Human Events Online | Vasko Kohlmayer | June 26, 2007
A spate of grisly murders across Britain has recently drawn attention to another of Islam’s disturbing traditions. The institution of honor killings has not received the level of exposure accorded to some other distinctively Islamic practices such terrorism and beheadings, but it’s certainly worth learning about as it offers invaluable insights into the mindset of this resurgent religion.
By way of definition, an honor killing – a time-honored Muslim custom – is the murder of a female by members of her own family for sexually-related misconduct. The kind of behavior which qualifies as such ranges from adultery through wearing ‘inappropriate’ clothes to wanting to marry someone outside one’s own tribal group.
The last was the transgression of twenty-five year old Samaira Nazir of London. Spurning the offer of a pre-arranged marriage to a man chosen for her in Pakistan, she instead fell in love with an Afghan refuge, a Muslim also. For years she kept the relationship secret, but in the end she wanted to hide the truth no longer. Upon hearing the news, her father ordered her to break things off. When she refused, it was decided that she should die. Seized upon in her family home, she was violently attacked by her father, brother and cousin. Her screams alerted a neighbor who knocked on the door only to be told that the young woman was ‘having a fit.’ Moments later, Nazir managed to escape and ran out but her executioners caught up with her on the entrance porch and pulled her back by the hair. As the door was being shut, witnesses outside saw her waving her bloodstained arms. When the police finally arrived, they found her body slumped in a pool of blood with a scarf wound tightly around her neck through which three deep cuts had been made. In addition, Nazir’s body bore eighteen stab wounds inflicted with four different knives. The investigation revealed that she was held down by her own mother as her male kin went about their ghastly task. Nazir’s two cousins – girls aged two and four – were forced to watch to teach them what happens to a woman under Muslim law who refuses to abide by her family’s wishes.
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