Some Thoughts on Honor Killings

This is a guest post by one of our readers, Um Imran.

Bismillah Irrahman Irraheem

These are some thoughts on the recent killings of two young Muslim girls apparently by their own father and the strangulation of Aqsa Pervez in Canada, allegedly done by her father. What are the assumed reasons for the two twisted Dad’s infanticide? Of course, because of the “evil” Islam and the so-called “honor” killing of women who don’t live up to some supposed sacred standard of righteousness!

Then we have the outrage and shock that the “biased Western media” (from now on known as BWM, or just BM for short) and their gesticulating finger wagging at us poor Mozlems and how we silently condone these murders and how we supposedly side with the twisted Dad’s and try to justify their sick actions…..NOT!

It is not just the fact that over and over so many Ulema and Imam’s would be crying out and condemning these murders without hesitation, or articles (like this one) or many others would be written and discussed and hashed over. Never, never would anything like these sad and horrible murders be justifiable and no mercy should be given to the perpetrator, whether it is their own fathers’ or someone else who felt he needed to “cleanse” the world of unrighteousness.

How curious and what an odd coincidence that almost the same day as the murder of the two Said sisters, there was a guy in the same state of Texas who murdered his ex-girlfriend and her new boyfriend, and also barbecued and ate her? Why isn’t that action being thought of as an “honor” killing? He obviously felt dishonored by his ex-girlfriend’s “betrayal” and felt totally justified to make her his dinner. Or maybe it was because of his faith? There are many belief systems where eating someone is a way of keeping them alive? I wonder how that type of defense would work in court?

What about the mother in Washington D.C., who apparently starved her four daughters to death because she said they had “demons” in them. Of course, it is common practice for Christians in the United States to blame demons for any and all criminal acts. Does that have anything to do with Christianity? I wonder…..maybe they need to take a good long look at the way their teaching Christianity and try to see how could a mother be so heartless and cruel and justified to do that because of the supposed “demons” that we all know exist, right?

At the same time we must admit that many Muslims would be sympathetic to the fathers of the Said girls and Aqsa Pervez. As a parent of teens and young adults, it is a challenge and a humungous test to raise our children as good Muslims. Heck, to just get them to be decent upright human beings seems, at times, daunting. The teenage years are the worst, as we all should know and realize. And I think for immigrants much worse because they are not ready to face the promiscuous and sex-ridden society that is the modern day West or even in the East. Actually to me I don’t see in today’s world there truly is a wide gap between East and West any more. Whatever goes here; goes there as well.

For parents to recognize that children are growing up and becoming adults, who will have adult needs and desires, is a tricky path to tread. First of all the parents must face their own middle agedness and admit they are getting older, too. (What a slap in the face that can be.) Parents have to understand their responsibility for guiding children toward halaal outlets. What are halaal outlets you ask? Well, one thing they should consider early marriage or at least early engagements for their high school and college age children.

A more important point that we should realize as parents…. actions of our children can and will be forgiven by Allah (swt). And we know that no situation is without hope. Allah (swt) always listens to the prayers of the parents. We should never give up on our children and constantly make du’a for them.

We all know that Allah (swt) condemned those ignorant people who used to bury their infant daughters alive during the time of Rasulullah (sas). Those fathers killed their baby daughters because it was a shame in that society to have daughters. So, Allah (swt) forbade killing an innocent baby. But, in our modern society, many fathers will justify killing their immoral and indecent daughter because of her lose of innocence. Thinking that in some way he is “protecting” her from further evil. Yet, we know that Allah (swt) can forgive any sin and the Prophet (sas) gave us a very good example of Allah’s mercy and forgiveness when he (sas) told us the story of the prostitute and the thirsty dog.

We should also remind ourselves of another hadith of our beloved Prophet (sas) that told the story of two men, one righteous, the other a sinner. The righteous man was always advising the sinner to give up his sinning and become righteous. The sinner, one day, told the righteous man, leave me alone with my Lord. The righteous man became angry and condemned the sinner to Hellfire. So Allah (swt) resurrected both and questioned the righteous man on what authority did he have to condemn the other to Hell. So Allah (swt) forgave the sinner his sins and sent the righteous man to Hell for his mistake of taking Allah’s rights away and becoming the other man’s judge and punisher.

Allah (swt) reminds us over and over, if we desire mercy and justice, than we should have mercy and justice in our dealings with others. And the most important relationship that we have is our family relationship. Allah (swt) will examine our relationship with our family first. Everyone will be judged according to their behavior among their kith and kin.

We can think that the fathers of Aqsa or the Said sisters were probably bad Muslims or even bad fathers….but the reality is that they will face Allah (swt) with what they have done and whatever the people might be saying is irrelevant.
That Day will surely be a Mighty Day for us all. May Allah (swt) forgive the believers, guide the disbelievers, and keep us upon His straight path. O Allah, do not leave any of us in charge of ourselves even for a second. Help us to know the right from the wrong, the truth from the false, and the sure reality of a Day yet to come.