Muhammad's 'Dead Hand' Behind Muslim Honor Killings

Therefore, Muhammad is an "unindicted co-conspirator" in the ongoing Islamic honor-crimes against women in Islamic countries and communities around the world...

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I have watched with great interest the ongoing debate about Muslim honor killings. On the one hand, Islamic apologists predictably maintain that Islam does not condone such conduct. Conversely, most Islamic critics do blame Islam for one reason or another. However, I have yet to see a discussion of the subject that I considered complete and which definitively resolved the debate. I tried to offer that discussion/analysis here to any rational, open-mined person.

There is much in Islamic doctrine itself that can and does directly lead to honor killings and I will discuss some but not all of that material in this analysis. Only a fraction of the material is needed to prove my case. However, before I launch into the material that directly supports Muslim honor killings, I want to start off with the most important reason, albeit indirect reason, why I believe honor killings are so prevalent in Islamic culture and among Muslims. The simple answer is the way in which women are depicted in Islamic doctrine which then poisons over-all Islamic culture.

Honor killings undeniably preceded Islam and that fact is used by Islamic apologists—many of whom are no doubt practicing taquiyya and Jihad of the Pen—to support their arguments, but the mere fact that honor killings precede the advent of Islam hardly exonerates the religion. Murder, rape, and robbery existed prior to Islam, but that hardly means that Islam should not be blamed for the murder, rape and robbery it commands, sanctions and patently causes. Most aspects of Islam existed in some form before Muhammad. Muhammad simply borrowed from Arabian Paganism, Judaism, Zoroastrianism and heretical Christianity in order to develop Islam as a new, syncretic religion. Hence, if we exonerate Islam for anything that existed before its advent, we have to exonerate Islam as a new religion as well.

The worst thing that Muhammad did to the World was to falsely claim that his ideology and policies were from Allah, who he claimed to be the one God and therefore had to be followed for all time. Equally disastrous was his claim that Allah repeatedly commanded that Muhammad had to be obeyed and his life was a perfect model of behavior for all time. The end result is that he developed a religion wherein morality was determined by looking at Muhammad's inherently flawed seventh century ideology and practices. Muhammad created a religion and culture that is in large part significantly locked in the past. Muhammad attributed his philosophy, wants and desires as the word of Allah; and in doing so, he has prevented the Islamic world from advancing as it should have.

One Hadith claims that Muhammad had said: 'Islam cannot change' (Fn 1). If Islam cannot change, it should be no surprise that an Islamic culture, so overwhelmingly influenced by Islam, also has difficulty adapting and changing and, as such, its decline, continued difficulties and deplorable attitude and treatment of women are in large part to be directly attributable to Islam and its inherent flaws.

Islamic doctrine directly leads to the restrictions on and prejudices against women in Islamic culture that impedes the rights and advancement of women. It was not all that long ago that European attitudes and treatment of women were much worse than today. However, the approach toward, and treatment of, women in European culture was not mandated by actual religious doctrine. As such, European culture was able to and did advance women's rights over time. Islamic culture did not fare so well as a direct influence of Islam. We refer to the Islamic world using its majority religion to identify the culture for a compelling reason: Islam is more than just a religion. In its original form, Islam is a complete social, political, and religious way of life that absolutely dominates the lives and thoughts of fundamentalist Muslims. Islam overwhelmingly drives and dominates Islamic culture and it would be hard to overestimate Islam's role in the sad state of Islamic Civilization, including its treatment of women.

It is beyond credible dispute that Islam is an inherently misogynist religion that has resulted in untold discrimination against women. Muhammad taught that captured women were lawfully subject to slavery and rape by their male captors (Fn 2). Note that, in the Quran, references of "those whom your right hands possess" is a euphemism for captives and slaves. Today, it continues to be applied to non-Muslim women working in Muslim households in Islamic countries. It is common to hear reports of workers in Islamic countries, especially Saudi Arabia, being raped by their male employers (Fn 3).

Islamic doctrine is no more enlightened with respect to Muslim women. Muhammad declared that women are intellectually inferior to men and that they comprise the majority of Hell's occupants (Fn 4). One hadith records Muhammad as stating: "Women are naturally, morally and religiously defective" (Fn 5).

The Qur'an describes men as being above their wives, demands women's obedience to their husbands, demands that women cover themselves, and states that their husbands may beat them (Fn 6). Muslim women are given less of an inheritance than men. (Fn 7)

Today, probably the most terrible aspect of Islamic discrimination against women is that their testimony in court is considered to be worth only half that of a man's (Fn 8). This law, in addition to other aspects of Sharia Law, yields the terrible result that if a woman wants to prove that she was raped, then she must have solid evidence beyond her own testimony as the male rapist's testimony is deemed to outweigh her testimony as a matter of law. Muslim women, who fall victim to rape, sometimes find themselves jailed or stoned to death for reporting rape, because since it cannot be proven, they have effectively admitted to adultery (Fn 9).

Based on the foregoing, it seems obvious that Islam has directly impedes women's rights to advance in Islamic culture as would have otherwise been expected. Bernard Lewis eloquently assessed the problem as follows:

"According to Islamic law and tradition, there were three groups of people who did not benefit from the general Muslim principle of legal and religious equality* - unbelievers, slaves, and women. The women were obviously in one significant respect the worst-placed of the three. The slave could be freed by his master; the unbeliever could at any time become a believer by his own choice, and thus end his inferiority. Only the women were doomed forever to remain what she was - or so it seemed at the time" (Fn 10).

In my view, so it still seems.

In short, by declaring negative attributes to women as being determined by both himself and Allah, Muhammad created a situation wherein women's rights failed to advance. In the context where a man is angry, because his wife, daughter or sister is perceived to be violating Sharia Law, it is far easier to kill a woman, even a relative, when you have been led to believe that women comprise the majority of Hell's occupants and that she is "naturally, morally and religiously defective." (See Fn's 4 and 5)

Equally important, Islam is not a religion that teaches and promotes a general sense of love. There is no equivalent of 'love thy neighbor as thyself' or 'do unto others as you would have them do unto you' in Islam. The hatred generated by Islamic doctrine is palpable upon even the most cursory reading of Islamic doctrine. In addition to such religiously sanctioned conduct as murder and robbery, the Qur'an refers to non-Muslims in numerous derogatory ways and clearly teaches that non-Muslims are fair game for almost every type of indignity and violence. The Qur'an states that non-Muslims are not to be taken as a friend (3:28), confused (6:25), to be terrorized: "I will instill terror into the hearts of the Unbelievers: smite ye above their necks and smite all their finger-tips off them" (8:12), to be made war upon (9:5 & 29), to be considered unclean (9:28), evil and a helper of evil against God (23:97 & 25:55), to be punished (25:77), humiliated (37:18) and hated (40:35), to be beheaded (47:4) and laughed at (83:34), and assumed to be plotting against Muslims (86:15).

As if there could be any doubt based on the foregoing, the earliest biography of Muhammad originating from Ibn Ishaq flatly quotes Muhammad as stating: "Muhammad is the apostle of Allah! Those with him are violent against Unbelievers but merciful to one another… "The Qur'an is in accord: "Muhammad is the apostle of God; and those who are with him are strong against Unbelievers, (but) compassionate amongst each other…" (Fn 11)

Islam generates so much hatred that even some of Muhammad's early successors and companions, who should have received overwhelming respect and support from Muslims, were instead murdered by fellow Muslims. A religion that cannot even promote peace and harmony amongst the companions of its founder is clearly deficient in compassion and elements of peace. One only has to look at Islamic doctrine to see that it inherently generates hatred and loathing for non-Muslims and that hatred and loathing spills over to women that are not being obedient to their male masters and Islam as the Qur'an and Hadith dictate. At that point they are often perceived as apostates, or dishonorable to the family, clan, society and to Islam itself. It is here that direct Islamic doctrine comes into play, because once the purportedly offending woman's conduct has risen to such as level, as deemed by her male master or relatives, that Islamic doctrine directly authorizes her death.

Islamic doctrine demands the killing of apostates (also blasphemers of Islam). That murderous command is vaguely set forth in the Qur'an, chapter 9, verse 12, but clearly set forth in the Hadith (Fn 12).

In light of such attitude toward women generated by Islamic doctrine, Qur'anic verses 18:74,78,80-81 can be, and often are, easily interpreted as supporting honor killings. A reading of the verses reveals why:

'so they [Moses and another man that is not identified other than as being learned in Islam] twain journeyed on till, when they met a lad, he slew him. [Moses] said: What! Hast thou slain an innocent soul who hath slain no man? Verily thou hast done a horrid thing. He said: This is the parting between thee and me! I will announce unto thee the interpretation of that thou couldst not bear with patience. And as for the lad, his parents were believers and we feared lest he should oppress them by rebellion and disbelief. And we intended that their Lord should change him for them for one better in purity and nearer to mercy.'

The foregoing verses also establish that in addition to apostasy, failure to believe and the rather ambiguous crime of 'rebellion' allow for a justified killing lest the parents be 'oppressed' and so that they might have a better child.

Many honor killings are done due to belief or fear that adultery has or might occur. In the case of actual adultery, Muhammad did establish a hard-to-meet evidentiary burden in order to save his beloved child-bride Aisha, but angry Muslim males easily avoid that hurdle by also attributing offending behavior such as going out without permission or the violation of other Islamic rules regarding veiling, being with unrelated men, etc. as 'rebellion' for which no clear evidentiary standards are applied.

Given the low place women hold in Islamic doctrine and the few if any sources of support or assistance available to them in their culture, they are virtual slaves to however their male guardians control their life, with little hope of intervention unless they live within a larger non-Islamic culture that they can escape to or appeal to for help.

I have not gone into the rather difficult nature of Islam's honor culture. That culture precedes the advent of Islam and, in my view, is hard to wrap up in a way that is comprehensible to anyone that has not lived within such a culture. For those interested in understanding honor culture, I suggest Raphael Patai's excellent book titled 'The Arab Mind.' Suffice it to say, however, that the honor culture is easy to reconcile with Islamic doctrine and its associated lack of love and compassion and it is no wonder that it survived the advent of Islam.

By now, hopefully you have come to agree with me that Muhammad is in fact an unindicted co-conspirator in Muslim honor killings. Even Muslims have tacitly admitted the truth of my observations about Muhammad. In 'The Future of Islam', Wilfred Scawen Blunt accurately points out that Islam is not amenable to change, because even 'students of the Sheriat (Sharia Law) have not inaptly compared the Koranic law to a dead man's hand [Muhammad's hand], rigid and cold, and only to be loosened when the hand has been cut away.'

Such an observation, given that Sharia Law is based on the Quran and hadiths, both of which are either the work of Muhammad or based upon his life and statements, reveals the nature of the Islamic faith as inextricably entwined with the life and beliefs of Muhammad. It is hardly a giant stretch from that obvious and unassailable conclusion to see why a barbaric practice such as honor killing that continues into the modern world is directly attributable to Muhammad himself and, therefore, to Islam.

If Muslims are to love women as much as fellow men, as one rightfully should, if Muslim women are to receive equal treatment as men to which they are entitled—the grip of Muhammad's 'dead hand' must be cut off from the modern world everywhere Islam holds sway.

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• Fn. 1: Al Bukhari, Vol. 9, Book 88, Number 174
• Fn. 2: Fn 17: Qur'an 4:24 and 33:52
• Fn. 3: See e.g., http://hrw.org/reports/2004/saudi0704/7.htm#_ftn145
• Fn. 4: Al Bukhari 2:28 and 6:301
• Fn. 5: Al Bukhari 3:195
• Fn. 6: Qur'an 2:228, 4:34, and 24:31
• Fn. 7: Qur'an 4:11
• Fn. 8: Qur'an 2:282
• Fn. 9: http://www.hrw.org/reports/1992/pakistan/
• Fn. 10: What Went Wrong, (2002) Bernard Lewis, p67-69
• Fn. 11: Qur'an 48:29
• Fn. 12: Al Bukhari, Vol. 4, Book 52, Number 260: "The Prophet said, 'If a Muslim discards his religion, kill him.'"

* I have a hard time swallowing that there is in fact a 'general Muslim principle of legal and religious equality.' Women, slaves and non-Muslims comprise the vast majority of the World's population and even the majority of the population of most Islamic countries. In addition, Islam has generated its fair share of racism and bigotry such that any claim that it has a general characteristic of 'legal and religious equality' is misleading.

A Horror Saga of Gruesome Islamic Honor Killings

A shocking, hearth-rending tale of gruesome honor killing of Muslim women around the world...
From the treatment of women in Muslim societies, it becomes clear that Muslim women are properties of Muslim men, mere sex-object. Muslim girls and women, often raped by close relatives—father, brother, cousin, or uncle—are supposed to keep their mouths shut, because they cannot to prove such a crime in a Shariah Court, because she needs to produce four male-witnesses, which is next to impossible. When she fails to produce the witnesses, she is prosecuted for committing adultery or fornication, and is punished with lashings, jail-terms and even stoning unto death in certain countries (Iran, Saudi).
Thus, Muslim men can rape with near-impunity, while the victims have to suffer in silence. Another side of this sad story of Muslim women is that female victims of rape or female partners of so-called illicit relationships often become the target of gruesome honor killing, when the story comes out, as we will see. So, Ms Wafa Sultan, contrasting the freedom of women in Islamic countries with that in the West, rightly says, “Now in America, I enjoy freedom. I can now talk with a male member of my next door neighbour without being convicted of committing adultery.”
In recent years, there have been numberless cases of Muslim women, and even girls as young as seven, have been the victim of Muslim honor killing for being raped, for having a premarital relationship, for falling in love and marrying someone their male family-members do not approve, or for refusing to follow Islamic dress-code or lifestyle.
Noor Faleh Almaleki, run over by her Iraqi Americanfather Faleh Hassan Almaleki in Glendale, Arizonafor her western lifestyle
A few days ago on Oct 19, 2009, Noor Faleh Almaleki, a 21 year-old girl student was allegedly run over by her father Faleh Hassan Almaleki, a 48-year old Iraqi American in Glendale, Arizona. He allegedly ran over his daughter at a parking lot in Peoria, because she disliked Islamic dress-code and preferred American lifestyle.
On the same day, i.e. on October 19, 2009, a Jordanian man was arrested for stabbing his 22-year-old daughter to death, because she became pregnant outside wedlock. On the previous day, the father and his brother took the girl to a doctor, because she suffered from stomach pains, and everybody was surprised to learn that she was six months pregnant. On their way home, the father stabbed the girl with a sword 25 times in her stomach, killing her immediately as well as her unborn baby boy. The source said the suspect has confessed to the crime following the murder, which took place in the Jordan Valley. His brother was also charged with premeditated murder, while the victim's boyfriend is being held in custody for his own protection.
In another incident on August 21, 2008, in Jordan, Rana Riad Muhammad Siwahra, wife and mother of two girls (aged 3 and 5) was murdered by her father days before her 21st birthday. After stabbing her with a knife five-six times in the stomach and chest, he smashed her skull with a large rock. Afterwards, he washed his hands and went to the market, where he was later arrested.
According to the Chicago Tribune, ‘On May 31, 1994, Kifaya Husayn, a 16-year-old Jordanian girl, was lashed to a chair by her 32-year-old brother. He gave her a drink of water and told her to recite an Islamic prayer. Then he slashed her throat. Immediately afterward, he ran out into the street, waving the bloody knife and crying, “I have killed my sister to cleanse my honor.” Kifaya’s crime? She was raped by another of her brother, aged 21.
Murder is punishable by the death penalty in Jordan, but in such cases of the so-called "honour killing", the court usually commutes or reduces sentences, particularly if the victim's family urges leniency. In the past, parliament has refused to institute harsher penalties. Around 15-20 women are murdered each year in Jordan in the name of honour, despite government efforts to fight such crimes. So far this year, 17 cases have been reported. It may be mentioned in this connection that on March 28, 2006, a Jordanian man killed his sister to cleanse his family’s honor in the southern city of Aqaba. In a similar incident, another Jordanian killed his sister on November 17, 2004, to save his family from dishonor.
On October 15, 2008, a young man Taher of Murid Wal village near Lahore, Pakistan, killed his 40-year-old mother Muktaran Bibi to restore family honor. The victim’s son suspected that his mother was involved in an illegal affair with a local and he regularly quarreled with her. On Monday, after yet another argument, he used a sharp-edged weapon to viciously stab her to death. A year ago, on February 24, 2007, Pakistani police in Karachi arrested two men in a remote village in the southern Sindh province and accused them of killing two young women for allegedly having sex outside of marriage. The suspects, who are uncles of the women, were caught after authorities were tipped off by the girls’ parents.
In another incident, on May 3, 2009, Ayman Udas, in her early thirties, was killed by her brothers as an act of honor killing. Udas sang and wrote compositions in her native Pashto language, spoken in the tribal areas and the North-West Frontier Province. She also frequently performed on PTV, the state-run channel. Despite Udas's popularity, her family felt it was sinful for women to perform on television and strongly opposed her activities. According to the report, her two brothers reportedly entered her flat on 3rd May, 2009, while her husband was out and fired three bullets into her chest. Neither of the brothers has been caught. In 2001, in Gujar Khan, Pakistan, Zahida Perveen’s husband attacked her, gouged out both her eyes, cut off her nose, and her ears. He wrongly suspected her of adultery.
According to Time magazine, in September 2003 in Iraq, Ali Jasib Mushiji, 17, shot his mother and half-brother, because he suspected them of having an affair; he also killed his 4-year-old sister, because he thought she was their child.
The same Time magazine report (September 2003) also recounts: “Last November, Qadisiyah Misad, 16, ran away from her family's home on the outskirts of Baghdad. Within days, one of her brothers and a cousin tracked her down on a city street and hauled her back home. According to Essam Wafik al-Jadr, the judge who prosecuted the case, one of Misad's brothers cornered his teenage sister in the living room; he then drew a pistol and shot several bullets into her.”
One would be shocked to know that an Iranian Muslim father cut off his 7-year-old daughter’s head, because he suspected that she had been raped by her uncle. The incident helps one understand not only on what kind of grounds Muslim girls are being murdered by their male family members as an act of honor killing, but also what kind of sexual offences Muslim men commit in their households.
From the above narrations, one may think that honor killing of women is an affair confined to Islamic countries. But, in reality, it is spreading among Muslim communities in the Western world as well. The reader may remember that on Tuesday, January 1, 2008, a 50 year-old Egyptian-born Muslim taxi driver, Yaser Abdel Said, murdered his two daughters, Sarah Said (17) and Amina Said (18), in Las Colinas, a suburb north of Dallas in Texas, USA, for discarding Islamic dress-code and refusing to wear hijab (veil). He shot his daughters in his taxi, which was parked in front of a hotel, and left them die to the taxi. Texas authorities are in a manhunt for the absconding father, feared to be armed and dangerous.
On December 10, 2007, a Pakistani taxi driver in Toronto, Canada, killed his own daughter Aqsa Pervez for the same reason. Sixteen-year-old Aqsa refused to cover her body with hijab or veil and wanted to live like other Canadian girls. According to press reports, the girl died in a local hospital on after she was allegedly strangled by her father Muhammad Parvez, 57, in a Toronto suburb, where many Pakistani live.
On February 13, 2009, in Orchard Park, a suburb of Buffalo, 44 year-old Muzzamil Hassan, a prominent Muslim businessman, was arrested for having beheaded his wife, 37 year-old Aasiya Z. Hassan. The husband had committed that terrifying crime as Aasiya dared to obtain an order of protection from her cruel husband, and wanted a divorce so that she could live a life, free of daily violence.
According to a report appeared in The Independent, London, on July 1, 2008, over 120 honor killings have occurred in UK within a past few years, and the police was investigating 120 deaths. It also said, nearly 12 women are murdered every year in Britain in connection to honor killing.
A Gruesome Honour Killing in Mumbai
Mehnaz Khan killed by her father & motherand chopped into 11 pieces for marrying aHindu boy.
From these incidents, it appears that only the male members of a Muslim family take active part in murdering their daughters, sisters or mothers, as an act of honor killing. But it is really astonishing that the honor killing, which took place in the suburb of South Mumbai on July 2, 2006, the mother of the victim actively assisted her husband to kill her daughter and cut her into pieces. A press report appeared in major Indian dailies on July 12, 2008, said that the parents of an 18-year-old girl were sentenced to life by a court in Mumbai for murdering their daughter and cutting her into several pieces. On the previous day, the Additional Sessions Judge, O S Jaiswal, held Mohammad Munna Sardar Khan (38) and his wife Shenaz Khan (35) guilty of murdering their daughter Mehnaz Khan on July 2, 2006 and cutting her body it into 11 pieces before dumping in a gunny bag.
The gruesome crime was committed by the parents, because their daughter fell in love with a Hindu boy, eloped with and married him. The court, while delivering its verdict, observed that the case was one of rarest as the convicts strangled their own daughter with a towel and then cut her body into 11 pieces. The court also observed that, although perpetrators of such a cruelty deserved death sentence, the court showed leniency and sentenced them to minimum punishment for the moral responsibility towards other 5 children of the convicts.
In this latest incident, Mehnaz Khan and Vidyanand Jadahv, a Maharastrian Hindu boy, were in love for past several years and eloped to a place, called Panvel, and got married. When the girl’s parents came to know that their daughter was living with her husband at Panvel, they went there and pleaded with Mehnaz to return home. They assured Mehnaz that, once she comes home, they would accept her marriage with Vidyanand. They, thus, succeeded in persuading Mehnaz to return to their South Mumbai home.
But after she reached home at about midnight, Munna Khan immediately strangulated Mehnaz to death with a towel, as Sehnaz sat on her chest to prevent her from escaping. Munna Khan then dragged the body to the bathroom and cut it into 11 pieces. He also peeled off the skin from the victim’s face and disfigured it by cutting the nose, hoping that no one could identify her after a possible discovery. He then put her body-pieces in a gunny bag and threw it near the Byculla Bridge.
The body was discovered after a few days after the local people complained of stench. The police traced the culprits by following the company-name printed on the gunny bag. After a preliminary enquiry, the police could learn that the company had delivered the gunny bag to one G N Shop, a grocery store belonging to Munna Khan.
The incident helps one gauge the degree to which Islamic brainwashing many motivate Muslims, even a mother, to kill their own children.
While the entire non-Muslim world vehemently condemn this barbaric practice of honor killing, the Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov, while commenting on targeted killing of two Muslim prostitutes in Chechnya, justified the practice, claiming those, who had been killed had "loose morals", and were rightfully shot by relatives in honor killings. They deserved to die.