about the internet is that if you know a fact you can link a reference.
I will repeat my statement that "As far as I know, it ["honor" murder of one's own children] is something found and sanctioned only among Muslims."
It is not a fact, it is a statement about my knowledge. But, I have seen nothing here or elsewhere that has caused me to doubt my knowledge.
Some above have argued that "honor" murder is a nasty habit of Arab tribal culture that survived the rise of Islam.
The first problem with this deflection is that the subjects of the case lined by Eugene above were not Arabs. They were Pakistanis apparently from the Punjab. As such they are most likely members of an indo-iranian ethnic group, more related to Europeans than Arabs who are Semites. So, even if the habit is not Muslim, it cannot be limited to Arabs.
Second, it is a misunderstanding of Islam's role in pre-modern societies to assume that it somehow displaced traditional mores. Christianity calls traditional peoples to be born again as members of the eklisia, the body of Christ, in which there are no tribal or national distinctions. It asks them to abandon traditional mores. English speakers, being mostly Christian, do not understand that other religions can be very different.
The invaluable Spengler points out that "Islam by its nature cannot be separated from primitive life." Islam is a codification and sanctification of traditional mores, not a challenge to them.
This is why sharia is anathema and why Muslims must change their opinions before they can be accepted as fully civilized.
But yet we have this from just before it...
i.e. case in point.
If you close your eyes tight enough while driving, you'll never know if a car is going to hit you. Doesn't mean it won't. Wonderful thing about the internet these days as well is that there is this amazing new service called Google, wherein a person enter words into a magic box and information shows up out of thin air, the same information that used to be in links.
Nothing so far has been shown that Honor killings are inherent to Islam or supported by Islamic law. Everything said so far are mere assertions about culture (cultures that those speaking of them admittedly know little about).
And well we have this great quote again:
So we can argue culture superiority/inferiority all day long, but then again much of culture is relative. Even at a glance, there is nothing in Islamic law that would influence or help develop a concept of honor killings.
Why did honor killings continue on into the 20th century when for centuries Islamic law ruled MENA lands? One explanation is that the Islamic state was never a nation/state, and people were given personal autonomy for the most part, until a dispute or crime were brought to trial.
Why then when modern codified systems entered the Muslim world did honor killings continue? One explanation might be that under those systems Islamic law was sidelined and only implemented in many, certainly not all, civil cases.
Modern legislatures allowed the people to codify those parts of their cultures they saw fit, and sadly Jordan, Egypt and Syria all have statutes on the books allowing a person who commits an honor killing to gain complete clemency. When Islamic parties under these democracies (cough*cough*) attempted to repeal these statutes, they were met with opposition. So the Islamic jurists, when they did get off there ***** and try to make a difference, were opposed.
Opposed by who?
Well it doesn't seem to be Islamists or the religious sectors of those countries. It would seem that those in opposition were those defending something they saw integral to their "culture".
This is of course if Honor killing as a cultural phenomenon were specific to Muslims, where use of the magic box shows that it is not.
That said, this thread is really no longer a legal discussion, so I will not comment on it after this unless an actual comparative discussion is had.
Good night and good luck
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