Loading ...Iraqi/Muslim “honor killing” in Arizona
flockwoodAn Arizona man killed his own daughter recently. The 48-year-old father said his 20-year-old daughter had become too Westernized, and had brought shame on family, USA TODAYreports.
Specifically, the daughter had married a man in Iraq and then left the marriage, returning to the United States and moving in with a boyfriend.
It’s a horrible case and it doesn’t make Iraq or Islam look very good. But this case says more about fundamentalism than it does about mainstream Islam in the U.S..
1.) In this country, thousands of Muslims (and Methodists, Moravians and Mennonites) have children who bring dishonor on their families. Typically, these cases lead to heartache, embarrassment, estrangement and tears — not murder. Honor killings, in the U.S., are a rarity.
2.) Honor killings are not unique to Iraq — or Islam. Founding father Alexander Hamilton died in a duel with Vice President Aaron Burr. And duels were common enough in Kentucky, at one time, that the state’s lawmakers must swear not to have participated in one. And Southern lynch mobs frequently tried to portray their crimes as “honor killings.” Further more, the Old Testament not only condones honor killings, it mandates them in some instances.
Take a look at Exodus 21:17: “And he that curses his father, or his mother, shall surely be put to death.”
Or Leviticus 20:10: “And the man that committeth adultery with another man’s wife, even he that committeth adultery with his neighbor’s wife, the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death.”
According to Leviticus, the Arizona dad behaved righteously by killing his daughter. But he dropped the ball by sparing the life of the daughter’s boyfriend.
November 3rd, 2009 at 11:16 am
Excellent, so you’re saying this great man’s work is not yet done?
November 3rd, 2009 at 11:46 am
What a repugnant post. The United Nations estimates that there are up to 5,000 Islamic honor killings worldwide each year. The proper response to these events is to condemn them. Instead, you try to draw some strange moral equivalence with duels and lynchings in the United States, neither current practices. For the record, the Tuskegee Institute has documented lynchings in this country and found that between 1882 and 1968 there were 3,437 lynchings of blacks and 1,293 lynchings of whites. In other words, over nearly a century of one of the darkest practices in this country, there were about as many lynchings as Islamic honor killings which take place every year. Today. Not in 1882, not in 1804 at the time of the Hamilton-Burr duel. Today.
The father who killed his “too Westernized” daughter in Arizona ran her over with a Jeep Cherokee, which seems to show a strange degree of Westernization on his part. But who are we to criticize when Aaron Burr killed Alexander Hamilton a mere 205 years ago?
November 3rd, 2009 at 12:12 pm
Frank, to this day everyone who takes an oath under the Kentucky state constitution, which includes lawyers admitted to practice, must swear not only that we have never engaged in a duel, but also have never delivered or accepted a challenge for a duel, or acted as a second in a duel. One wonders if anyone has ever been thrown out of office for either having lied about this, or having engaged in one of these acts after taking the oath.
November 8th, 2009 at 3:28 pm
Frank,
Late reply I realize and from across the country too. As an ethnic Jew and Christian, I must say that your analogize to the Old Testament perplexed me a bit. In the Old Testament God established safe cities for those faced with revenge killings so vigilante justice was prevalent in the culture but not ordained. More to the point, the “put to death” clauses you refer to have everything to do with a system of justice overseen by Priests, Lawyers, and Judges not parents killing their children to relieve their prejudice and pride.
Honor killings are an encouraged and acceptable part of the Muslim Faith, not so for Jews and Christians. We are taught that life is precious, and that we are the ambassadors of a restored existence to God both on earth and in heaven. A true Orthodox Muslim is taught from their scripture that the lives of those with whom you disagree is of no value and should be extinguished. Evidently, even if it’s your own child.
Adam
November 12th, 2009 at 10:22 am
Quite a difference between the Old Testament law, where if one believes literally all that is said, one would also have to believe that God himself had firsthand, face to face discussions with Moses, and someone of today deciding to run over their daughter with a Jeep.
The fact that Jesus taught that old things were done away and the Law was fulfilled in him (Mosaic Law) would be so vitally important. I realize that these people are not Christian, but here is another example of why preaching the gospel to “all nations” is a commandment we still must keep.
November 12th, 2009 at 12:23 pm
That’s right, David, cause God knows murder is not a crime under Islamic law. Forty years ago, when the Ku Klux Klan was lynching blacks in the south in the name of Christ, how would you have felt if the Muslims had suggested that the reason they had a duty to convert the whole world was to end that sort of thing? My point is that there are crazy people in every religion, and wiping out someone else’s religion and culture and substituting our own for it is no guarantee that we’ll make people less crazy.