There is nothing about this kind of killing in the Koran, said the imam, which in fact emphasizes an individual's responsibility for his or her own actions. He cited an event in the Koran; when Mohammed's wife is accused of adultery, he takes no revenge, just sends her home to her parents until the issue is resolved - in her favour. A lawyer who grew up in Afghanistan said he had never encountered this kind of "honour killing" until he came to Canada.
The professor said that, rather than a religious issue - in fact, the family were NOT observant Muslims - this is a cultural and geographic issue. He pointed out that the issue of "honour," like the blood feud, still exists strongly in a swath across the Mediterranean. "This could have happened, and does still, in non-Muslim Sicily or Greece," he said. And it's also an immigration issue - parents with the values of the old country, horrified by the behaviour of their children in the new. This is a universal problem; my Russian-Jewish great-grandfather in New York in 1895 hated American values and fought to stop his 11 children, going to school in Brooklyn, from adopting them.
In this particularly dysfunctional family with a violent and viciously patriarchal father, archaic values and extreme fear and hatred of new ways led to murder.
But this case was not about Muslim extremism and is not an excuse for Canadians to judge or fear their Muslim neighbours.
P.S. Friends have been sending me various reports on "honour killings"... including the fact that there are many in Afghanistan. Another sent a link to a wikipedia site on violence against women. What a horrifying list. What an insane world.
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