A Horror in the Name of Islam

Muqadas screamed in horror as her stepfather, Nazir Ahmed, covered her mouth with his hand and slit her throat with a machete. Her screams awakened her mother, and from the corner of the room, Mrs. Bibi helplessly looked on as her husband mercilessly slaughtered their other three daughters: Bano, 8, Sumaira, 7, and Humaira, 4. He only paused to brandish the knife at this horrified wife, warning her not to intervene or raise alarm.

"I was shivering with fear. I did not know how to save my daughters," Bibi, sobbing, later said in an Associated Press article. "I begged my husband to spare my daughters, but he said, 'If you make a noise, I will kill you.' The whole night the bodies of my daughters lay in front of me."

Ahmed, who was arrested the next morning, was totally unrepentant: "I told the police that I am an honorable father, and I slaughtered my dishonored daughter and the three other girls." When asked why he killed the three young girls, he replied, "I thought the younger girls would do what their eldest sister had done, so they should be eliminated."

What did the eldest daughter do to be slaughtered like an animal? She was accused of adultery by her husband, from whom she fled because he had allegedly abused her and forced her to work in a brick-making factory. Mr. Ahmed had only one regret: "I wish that I get a chance to eliminate the boy she ran away with and set his home on fire." Police have said they do not know the identity or whereabouts of Muqadas' alleged lover.

I wish I could say that the story I've related came from a Hollywood film. Sadly, however, it is the true account of a recent so-called "honor killing" in Gago Mandi, a village in eastern Punjab province in Pakistan, according to the Associated Press. The Chicago Tribune reported a similar account of an honor killing in London: Heshu Yones, a 16-year old West London girl, had her throat slit by her father because she "had sullied the family name...by dating without his permission."

The story is always the same: A woman is accused of fornication or adultery and then mercilessly slaughtered by a male member of her family to uphold the "family's honor." From where did this "Islamic tradition" originate? Where in the Qur'an does it sanction the murder of a woman on an accusation of adultery? What sort of barbarity is this?

Yes, the Qur'an, like other religious texts, does prohibit fornication and adultery: "And do not commit adultery, for behold, it is an abomination and an evil way (17:32)." But the prohibition is for males and females. So how could it be that the "family honor is stained" if a woman allegedly commits adultery, but there is no such worry when its male members "sow their wild oats?"

No one can call "defending the family's honor" an act of justice.
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