Bismillah [IslamCity] Islam and honor killings
Honor Killing and female infanticide come from Pagan-Hindu-Judio-Christian traditions. Here is a solid evidence of honor killing from the Bible: For God said, 'Honor your father and mother' and 'Anyone who curses their father or mother is to be put to death.' [Matthew 15:4] Here are a couple of verses from Vedas that may encourage people to kill their daughters: O Husband protect the son to be born. Do not make him a women. [Atharva-Veda 2:3:23] Almighty God, you have created this womb. Women may be born somewhere else but sons should be born from this womb. [Atharva-Veda 6:11:3] One can find many such verses in Hindu scriptures. According to Vedas, women are supposed to pay dowry to men. Moreover, according to Hindu tradition, only sons are supposed to fire up the funeral pyre of their parents. On the contrary, there is no such verse in the Quran (or even in Hadiths) nor there is any Islamic tradition that may encourage people to kill their daughters. In fact, female infanticide and killing children are directly forbidden in the Quran: When news is brought to one of them, of (the birth of) a female (child), his face darkens, and he is filled with inward grief! With shame does he hide himself from his people, because of the bad news he has had! Shall he retain it on (sufferance and) contempt, or bury it in the dust? Ah! what an evil (choice) they decide on? [Quran 16:58-59] The girl who was buried alive is asked: For what crime was she killed? [Quran 81:8-9] You shall not kill your children due to fear of poverty. We provide for them, as well as for you. Killing them is a gross offense. [Quran 17:31] So, it appears that some Muslims are going back to the dark ages of Pagan-Hindu-Judio-Christian traditions although Islam came to abolish them! They are evolving in reverse direction in spite of having the Quran [the most positive Book in the world] in their hand! Maybe Muslims and non-Muslims have interchanged their religions, secretly!?! LOL! Every honest Jew who knows the history of his people cannot but feel a deep sense of gratitude to Islam, which has protected the Jews for fifty generations, while the Christian world persecuted the Jews and tried many times 'by the sword' to get them to abandon their faith. (Uri Avnery, a Jewish Journalist) Never miss a thing. Make Yahoo your home page. http://www.yahoo.com/r/hs
Re: Bismillah [IslamCity] Islam and 'Honor Killings'
Assalam-o-alaikum, The following is a great article about honor killing by Imam Zaid Shakir. I wish more Ulema would take the time and trouble to write about it. If there are profusely and timely published articles and lectures of this nature, educating BOTH Muslims and non-Muslims about the real teachings of Islam, many would perhaps pay heed by staying well informed and think twice before acting wildly out of sheer ignorance. That said, unfortunately there is no scarcity of the ulema out there, who, because of some fabricated hadith, do believe that honor killings can be justified at least in some cases. That belief, in my humble opinion, occurs because of their own lack of proper perspective and reflection on the essence of Islamic teachings. Wassalam, Irfan - Original Message - From: saiyed shahbazi To: eGroup For Muslims Around The World Sent: Sunday, December 16, 2007 10:13 AM Subject: Bismillah [IslamCity] Islam and 'Honor Killings' by IMAM ZAID SHAKIR For that reason, we ordained for the Children of Israel that whoever kills a soul for other than murder or spreading corruption in the land, it is as if he has killed the whole of humanity. (Qur'an 5:35) One of the gravest charges levied against Islam, in terms of its alleged antipathy towards women, is the claim that it encourages a phenomenon known as honor killings. This un-Islamic practice consists of the murder of female family members who are seen as dishonoring their families through real or perceived acts of indiscretion, such as premarital sexual relations or unapproved dating. This charge has been intensified recently due to the tragic murder of a Pakistani Canadian teenage girl, Aqsa Parvez. The practice of honor killings has absolutely no sanction in the Qur'an, the Prophetic practice, or in the evolved systems of Islamic law. In the case of fornication or adultery, the only way a charge can be levied against an individual, male or female, is through confession, which is discouraged, or by four people actually witnessing the male organ penetrating the female. Even if four people witnessed a naked man engaged with a naked woman, but could not actually testify that they witnessed penetration, their testimony would be rejected. In a somewhat related issue, it should be noted that in three of the four Sunni schools of law, as is the case with all of the major Shiite schools, pregnancy is not a proof of fornication, as the possibility of rape exists in such a case. Therefore, if a single woman were to become pregnant, according to the overwhelming majority of Islamic jurists, there is no basis for punishing her. In the few well-publicized instances where a pregnant woman has been threatened with death, the minority opinion of the Maliki School of law was unjustly evoked, as occurred in Nigeria, or criminal malfeasance occurred as is the case in Pakistan. In the case of dating, there is no Islamically-mandated punishment for a male or a female seeing a member of the opposite sex against the wishes of their families. Such situations should be handled with counseling, compassion and a healthy dose of common sense. Muslim immigrants who have migrated to the West should realize that they have placed their children in an environment where there is a tremendous amount of un-Islamic peer pressure. This is especially true if they have placed their children, as was the case of the young lady who was recently murdered in Canada, in public schools. Children who succumb to that pressure should not be seen as bad kids, for by the standards of the society that has shaped them, no matter how strong their home environment is, they are normal. To kill a female guilty of an offense such as dating or dressing like her peers under such circumstances is nothing short of cold-blooded murder, and no Islamic authority can argue otherwise. The overwhelming majority of Muslim societies are free from the practice of honor killing, although it does endure in some parts of the Middle East and South Asia. According to statistics released by the United Nations in 2000 there are approximately 5,000 deaths annually from honor killings. Even if one killing occurred due to such barbarity, it would be one too many, as the Qur'an emphasizes. However, to use the existence of such killings to smear Islam shows the desperation and misplaced priorities of many of those levying such attacks. Most of those deaths are the pathetic acts of sick individuals, who are far removed from the letter, as we have shown above, and the spirit of Islam. An example of such an individual is Muhammad Riaz, a British Muslim of South Asian descent who died as a result of a fire he set to burn to death his wife and four daughters, allegedly because his wife resisted his attempt to arrange marriages for his daughters. His wife and daughters did perish in that fire. To present Riaz, whose
Bismillah [IslamCity] Islam and 'Honor Killings'
by IMAM ZAID SHAKIR For that reason, we ordained for the Children of Israel that whoever kills a soul for other than murder or spreading corruption in the land, it is as if he has killed the whole of humanity (Quran 5:35) One of the gravest charges levied against Islam, in terms of its alleged antipathy towards women, is the claim that it encourages a phenomenon known as honor killings. This un-Islamic practice consists of the murder of female family members who are seen as dishonoring their families through real or perceived acts of indiscretion, such as premarital sexual relations or unapproved dating. This charge has been intensified recently due to the tragic murder of a Pakistani Canadian teenage girl, Aqsa Parvez. The practice of honor killings has absolutely no sanction in the Quran, the Prophetic practice, or in the evolved systems of Islamic law. In the case of fornication or adultery, the only way a charge can be levied against an individual, male or female, is through confession, which is discouraged, or by four people actually witnessing the male organ penetrating the female. Even if four people witnessed a naked man engaged with a naked woman, but could not actually testify that they witnessed penetration, their testimony would be rejected. In a somewhat related issue, it should be noted that in three of the four Sunni schools of law, as is the case with all of the major Shiite schools, pregnancy is not a proof of fornication, as the possibility of rape exists in such a case. Therefore, if a single woman were to become pregnant, according to the overwhelming majority of Islamic jurists, there is no basis for punishing her. In the few well-publicized instances where a pregnant woman has been threatened with death, the minority opinion of the Maliki School of law was unjustly evoked, as occurred in Nigeria, or criminal malfeasance occurred as is the case in Pakistan. In the case of dating, there is no Islamically-mandated punishment for a male or a female seeing a member of the opposite sex against the wishes of their families. Such situations should be handled with counseling, compassion and a healthy dose of common sense. Muslim immigrants who have migrated to the West should realize that they have placed their children in an environment where there is a tremendous amount of un-Islamic peer pressure. This is especially true if they have placed their children, as was the case of the young lady who was recently murdered in Canada, in public schools. Children who succumb to that pressure should not be seen as bad kids, for by the standards of the society that has shaped them, no matter how strong their home environment is, they are normal. To kill a female guilty of an offense such as dating or dressing like her peers under such circumstances is nothing short of cold-blooded murder, and no Islamic authority can argue otherwise. The overwhelming majority of Muslim societies are free from the practice of honor killing, although it does endure in some parts of the Middle East and South Asia. According to statistics released by the United Nations in 2000 there are approximately 5,000 deaths annually from honor killings. Even if one killing occurred due to such barbarity, it would be one too many, as the Quran emphasizes. However, to use the existence of such killings to smear Islam shows the desperation and misplaced priorities of many of those levying such attacks. Most of those deaths are the pathetic acts of sick individuals, who are far removed from the letter, as we have shown above, and the spirit of Islam. An example of such an individual is Muhammad Riaz, a British Muslim of South Asian descent who died as a result of a fire he set to burn to death his wife and four daughters, allegedly because his wife resisted his attempt to arrange marriages for his daughters. His wife and daughters did perish in that fire. To present Riaz, whose daughters had neither fornicated nor dated, as anything other than a sick individual is a sad attempt to defame Islam. To attack Islam from this angle is a case of misplaced priorities because it can distract attention from far graver abuses of women that demand immediate redress. For example, the State Department estimates that approximately 800,000 women and girls are trafficked as sexual slaves annually. The overwhelming majority of these females are taken from and sent to nominally Christian countries. Over the last five years well over one thousand women have been kidnapped and then gruesomely murdered in Guatemala. Their bodies usually turn up after a few days, mutilated and in some instances with messages such as death to bitches written on them. To date only three men have been incarcerated in connection with those attacks. Would it proper for us to infer from that situation the conclusion that the Christians of Guatemala, an overwhelmingly Christian
