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Why Honor Killings Happen
Ricardo Ramirez Buxeda, Pool / AP Photo
Fathima Rifqa Bary believes her father will murder her for converting to Christianity from Islam. Asra Q. Nomani on how intolerance in the Muslim community has given credence to such fears.
A Florida judge ruled this week that a 17-year-old runaway girl, Fathima Rifqa Bary, must return to Ohio so courts there can decide whether she can be reunited with her family. This story should appear as maybe a paragraph in USA Today’s roundup of state news. But, rather, it’s headline news—because the girl, known as Rifqa, converted to Christianity from Islam and she claims her father will kill her if she returns home. ABC News is running the headline: “Christian Teen Flees Home, Says She Fears Honor Killing by Muslim Father.”
As a mother—and a former rebellious teen in my own docile way—I know this story is a lot more complicated than the headlines. Rifqa could be “the drama queen” that some commentators following the story are concluding. The courts will settle this out, I’m certain. To me, the bigger question is: Why has this story struck such a chord? It’s not just Islam-bashing, as some might claim. To me, Rifqa Bary’s saga has become headline news because the Muslim community of the 21st Century has allowed an ideology of honor killings and intolerance to seep into our communities, making Rifqa’s story plausible.
We have allowed an ideology to survive into the 21st Century making “apostasy,” or the act of converting out of the faith, a crime punishable by death.
We have allowed laws to stay on the books from Egypt to Afghanistan, making it a crime to convert out of Islam. We have allowed an ideology to survive into the 21st Century making “apostasy,” or the act of converting out of the faith, a crime punishable by death. And we have to admit that we allow a culture of intolerance to exist. On the road to Mecca in the winter of 2003 on the pilgrimage called haj, I looked out the window of our tour bus at the sign above the exit ramp, leading folks away from Mecca. The sign for the exit ramp read quite simply: “Non-Muslims.” The government of Saudi Arabia doesn’t allow people who are not Muslim into Mecca. Furthermore, the government of Saudi Arabia doesn’t allow churches in the country. Meanwhile, in the hinterland of the province of Punjab in Pakistan, we have Muslim militants killing Christians, as they did this past summer.
But it isn’t just the stuff of faraway places. Last week, I picked up a pamphlet at the Madina Market in Herndon, Va., a popular stop for local Muslims shopping for halal (or kosher) meat and spices. The title: “Combat Kit Against Bible Thumpers.” It’s written by Ahmed Deedat, a Muslim writer revered by many inside the community. The publishing house is the International Islamic Publishing House, based in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. It lays out the ways that the Israelites were “insatiable whores.”
It’s the politics of interpretation playing out again in our Muslim world, just like it does on issues like whether women have to cover their faces with veils
The problem emerges with parenthetical phrases that are now inserted into the translation. A perfect example is from “The Noble Qur’an,” published by the King Fahd Complex for the Printing of the Holy Qur’an, based in Medina, Saudi Arabia. Its translation reads: “Guide us on the Straight Way. The Way of those on whom You have bestowed Your Grace, not (the way) of those who have earned Your Anger (such as the Jews), nor of those who went astray (such as the Christians). This version can be found all over the internet on translation services like “iqrasearch.com
The task for Muslims, I believe, is to rid our community of these parenthetical phrases. We read this first chapter of the Qur’an every time we stand in prayer. How we understand it in our hearts is critical to how we engage with the rest of the world. The parenthetical phrases feed the ideology of intolerance that makes it plausible that a Muslim father could conceivably kill his daughter for converting to Christianity—rather than seeing this headline story as just another example of a generational conflict.
Asra Q. Nomani is the author of Standing Alone: An American Woman’s Struggle for the Soul of Islam. She is co-director of the Pearl Project, an investigation into the murder of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl. Her activism for women’s rights at her mosque in West Virginia is the subject of a PBS documentary, The Mosque in Morgantown. She can be found on Facebook, and reached at asra@asranomani.com
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Asra Q. Nomani is the author of Standing Alone: An American Woman’s Struggle for the Soul of Islam. She is co-director of the Pearl Project, an investigation into the murder of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl. Her activism for women’s rights at her mosque in West Virginia is the subject of a PBS documentary, The Mosque in Morgantown. She can be found on Facebook, and reached at asra@asranomani.com
RELIGION: The root of all evil.
i disagree. man's bastardization of religion is dangerous is more agreeable to me. i feel this because of the fact that a lot of good has come from religion. not so much the acts and superstitions that have obstructed man's perception of reality but how parables and lessons of the Bible and Quran have inspired kind acts and a better understanding of humanity.
If the good of the religion embraced by a believer is not great enough to overcome the evil in the believer than it makes the evil worse.
Well spoken. It's the moderate and tolerant Muslims who will win the day in the long run, but the reactionaries and those who profit (politically or financially) from such intolerance will do everything they can to hold on to power and control.
so called christians must have really strayed from the words of JESUS TO BECOME worthy of death , jessus taught love thy neighbor not to kill them.
so called christians must have really strayed from the words of JESUS TO BECOME worthy of death , jessus taught love thy neighbor not to kill them.
i am a Christian married to a Muslim. i chose not to convert. my in-laws have never been anything but loving to me and respectful of my beliefs. our children are choosing their own way based upon our examples and the guidance of God in their own hearts.
All abrahamic religions are dangerous, islam happens to be the most dangerous as of right now. I also laughed out loud reading she converted TO christianity after being a muslim; if she doesn't get it now, she never will.
Wildest has devined some of the answer, but its not that religion is evil or perverse, but that islam is a political scheme much like communism etc, to control all aspects of society. The principle example being various muslim education systems, its either memorize the koran or drive a cab. They have marginalized their societies by diminishing their education systems, because the mullahs fear an enlightened populace would in all liklihood desert islam or convert to a coherent less violent form of religion.
Islam as taught by the (un edited) Qur'an is a coherent and peaceful religion, however, if the masses are kept uneducated and illeriterate and connot read the good book for themselves they are only left with what the mullahs tell them it says and as we can see their power over the people has corrupted them. I am a Christian and I have read the Qur"an.
Thats why I carry a .357 with Silver Bullets
Hunting werewolves?
Asra or someone who understands please explain what does the passage mean without the parathentical phrases added? My guess is that it means exactly what it says so why suggest removing them?
To respond to your guess that "it means exactly what it says," it does not. Much like the Bible, little in the Qur'an is exactly anything. The short answer to your question "what does the passage mean without the parenthetical phrases added?" is that what is between the parentheses is not in the Qur'an at all. What it says is closer to, "Show us the straight path. The path of those you have bestowed Your grace upon, and not those upon whom is anger, nor those who go astray." There's no mention whatever of Jews or Christians.
Now the longer answer, if you're interested. This passage (called in Arabic a "sura") was written in the early period when Muhammad and his congregation were still at Mecca. They were small and vulnerable and had many enemies. In fact, the early Muslims were persecuted often until they eventually fled to the nearby town of Yethrib, now called Medina. Partly as a result, there is some justification for interpreting passages like this as referring obliquely to those who it isn't politic to speak of openly. Jews and Christians, for instance, although considered fellow "people of the Book", were believed to have muddled God's message over the years. For this reason, it isn't out of the question to interpret "those who stray" as referring to one of those communities. Those who incur anger could frankly be almost anyone. In my (non-Muslim, Middle East scholar) opinion, the Fahd interpretation is wrong and politically motivated. If The Opening refers to any specific group - and there's no reason it must - it's more likely to point to the pagans of Mecca who were much more a threat to the Muslims than were the small number of Jews and Christians. The Qur'an really doesn't have much to say that's critical about Jews until the move to Medina, when Muhammad had to confront several large Jewish tribes who were not "on board" with his rising political power. At that point, the People of the Book confronted political reality and reality won. Before then, Muhammad probably had little interaction with other monotheists, but since he had an interest in co-opting them, such visceral language is unlikely to have been directed toward those groups at this time.
All of this, by the way, is an interpretation that places the revelation of the Qur'an in historical context, something that a pious Muslim would strongly disagree with, since it implies that the text was applied to circumstance and thus is not eternal and unchanging.
I live in Florida and I read about this child, and its more like cult like and the conservative right are fighting on her behalf, i wonder what they would do if someone from there convert to Judaism , being a Muslim i think Honor killing is out of place in today's society whether its here or overseas, here place is with her family but the judgeknow want to know if shes legally in the US. wow what a story , what would the prophet's do, Jess es, Moses, and Mohamed.
How long will it be before they put out a fatwah on Asra Q. Nomani? You cannot win with this hellish teaching.
1. she is being supported by the christian fundamentalists who converted her.
2. it is a crime to hurt her in any way here in america.
3. it wouldn't be an honor killing, it would be an execution.honor killings are tolerated in some countries but they are still illegal.
4. all of the countries ms. nomani mentions are in BED WITH THE U.S. how would you like to live in one of those countries.
5. what does non-muslims not being allowed to Mecca have to do with this topic.
6. ahmad deedat is responding to the huge push from the missionaries in war-torn muslim countries and of course, muslim communities (like mine) in america, the u.s. army has hundreds of soldiers who feel obliged to bring the word with their guns.
As a secular humanist I find it impossible to conceive how another human being could kill another and call it honorable! It's paradoxical that in order to preserve the sanctimonious "integrity" of ANY faith one would resort to killing others who act "out of faith." This was the convoluted ethos that fueled the killing machine known as the Inquisition. The freedom to make personal choices should be the universal religion of humanity. I can empathize with this young woman's plight. After breaking away from my family's religion of Orthodox Judaism, I was declared "dead"in their hearts and minds. I have not seen or heard from them-despite my overtures-in more than 40 years. Religion is often an awful, punitive thing.
RELIGION: The root of all ignorance.
Ignorance: the root of all religion.
Thank you.
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