From the northern UK cities of Bradford,
Rochdale, and Manchester to the rural areas of Pakistan, the grisly issue of
honour killing persists. This has recently surfaced in the media, with the savage
killing of Farzana Parveen, a 25-year-old pregnant woman, literally bludgeoned
to death with bricks and stones by family members, for having married the man
she loved. It beggars belief, how anyone can do this to their own flesh and
blood. What kind of values do these people carry? Whatever it is, I can see no
reference in Islamic law, and the life of the Prophet (saw), to remotely
endorse such barbarism and cruelty.
One of the first Quranic
injunctions forbade the killing of daughters; the pre-Islamic Arabs used to bury
them alive, because it brought shame. For that same reason of ‘shame’, family
members of Farzana Parveen collectively plotted and murdered her. It gets
worse, in another case, a couple in Pakistan, killed their daughter for
allegedly looking at a boy, and another family killed two teenage girls for ‘dancing’
in the rain, yes like most 15-year olds, they were engaged in some form of frolic
enjoying themselves; they were not stripping or performing some lewd dance in
front of a group of rowdy men.
