"Honour" killing - a self-important murdering pig speaks

A long, chilling interview in the Observer today with the father of a 17 year old Iraqi girl, Rand Abdel-Qader, who he choked, stamped and beat to death in Basra.  Abdel-Qader Ali explains why he is unrepentant and says the  police backed his actions.
     'I don't regret it. I had the support of all my friends who are fathers, like me, and know what she did was unacceptable to any Muslim that honours his religion..'I don't have a daughter now, and I prefer to say that I never had one. That girl humiliated me in front of my family and friends"
    Just note that last sentence.  It's not about Islam (sane Muslims agree that the Qu'ran forbids such murders).  It's not about Islam but it's all about him.  It is uncivilized, irreligious, psychopathic nonsense.  A fathers who murders his daughter because her even smiling at another man "humiliates"  him personally is  no better than Josef Fritzl.    But read the interview.  It's a window into hell.

Comments

[Coel]

"It's not about Islam".

Why do you make excuses for Islam like this? Yes, it was about him and his "honour" and that he felt "humiliated", but notions of honour and humiliation are determined by society, and thus are very heavily influenced by the local religion. Thus Islam cannot be excused.

A question to ask is whether the local Mosques preach in favour or against the mores on the role of women, and their permissible sexual and social conduct, that underpinned that father's notions of "honour" and "humiliation".

[Carl Waring]

"It's not about Islam".

If it isn't about Islam specifically, then it's almost certainly about the inevitable schisms within organised religion(s). Can anyone give me a definitive date when Christians finally stopped killing each other irrespective of gender over which flavour of Christianity they believed (ie Protestantism vs. Catholicism)? To the best of my knowledge it was still happening under 25 years ago. Why then the faux Christian disgust over 'honour' killings?

[Rick Beekman]

Libby;

I have to agree with what Coel Posted.

Islam in itself is a Militant Religion. True most Muslims are Peaceful who don't involve themselves in Suicide Bombings.."Death to Infidels" etc. Like every church or Religion you have the Good and Bad or as The Bible "The Wheat and the Tares."

I agree it was "All about Him" His Pride His Ego tripping that caused this evil. Let's not also forget the unseen force behind all evil...Satan.
John 10 V 10; "The theif cometh not..but for to steal and to kill and to destroy. I am come that they might have life and they might have it more abundantly".
This Father needs to come unto Jesus Christ for Forgiveness.

[Joanne]

It's not about Islam: but spokesmen for both of Iraq's main parties have united to defend Article 111 under which so-called 'honour' killing normally gets a suspended sentence, claiming that it is in 'sharia': http://www.iwpr.net/?p=icr&s=f&o=343675&apc_state=henh

[ERS]

Dishonor killings are believed to have their origins in misinterpretations of pre-Islamic Arab tribal codes. They pre-date Islam by centuries and are, in fact, un-Islamic.

But if one drills down, it gets a little more complicated than that. Of the U.N.-estimated 5,000 dishonor killings per annum globally, the majority occur in Arab/Muslim countries and in Arab/Muslim immigrant communities elsewhere. This is just an empirical reality. There's a correlation, though no causality.

When I conducted a nationwide survey of these crimes in Jordan, over 20% of the people in my representative sample told me they believe Islam tells them they must avenge affronts to family honor through murder. Islam says no such thing, but the fact that so many people truly believe it does is a problem. Where is this idea coming from, and why aren't more imams and leaders correcting it?

Ellen R. Sheeley, Author
"Reclaiming Honor in Jordan"

[Jon]

The murder of women in several countries in the region, not just Afghanistan, and not only amongst Moslems, due to an antiquated notion of tribal and familial honour should be a source of deep shame and humiliation.

As an undergraduate, I was fortunate to be able to come to the aid of a fellow student who had been the victim of an attempted rape in her dorm. I will not soon forget my discussion with her brother when he later arrived on the scene that 1) she had done nothing wrong and was the soul of decency and innocence 2) that the general description of the hoodie (as we now call them) who had perpetrated the attack did not give him license to find an appropriate hoodie and kill him and 3) that his honor was intact (as was hers). In this instance, the end point was successful. She graduated, married and has had a good life.

It could have been very different. Imam Zaid Shakir is an American cleric. I wish he were the norm, but he is not. Until the governments and clerics place sufficient penalty on the murderers this behavior will continue. How long will women in Jordan, as a single example of many, guilty of nothing, be forced to live in safe house prisons whilst the family members who threaten them with bodily harm and death roam free? As a statement of fact, honour killings accounted for one-third of the murders of women in Jordan in 1999.

Enough is enough.

[Its a short step]

The Qur'an:
Sura (4:34) - "Men are the maintainers of women because Allah has made some of them to excel others and because they spend out of their property; the good women are therefore obedient, guarding the unseen as Allah has guarded; and (as to) those on whose part you fear desertion, admonish them, and leave them alone in the sleeping-places and beat them; then if they obey you, do not seek a way against them; surely Allah is High, Great."

From the Hadith:

Bukhari (72:715) - A woman came to Muhammad and begged her to stop her husband from beating her. Her skin was bruised so badly that she it is described as being "greener" than the green veil she was wearing. Muhammad did not admonish her husband, but instead ordered her to return to him and submit to his sexual desires.

[Jess H]

Are you seriously asking why Christians should be disgusted? Right, because all Christians did that. This isnt really about religion is it? Because if it were, then all Muslims would act this way, but they don't. In my opinion this is about frightened, power mad males who are worried about women gaining equal standing in their society. Any man who can murder his own daughter can surely not be thinking of religion, or even in his right mind.

[Stuart Hartill]

This is awful stuff, but Jess has a point. You have to look at where this happened too, and the feeling (right or wrong) that a community is under siege from a 'foreign' power.
In Belfast in the worst years of 'the troubles' I saw families - otherwise loving - who rejected gay siblings or those who courted 'the other side' because neighbours saw such 'traitors' as betraying the cause or an Achilles Heel which could be exploited by the 'enemy'.
It was horrible to watch, yet some people in those communities really did make those extreme choices in order to survive day to day life. We all say we would never do that, but I saw decent people who did, and in changed times they probably still can't explain why to others who were not there.

[Jess H]

"Its a short step" I bet you a woman didn't write that...

[Jon]

I would like to publicly thank Ellen R. Sheeley for her sterling work on behalf of women in Jordan. Unlike some of the usual commentators who do not have any actual knowledge, just opinions, Ms Sheeley's work set a standard for fact. I credit her, amongst a very few others (e.g., Rana Husseini and the Jordanian Womens Union), as the primary reason that the King and Queen of Jordan moved to outlaw this practice. It is a blot upon the honour of Jordan that while the upper House followed their Majesties modern, progressive and moral call to end this practice, the lower house continues to thwart it. Democracies are messy, but at least there is hope for the women of Jordan as long as enlightened people work together on the problem. Perhaps in our lifetimes other countries in the area will follow suit. I sincerely hope so.

[An American Observer]

I once had a conversation with an African Muslim who defended "honor killings" and claimed that they were not a matter of misogyny but of mercy: "No Muslim woman would lose her honor if she were in her right mind. If she were in her right mind, she would kill herself from shame, so her family must do it for her."

I said, "So if you married and had a daughter, and she became sexually involved with a boy, you would kill her?"

He nodded. "Of course. It would be my duty."

"What if you had a son, and he became sexually involved with a girl, would you kill him?"

The very thought seemed to astonish and outrage him.

So much for "honor killings" not being an expression of misogyny.