Brother-on-brother Islamic honor killing in Seattle

Islamic honour - It's truly to die for.

Perhaps because the victim is a man, in the PC-myopia that constitutes today's culture, use in this instance is considered non-derogatory. Just shows how convoluted things have become.

Rough day for Islamic men - the hunters have become the hunted.

Off Topic but really weird- considering muslims keep saying that allah is GOD.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,570241,00.html

More Than 15,000 Bibles Confiscated in Malaysia

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia — Malaysian authorities have confiscated more than 15,000 Bibles in recent months because they referred to "God" as "Allah," a translation that has been banned in this Muslim-majority country, Christian church officials said Thursday.

The alleged seizure of the Bibles, imported from neighboring Indonesia, is certain to reignite complaints by religious minorities that their right to practice their faiths freely has come under threat as the government panders to the Muslim majority.

A growing sense of discrimination among the minorities is chipping away at Malaysia's reputation as a harmonious multiethnic nation that practices a moderate brand of Islam.

The Rev. Hermen Shastri, general secretary of the Council of Churches of Malaysia, said authorities seized a consignment of 10,000 copies sent from Jakarta to Kuching in Sarawak state on Sept. 11 because the Indonesian-language Bibles contained the word "Allah."

Indonesian language is similar to Malaysian language, both of which use "Allah" as translation for God in both Islamic and Christian traditions.

Another 5,100 Bibles, also imported from Indonesia, were seized in March, said an official from the Bible Society of Malaysia, who asked not to be named for fear of angering the government.

A Home Ministry official said he was not aware of the seizures. He said he couldn't be named without his superiors' clearance.

Malaysia has banned non-Muslims from using the word "Allah" in their texts, saying the word is Islamic and may upset Muslims. About 60 percent of the country's 28 million people are Malay Muslims while 25 percent are ethnic Chinese and 8 percent are Indians. Many of the Chinese and Indians are Christians.

The Roman Catholic Church is challenging the "Allah" ban in court, saying it is unconstitutional and discriminates against those worshipping in Malay language. The case has been stuck in preliminary hearings for almost two years.

Shastri said the church council is concerned over the continued detention "of our holy book, which is depriving congregations ... and denying them the use of their Bible."

"For most of the Christians, this is not an issue of going against the authorities. They have been using (the word "Allah") for a long time," he said.

Church officials say Allah is not exclusive to Islam but is an Arabic word that predates Islam.

Besides the Bible seizures, Malaysia has been embroiled in other religious disputes. Some were over the conversion of minors to Islam and the religion of deceased people who are said to have converted to Islam secretly before their death. Hindus have also protested the demolition of several temples by authorities.

This Chinese guy killed a man for insulting his wife. He killed him with an axe, plucked his eyes out, cut open his stomach, and wrote “must be killed” in blood on the wall. A Chinese honor killing!:
http://www.china.org.cn/english/China/178786.htm

This 71 year old American killed a women with his cane because she insulted his wife. Honor killing!:
http://www.austin360.com/barsandclubs/content/news/issues/yogurt/01houstondeath.html

This SAS vet ripped out a man’s eye for insulting his wife:
highbeam.com/doc/1G1-180215667.html

Wow, Dave, you managed to find three examples. Shame there's no corroborating evidence of them being anything to do with religion.

We don't the time to list all violent crimes perpetrated by moslems in the name of their faith, do we?

lol, nice try, Mohammedan dave742.

Those aren't "honor killings," those are just regular murders that happen in every country of the world every day.

An Islamic Honor Killing is SPECIFICALLY against a female in an Islamic country, and she is murdered by her father, uncle, or brothers, for some perceived "dishonor" on the family, as the females in Islamic families shoulder ALL the "honor" of the family. Misogynist as all-get-out. Her male relatives kill her.

Get it? Nice try, Mohammedan dave742! ONLY your pitiful culture has Honor Killings.

What's your point Dave? Obviously, you don't seem to have one. The articles you refer to are about someone defending the honor of their loved one not about some asshat killing their love to defend their own "honor". This article posted here is a stretch to say the least as it relates to islamic honor killing and more a case of domestic dispute gone bad but typically "honor" killings are about defending one's honor from some perceived injustice that unfortuntely routinely occurs within the islamic community. You know, if you posted that you disagree with this being labeled an islamic honor killing I think I would have to agree but no you want to try and inundate the message board with useless information. I believe the point Robert was trying to make was that the police are calling this an honor killing when they refused to label the sisters as such. That is wrong and maybe you would even agree that the sisters were definitely honor killed. Even Robert agreed that this was an "interesting classification". Once again you miss the main point of the post and are all too quick to deflect and defend your twisted faith.

Question everything:
“Shame there's no corroborating evidence of them being anything to do with religion.”

Yes, honey. That is my point. It is entirely possible to attack someone who insults your wife without having it be religiously motivated. You will say, “but in this case the article said the guy told detectives it was an honor killing!, therefore, it is religiously motivated!” The article uses the term "honor killing", but it is not a quote. It is quite possible the guy said “he attacked my wife’s honor,” or some such thing, and of course the MSM has to call it an “honor killing.” Whatever.

Darcy:
“An Islamic Honor Killing is SPECIFICALLY against a female in an Islamic country, and she is murdered by her father, uncle, or brothers, for some perceived "dishonor" on the family, as the females in Islamic families shoulder ALL the "honor" of the family. Misogynist as all-get-out. Her male relatives kill her. Get it?”

Then the incident is not an honor killing, and is simply an example of a guy attacking someone who insulted his wife, just like my articles. So what. Please E-mail Mr. Spencer and have him change the title of the thread.

LOL...was it brother on brother, yes. Were they islamic, yes. Did one kill the other because of so called honor (of his wife), yes. What's wrong with the title? I guess you don't approve because it goes against your view of a traditional honor killing. Well, at least you back-handedly agree that islam has honor killings...first step toward recovery if that's possible.

Islamic honour - it's truly to kill for.

Apart all the business about smiting off our heads and killing the infidels where they find us, what gets me is how darned TOUCHY they are!

You can't say such and such!! How dare you defame me? Your Western ways dishonor me! You said WHAT about my wife 20 years ago?! Etc, etc. Sheesh.

Can we release valium into the rivers of the Middle East?

Somali man marries girl 95 years his junior

http://in.news.yahoo.com/43/20091031/884/twl-somali-man-marries-girl-95-years-his.html

Sat, Oct 31 06:19 AM

Moscow, Oct 31 (RIA Novosti) A 112-year-old Somali man has married a 17-year-old girl in central Somalia.

The wedding took place in the village of Guriceel in central Somalia, one of the poorest countries in the world.

Ahmed Muhamed Dore already has 18 children from five wives. He said he would like to have more children with his new teenage wife, Safia Abdulleh, who is young enough to be his great-great-granddaughter.

'Today God helped me realise my dream,' Dore said after the wedding ceremony in the region of Galguduud.

'I didn't force her, but used my experience to convince her of my love; and then we agreed to marry,' Dore continued, adding that he had waited for his wife to grow up first before proposing to her, BBC reported.

Safia's family said their daughter is 'happy with her new husband', a man who survived Italian colonisation, British occupation, Siad Barre dictatorship and Somalia's dissolution.

Somali historians say that the wedding was the first of its kind in Somalia for over a century.

--RIA Novosti

snb
Ria Novosti

The police don't know what they are talking about and are confusing a western concept of false-pride or archaic touchy honor with the mohammedan notion of family honor through feminine chastity.

The good news is that they are at least in the right emotional neighborhood ... macho anger.

The better news is that they are pulling the phrase honor killing out of the closet.

But the inescapable bad news is that they are probably clueless past that basic point.

Question Everything:

"Shame you didn't bother to actually read the article sourced:
A 61-year-old man accused of beating his brother to death in Lynnwood told Snohomish County sheriff's detectives it was an honor killing to avenge an insulting remark."

In my post, I said: “You will say, ‘but in this case the article said the guy told detectives it was an honor killing!, therefore, it is religiously motivated!’”
So, as you can see, I did read the article – and I addressed the exact same sentence that you did. I even predicted exactly what you would say, and I was correct. Shame you didn’t bother to actually read my post. Maybe you should try reading it again.

“In a police statement filed Thursday in Everett District Court, 61-year-old Mehdi M. Matin says more than 20 years ago his brother uttered words about his bride-to-be so terrible the wedding was called off. Both men are from Afghanistan. 20 years and the comment was SO BAD he had to do something......eventually.”

The article says that “Matin was visiting his brother Monday when he repeated the remark.” The 20 year old remark happened, and was likely addressed by Matin at that time. Matin surely told his brother he was unhappy about it. Then, 20 years later, the remark was repeated anyway, which caused Matin to lose it and kill his brother. The attack was not the result of a 20 year old remark, but because a 20 year old remark, which was likely addressed, was repeated. Maybe it is you that needs to learn how to read both the article and my post.

"Bet you want to hurt someone, don't you? Huh?"

No, honey. I think what Matin did was wrong. Maybe Matin does, too. But, as I showed, people of all religions and countries do lose it, and that is regrettable. It is quite ironic that you would say this, considering the fact that just 2 weeks ago you remarked how “we have a lovely, shiny new MOP bomb we need to test in the theater of combat.” For someone so opposed to violence, you seem pretty excited about bombing people. You are quite the peace activist. You make comments like that, and then say to me: “It must be a constant embarrassment to you that your fellow cult-members are so hot-blooded and irrational?” So I have someone getting all giddy about using bombs on people telling me I am “hot-blooded and irrational.” You are psychotic.

Wellington:

“As usual you miss the larger issues.”

Rather than making baseless statements off the top of your head, maybe we can try and look at some larger issues. First of all, we should note that “there is no single piece of evidence, neither in the Koran nor in the Sunna, that may implicitly or explicitly condone or even acknowledge heat-of-passion crimes or honor killings.”(1) But this is a bad reference, since it is from a brown person. Maybe we can find a better one: “honor killings were and are forbidden under Islamic law.” (2) Is this reference more respectable?
So, although the problem of honor killings does exist, it is in spite of, and not the result of, Islamic law.
So how widespread is the problem? Jordan is a country that is known for having a widespread problem of honor killings. In Jordan, “25 women each year fall victim to honor killings.”(3) (It is likely that every single one is reported on JW). Twenty five people is 25 too many, but it seems to me a problem that kills 25 people in Jordan gets an awful lot of attention from a country that kills hundreds of thousands in it wars to “spread democracy.” The value of 25, however, is an official statistic. Estimates of the actual number are about 60. (4) The reference in note 3 says that honor killings constitute 25 percent of murders in Jordan, which puts Jordan’s total yearly murder rate at about 100. Jordan’s population is 6,198,677, which puts their total murder rate (per 100,000) at 1.61. (Another source gives a value of 0.9 (5)). Their official “honor killing” rate (per 100,000) is 0.403, and the estimated, actual “honor killing” rate is 0.968.
In the US, the total murder rate is 5.35. (6) The total murder rate in the US, then is over 3 times higher than that of Jordan. But I guess this is not a good topic for discussion at JW.
Honor killings in the US in the name of religion is obviously quite rare (and remember, honor killings in the name of Islam are not actually a part of the religion), but we can discuss similar events. In Islam, an “honor killing” may occur if a women cheats on her husband. Did you know that some men in the US also kill their wives if they cheat on them? In those cases, they do so because the women has insulted their honor instead of the honor of their religion. Little difference for the victim. In the US, 1,700 women are killed every year by “intimate partners.” (7) The rate for this type of violence is 0.559, or about 42% less than the estimated, actual “honor killing” rate in Jordan. I realize that an “honor killing” rate is not directly comparable to “intimate partner” homicide values in the US, but it is the closest possible comparison. It is likely that all “intimate partner” homicides against women in Jordan are captured under the term “honor killings.” Anyway, if Jordan is pure evil because they have honor killings, what is the term for 42% less than “pure evil”? My point is, maybe we should think a little bit about our own societies issues instead of spending so much time demonizing other cultures.

1) Khalili, Mohammed I., “ A Comment on Heat-of-Passion Crimes, Honor Killings, and Islam,” Politics and Life Sciences, Vol. 21, No. 2 (Sep., 2002), pp. 38-40

2) Major David J. Western, “Islamic ‘Purse Strings’: The Key to the Amelioration of Women’s Legal Rights,” The Air Force Law Review, 61 A.F.L. Rev. 79 (2008)

3) See Jamal J. Halaby, In Jordan the Price of Honor is Women's Blood, WOMEN'S E-NEWS (2000),quoted in reference in note 2

4) Husseini, Rana, "Murder in the Name of Honour," The Jordan Times, October 6-7, 1994

5) The Statesman (India), “Safe Tourist Destination,” April 24, 2009

6) 16,272 murders in a population of 304 million:
http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/cius2008/data/table_01.html

7)An estimated 28, 991 females were killed by an intimate partner in the US over a 17 year period. Or about 1,700 per year. The rate (per 100,000) is 0.559.
http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/ss5003a1.htm

anti islamocommunist:

Somali man marries girl 95 years his junior

Hugh Hefner must be pissed! I guess if he lives long enough, Hugh can break the record.

HEY, dave742, lissen up: why don't you do something useful - like sending the following to your Muslim friends:

TWENTY TIPS FOR MUSLIMS ON HOW TO LIVE IN THE WEST:

1. Don't take advantage of your host's generosity to learn how to fly state-of-the-art aeroplanes into buildings, in the name of an absurd belief system for which there is no empirical evidence, and which is completely at odds with the culture in which you now purport to want to live; (and while we're at it, understand that the Twin Towers only went down because of their exoskeleton construction; had they been built differently, they would have remained standing and your lunatic "martyrs" would have killed only a few more people than themselves - essentially, the operation was actually a failure).

2. Find the grace to admit that the migrant flow is inexorably East to West because the West is a better place to live, but that you don't yet understand why that is so.

3. Find the humility to ask questions about the New World, instead of fixating on Allah and the past.

4. Stop providing fuel for the West's more rabid right-wing Christian bloc; between you, you are setting up yet another religious war that sane people can see coming and feel powerless to stop.

5. Stop regarding the West as the Great Satan, or go back home and stop dancing with the Devil.

6. Fatwa yourselves to death at home all you like but leave us alone (incidentally, where is your "home"?); it's a sad religion that can't handle a cartoon or a book, and to us, fatwas are a pain in the arse and a sad joke.

7. Get it through your heads once and for all that the only person who can blaspheme is a person who already believes in what he is blaspheming; everyone else is entitled to say whatever they like – it’s called Fair Comment. And while we're on this topic, let me explain free speech: it means that not only can we call ourselves stupid white men if we deserve it, we can call you stupid brown men if you deserve it.

8. Face up to the fact that you simply aren't equipped to understand freedom of speech; your arguments against it are sophomoric and adolescent and just make you look insecure and ridiculous.

9. Treat your women better, and in the Muslim countries that practice female circumcision, stop it NOW, of your own volition; don't leave it to us and Waris Dirie to have to continually campaign against it - we never committed this atrocity in the first place.

10. Stop trying to import repugnant customs like the above into the West - you've gone too far already, aided by weak, thoughtless apostates in the West.

11. Stop bitching about the West from INSIDE the West; the only reason "multiculturalism" is being attempted here is because the free speech, democracy, stability and generosity of our advanced culture is willing to give it a try (probably foolishly). You come from countries where it's not even a twinkle in anybody's eye, so be grateful you've got as far as you have, and shut up.

12. Learn from the education available to you in the West, it's the best in the world - take your blinkers off.

13. Stop trying to "destroy" the West. First, being only human and prone to error (like all humans, including you), we are quite capable of doing that ourselves, and if we succeed, the world (also including you) will be the poorer for it. But what we are doing is NONE of your business, and we'll fix it ourselves, thanks very much. Second, if we become more resolute (which I admit is moot at the moment), you won't win - which we know and you don't.

14. Start THINKING instead of REACTING - I know it's hard to break bonds, but that's the process that made the West the Modern World.

15. Your “we will kill you for saying that” is not an appropriate response to our “hey, you guys have got it wrong”.

16. Marching and rioting in our streets, using our freedom of speech to call for controls on our freedom of speech where your beliefs are concerned is deeply hypocritical, and shows that you still don’t GET IT.

17. Try to understand that there was no such thing as "Islamophobia" until you brought it on yourselves with the religiously obsessed insanity of 9/11, the ridiculous Salman Rushdie fatwa, the grand guignol over the cartoons, the disgusting murder of Theo Van Gogh, and the London and Madrid bombings, which were beyond contempt. All of which took place in the West. It might help if you collectively apologised for all the above, but even then you've got a lot of ground to make up.

18. If you must have a religion, try to find one that celebrates life instead of death.

19. Stop blaming America for your not being able to get your act together. You once led the world in advancement, then you let negative religiosity set you right back again - while America became a beacon of hope to the oppressed everywhere. The Statue of Liberty says "Give me your tired, your hungry, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free". Which of your own "home" countries has that written on the door? NOT ONE. As someone said: "America: 50 million illegal immigrants can't be wrong."

AND FINALLY:

20. The only thing preventing you integrating, accessing and succeeding is your own insular, anachronistic, incompatible-with-modernity-and-individuality belief system. Ditch it, and stop being hypocritical about why you are in the West, or go home. YOU are the (imported) problem.

Unveiled:

"The very old and tiresome Islamic bait and switch routine."

comic releif said -"someone defending the honor of their loved one not about some asshat killing their love to defend their own "honor"."

This is a great comment.

In my years of talking with muslims this is exactly what I see as a truth about Islam.

Islam is about judging the other person and correcting them.

Islam is not about seeing your own faults and correcting them.

The quran is filled with great examples of this violent, prejudiced, non-tolerant judge and jury of a religion.

Well,at least I now know what Muslim Brotherhood means.

A man once spent most of his life proving that wood and water don't exist...In spite of all his efforts, wood still floats on water...

Yes Dave, it's a fact...wood does float on water...It's also a fact that 'honor killings' are popular in Islam...and will continue...
So how is it that the daughter/wife, the father/husband/family fall into that kind of fatal behavior?
Usually Dave...It is because she conducted herself in a way that offends Islam and Allah...This can consist of a variety of sins...A muslimah, or any Mahoundian who refuses to fulfill his/her contract with Allah is an apostate...An apostate is one who has 'refused to submit'...
'Refusing to submit', is a high crime to Allah...Allah hates refusers so much he called for their deaths, which has been upheld by Islamic legal authorities...
So how does this 'shame' the father/brother/family?
It's because Islam is patriarchal...The father is the head of his family tribe...He is expected by Allah and his community to keep Islam up front and center, and make sure under penalty of brutality or death, that no one 'refuses'...If he lets Allah down he is 'shamed' by his brothers, and he loses face in the ummah...In order to erase the 'shame', and restore his stature with Allah and his tribe, he must kill his apostate daughter...
In his role of 'shamed' the father is judge, jury, and executioner...
Allah may not have ordered it, but he expects it...

In the case of the brothers, it's hard to say if Islam had anything to do with it...only the killer knows that for sure...

DAVE: "In my view, if you first addressed the issue of Americans beating their wives, and then brought up the issue of Muslims beating their wives, and possibly compared the extent of the two problems, this would be fine."

OK.

Wife-beating occurs in both cultures. In America, it is a crime and punished accordingly; in Islam, it is not a crime and is not punished (Quran, 4.34). Therefore, while there are crime statistics in America to document the phenomenon, there are none in Islam...and its pervasiveness is unknown, though ancillary evidence suggests it is widespread (e.g., Bangladeshi gynecologist Taslima Nasrin was shocked at the pervasiveness of spousal abuse as she examined her female patients, one of many reasons she eventually left the faith).

In the end, our infidel justice system has many more built-in protections to safeguard the welfare of women than Sharia has.

Cornelius:

"and its pervasiveness is unknown, though ancillary evidence suggests it is widespread (e.g., Bangladeshi gynecologist Taslima Nasrin was shocked at the pervasiveness of spousal abuse as she examined her female patients, one of many reasons she eventually left the faith)."

"U.N. Finds That 25% of Married Syrian Women Have Been Beaten":
nytimes.com/2006/04/11/world/middleeast/11syria.html?_r=1

"nearly 25% of [US] women...were raped and/or physically assaulted by a current or former spouse, cohabiting partner, or dating partner/acquaintance at some time in their lifetime."
ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/181867.pdf

So, if you look at more than the opinion of one person, and actually conduct a scientific poll, you find the level of spousal abuse is about the same in both cultures, which is what a normal person would expect.

"In the end, our infidel justice system has many more built-in protections to safeguard the welfare of women than Sharia has."

Also, this is off topic.

dave wrote:

"U.N. Finds That 25% of Married Syrian Women Have Been Beaten":
nytimes.com/2006/04/11/world/middleeast/11syria.html?_r=1

"nearly 25% of [US] women...were raped and/or physically assaulted by a current or former spouse, cohabiting partner, or dating partner/acquaintance at some time in their lifetime."
ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/181867.pdf

So, if you look at more than the opinion of one person, and actually conduct a scientific poll, you find the level of spousal abuse is about the same in both cultures, which is what a normal person would expect." [emphasis added]

_______________________________________________________

Dave has supplied us with the apples and oranges himself. How thoughtful of him. The Syrian statistic refers to wives. The America statistic refers to just about every boy and man that girls and women run into in life. Only the former is "spousal abuse".

Hesperado:
So, you are taking a new approach to this stat, which I have posted before. Last time you posted your own information, some of which was completely bogus and quite funny, but this time you are trying to actually confront what I posted. We'll see if that works any better for you. (Remember last time how you gave me a statistic for rape in Pakistan, which actually showed that the rape rate in the US is 169 times higher than in Palistan? That was fun!).

This time, you say this:

“The America statistic refers to just about every boy and man that girls and women run into in life.”

Thomas H:

"Quite a few books were written dealing with the myth of Islam's great "civilizational accomplishments" of the past and you would do yourself a favour reading them."

Dave742, you never fail to amuse me. Much like the other mohamedan troll Am you have a knack for using evidence that suits your purposes, which is fine.

If, as you state, nothing in the quran tells moslems to be violent then why are moslem societies so damn violent? Why do they vent their spleen so readily? Why are women so universally reviled if not for islamic teachings?

If allah was so powerful why would he create such a sorry bunch of cultists? Doesn't that strike you as odd?

Rarely have I met a more intolerant group than moslems.

dave

“current or former spouse, cohabiting partner, or dating partner/acquaintance at some time in their lifetime” includes many more persons than does the category of "spouses" -- indeed, the former includes spouses, as well as

former spouses
cohabiting partners
dating partners
dating acquaintences
any and all of them, furthermore, "at some time in the girl's lifetime".

The Syrian stats are only for women suffering from spousal abuse -- highly likely only current spouses, and not "former".

To compare these two pools of stats as though they measured the same quantity of persons, when in fact it is Syrian stats 1 category, American stats 5 categories -- with the latter furthermore augmented by a wide open time frame "at some time in the girl's lifetime" --, is grossly misleading.

We kufr must forthwith forswear our hitherto lamentable practice of proposing our arguments couched in the language of the enemy. "Honor killing" is a contradiction in terms; how might there be honor in the arbitrary murder of a member of one's own family, especially that of a son or a daughter? Natural law dictates that a parent will sacriface everything, up to and including his own life, to protect his progeny.
Moslems, it's obvious that you aren't happy with our free and tolerant society. Sorry to disappoint you, but we're never going to give up our liberty and our democracy to a primitive, misogynous cult of hatred and death. You have one honorable way out: go back where you came from, where everything is to your liking. Close the door behind you.

Hesperado:
People on this site go on and on about child marriages in Islamic countries and the strict rules regarding women being with men alone, etc., but if you see a statistic you don’t like, then all of a sudden you are concerned about how the data is skewed because we are not looking at a Muslim woman’s former “cohabitating partners” or “dating acquaintances.” It’s ridiculous. In case you have not heard, Islamic women in general don’t have a lot of “dating acquaintances” before marriage, and as I said before, there is not a lot of “shacking up” going on in Islamic countries. To the extent that beating of women occurs in Islamic societies, it happens within marriages.

If you look at the highlights of the study (1), there is a discrepancy. Using the values in number 10, you come up with a value of beaten wives of 27% (56% times 49%), which is what the NYT uses. However, when you look at number 12, you come up with a value of 10.5% (21.8% times 48.2%). This discrepancy has been noted in at least one article (2). Western sources seem to stick with the “one out of four” characterization. When the UN itself references the study, however, they refer to the 10% value. For example, one paper says that “most recently, a study in the Syrian Arab Republic revealed that 21.8 per cent of women had experienced some form of violence in the family and, of these, 48 per cent had been beaten.” (3) Another says “a Violence Against Women Study of 2005, compiled by UNIFEM found that – from the sample of 1,891 families from urban and rural areas of the 14 Syrian governorates – the vast majority of the 21.8 percent of women who had been assaulted, physically or sexually, stated that a male family member had been responsible.” (4) Also, at least one Western article reports the 10% value: “A U.N. study found about 22 percent of married women in Syria said they had been assaulted in some way, either verbally or physically with slightly more than half of those citing verbal abuse and slightly less than half citing a beating. That would work out to about 10 percent of the women in the random sample saying they'd been beaten.” (5)

It is likely that the UN knows it’s own study, so it is likely the more representative number is 10%. I have contacted the UN to get the full study, and to ask about the different values. It looks like the number of women beaten in Syria may be half of what it is in the US.

I did a lit search on intimate partner violence, and there is simply no data anywhere that finds a higher incidence of spousal abuse in Muslim countries. One paper (6) looks at a WHO study and finds the following percentages of women who have experienced abuse from their current partner (values for rural and urban areas are averaged). This is a good example, since the methodology is the same for all countries:

Ethiopia (2:1 Christian:Muslim): 29%
Peru (Catholic): 20.8%
Samoa (Christian): 17.9%
Bangladesh (Muslim): 17.4%
Tanzania (1:1 Christian:Muslim): 16.7%
Namibia (Christian): 15.9%
Thailand (Buddhist): 10.6%

I don’t see the evil Muslims standing out here. In other papers, data is always ambiguous. For example. In another study which has the same methodology, they found that “Muslim men were significantly less likely to justify wife-beating than Catholic respondents in Malawi (OR = 0.62,. p

There is simply no correlation, or anything close to it. That is reality. Of course, your reality might be screwed up if you read a blog that details every incidence of wife beating that occurs among a billion plus people.

1) http://www.unifem.org/attachments/stories/currents_200606_SyriaVAWstudyKeyFindings.pdf

2) "In one segment of the report, the statistics show that nearly a quarter of Syrian women are victims of physical violence. But elsewhere in the study, statistics used show that the number of women who have been beaten is closer to 1 in 10, leading to confusion about the actual number":
http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0425/p04s01-wome.html

3) Page 38 of
http://www.un.org/womenwatch/daw/vaw/violenceagainstwomenstudydoc.pdf

4) Page 60 of
http://www.unhcr.org/refworld/pdfid/470ddb1f2.pdf

5) AP Worldstream, “Activists say UN report on violence against women breaks a taboo in Syria ,” 11 April 2006, by Samar Kassabli, a portion of this article, including what was quoted, is available here:
http://www.williambowles.info/syria_lebanon/sl_newslinks_09-150406.html

6) Claudia Garcia-Moreno, Claudia, et al, “Prevalence of intimate partner violence: findings from the WHO multi-country study on women’s health and domestic violence,” Lancet (2006), Vol. 368, pp. 1260-1269
7) An Empirical Investigation of Attitudes towards Wife-Beating among Men and Women in Seven Sub-Saharan African Countries Author(s): Manju Rani, Sekhar Bonu, Nafissatou Diop-Sidibe Source: African Journal of Reproductive Health / La Revue Africaine de la Santé Reproductive, Vol. 8, No. 3 (Dec., 2004), pp. 116-136

Hesperado:
One paragraph got screwed up because of less than signs. If I leave them out, it should read:

"In another study which has the same methodology, they found that “Muslim men were significantly less likely to justify wife-beating than Catholic respondents in Malawi, while the reverse was the case in Ethiopia and Benin. (7)"

BTW, it has not been that long since “honor killings” were allowed in Christian countries:

“The ‘honor defense’ or ‘unwritten law’ that allowed a court to acquit a defendant entirely when he killed to protect his honor (i.e., his exclusive right to possess the sexuality of his wife and his female relatives) had supporters in the legal community as recently as fifty years ago. (note 1) Until the 1960's and 1970's, statutes in four states made it justifiable for the husband to kill his wife's lover. (note 2)
Note 1) See Roberts, The Unwritten Law, 10 KY. L.J. 45 (1922) (jury acquittals of defendants in "honor" killings reflect popular sentiment); Comment, Recognition of the Honor Defense Under the Insanity Plea, 43 YALE L.J. 809 (1934) (acquittals of "honor" killings through insanity pleas).
Note 2) See Note, Sex Discrimination in the Criminal Law: The Effects of the Equal Rights Amendment, 11 AM. CRIM. L. REV. 469, 500-01 & n.244 (1973). These states were Georgia, New Mexico, Texas, and Utah. In Reed v. State, 123 Tex. Crim. 348, 59 S.W.2d 122 (1933), the court held that a wife who killed a woman committing adultery with her husband was not justified by the Texas statute. See also Mays v. State, 88 Ga. 399, 14 S.E. 560 (1891) (when defendant kills wife's lover, he would be justified if the killing is to prevent rather than to punish or avenge the adultery); Scroggs v. State, 94 Ga. App. 28, 93 S.E.2d 583 (1956) (wife killing to prevent adultery is justified, but were she to kill in the heat of passion upon discovering commission of husband's adultery, she would be guilty of manslaughter).”
Taylor, Laurie J., “Provoked Reason in Men and Women: Heat-of-Passion Manslaughter and Imperfect Self-Defense,” UCLA Law Review, 33 UCLA L. Rev. 1679 (1986)

Honor killing in Brazil was not outlawed until 1991:

"Brazil's Supreme Court has ruled that a man can no longer kill his wife and win acquittal on the ground of 'legitimate defense of honor.'"
The New York Times
March 29, 1991, Friday, Late Edition - Final
'Honor' Killing of Wives Is Outlawed in Brazil
BYLINE: By JAMES BROOKE, Special to The New York Times
SECTION: Section B; Page 16; Column 3; National Desk
DATELINE: RIO DE JANEIRO, March 26

"It looks like the number of women beaten in Syria may be half of what it is in the US."

Not so fast, Jihad Joe. Before you can do come to that conclusion, you have to prove that the two populations being compared

1) Syrian wives currently married who have been beaten in their marriages

2) All American women who are married now, who have ever been married, who are now divorced, who have dates now, have ever had dates ever in the past, have had flings, shack-ups, one-night-stands -- currently and FOR ALL THEIR LIVES.

No comparison. I don't care how much you tap-dance on a Persian rug and chirp away on your flute to make the snake in the basket dance.

Slight correction to my last post (addition in caps):

"...that the two populations being compared...ARE EQUIVALENT."

Correction/addition to my last post (addition in caps):

"...that the two populations being compared...ARE EQUIVALENT."

Hesperado:
You are confusing two different things. When the surveys on intimate partner violence (IPV) are taken, there is one issue regarding who the subjects are. Usually it is a random sample of all women. Sometime, it is a subgroup of all women, like married women, women aged 18 to 25, etc. The other issue is the period of time in question, i.e., have you experienced IPV at anytime during your lifetime, with your present partner, during the past month, etc. The vast majority of the time, they are talking about lifetime exposure. If they are not, they qualify it by saying "current partner," "ages 18 to 25," etc. The Syria study is not qualified in this way. They mention "married women," but this is who they asked, not the period of time in question. These are different things. I will get the full report from th UN, and this can all be cleared up next time. Until then, you have not addressed the Lancet study (I think I know why).

If Muslims beat their wives more than other religious groups, then why, in the Lancet study, which uses the identical methodology for different countries, doesn't Bangladesh, a Muslim country, not end up on top? Why?

dumbledoresarmy quoted Nonie Darwish:

"To admit one’s flaws and mistakes, to correct and repent, challenges a person of any nationality.

" In Muslim culture, however, it is inconceivable."

--which went on to mention the cultivation of self-criticism exemplified in Jewish culture through Yom Kippur. But it is much grander than that: Western civilization itself has cultivated self-criticism and self-examination more than any other culture in the history of the world. A good deal of that stems from one of the four pillars of the West: our Jewish heritage -- the four pillars visible through this descriptive phrase: Judaeo-Christian & Graeco-Roman. The other three pillars have also amply contributed to this, as well as to many other virtues.

Indeed,this Western cultivation of self-criticism and self-examination has in the last two centuries (with each passing generation progressing exponentially) become so robust it has developed "excess health" -- a paradoxical morbidity generated from a hectic fever of progress. The modern West now, and for the last approximate 50 years, has too much self-criticism and self-examination. This is vividly and tragicomically evident all around us now as we are confronted by a deadly, grotesquely violent, barbarically unjust and ghoulishly evil enemy, and instead of rationally assessing the situation and taking appropriate measures, we spend most of our Western time in irrational denial, blaming ourselves somehow for these savages, and suppressing ourselves from even thinking about condemning the savages themselves: for, in the paradigm of the modern West, the only fit object of condemnation has to be... ourselves, and certainly never a people perceived as being ethnic.

At any rate, I had come up with a nifty catch phrase to illustrate the contrast between the West and Islam with regard to self-criticism and self-examination:

In the West, we air our dirty laundry; in Islam, they wear it on their heads and think it's clean and pure.

dave,

"You are confusing two different things. When the surveys on intimate partner violence (IPV) are taken, there is one issue regarding who the subjects are. Usually it is a random sample of all women. Sometime, it is a subgroup of all women, like married women, women aged 18 to 25, etc."

Irrelevant. In the study you adduced, it was all women who ever had relations, intimate or casual, formal or informal, married, unmarried, dates, acquaintances, shacking up, not shacking up, knocking boots in an elevator, getting jiggy with it in the back seat of a '69 Mercury, etc.

"The other issue is the period of time in question, i.e., have you experienced IPV at anytime during your lifetime, with your present partner, during the past month, etc. The vast majority of the time, they are talking about lifetime exposure. If they are not, they qualify it by saying "current partner," "ages 18 to 25," etc."

Irrelevant. In the study you adduced, it was for all their lifetimes.

We are talking about the study you adduced, not some hypothetical variant.

"The Syria study is not qualified in this way."

That's the problem. Because it is not qualified in the same or sufficiently similar way, it cannot be interpreted to yield sufficiently equivalent comparison with the other population.

"They mention "married women," but this is who they asked, not the period of time in question."

One reasonably assumes it was current beatings, not one black eye they may have received 25 years prior. Doesn't matter though, the wide open qualifications for the other population are in no way comparable to this restricted Syrian population.

"If Muslims beat their wives more than other religious groups, then why, in the Lancet study, which uses the identical methodology for different countries, doesn't Bangladesh, a Muslim country, not end up on top? Why?"

Under-reporting by the victims.

Hesperado:
"One reasonably assumes it was current beatings, not one black eye they may have received 25 years prior."

No. When they ask these questions, if you ever bothered to research it instead of imagine what the nethodology is, they simply say "have you ever been beaten by an intimate partner?" Then they ask more specifics. "Ever" means "ever."

"Under-reporting by the victims."
So there is something about Muslims that makes them not report beatings in a confidential survey. I guess surveys shouldn't even be taken, because there's always a reason why, even if the survey does not make Muslims look bad, there is a reason behind it, and they really are bad, or worse. Instead of taking surveys and doing research, scientists should just contact Hesperado on Jihadwatch, and he will tell you how evil Muslims are, and they could just print that instead of their studies. You are such an incredible imbecile it isn't even funny. It's one reason I post here. I love to make you look like imbeciles for the sake of any partially sane person that might wander by.

Hesperado:
"Because it is not qualified in the same or sufficiently similar way, it cannot be interpreted to yield sufficiently equivalent comparison with the other population."

I don't know which imbecilic comment is more worthy of a response. I will just pick this one. I recently read a review article on IPV that compared data from the past 20 years, all with varying methodology. You have to be careful with what conclusions you draw from different studies, but they are usually comparable to some, if not a great degree. People within particular fields do things in similar ways. Each scientist does not live in his or her own world. My wife is a social psychologist, and sometimes she reads this crap and laughs her ass off, wondering why I am even posting here. Maybe I should wonder too. I always wonder if that's your point - to say stupid crap to irritate me so I stop posting.

Hesperado:
I wonder why you even bothered to make up some lame dsefense about the Syria study when all you had to do was say "Muslim victims under-report." Wouldn't that have been easier?
It's funny how when you think you find a good stat, under reporting by Muslims is not a problem. You find a ridiculous stat about 90% of Afghan women having been beaten, and it is a perfect study. No problems with under-reporting, no problems with methodology. It's perfect. Until I show you that the whole thing is bogus, and was fabricated. Then you ignore it. When you bring up a rape stat from Pakistan that sounds like it reflects the evil Muslim nature, you report it. But when I show you that your stat really shows that the US rape rate is 169 times as high as Pakistan's, you ignore it. When I show you more data showing that there is no correlation between Muslims and higher incidence of wife-beating, you say they under-report it. How can you live a life like this? How can you live a life based on stupidity?

Yes dumble, it is really ridiculous to rely on statistics when dealing with Islamic societies, where most everyone is either brainwashed into fanaticism or brutally cowed into fear for their lives or trying to avoid horrific tortures -- or, at best, life-ruining ostracization. Add to that the hostility to foreigners coming in with their clipboards to knock on doors or telephone village homes in Swat for God's sake -- and what kind of statistics could ever be salvaged from such an environment where daily life is a hellish war zone of pathological fanaticism?

Hesperado:
"Yes dumble, it is really ridiculous to rely on statistics"

And what do the smart people rely on?

Hesperado

have you read Rosemary Sookhdeo's little book, 'Secrets Behind the Burqa'? It is based on sociological research that she did in the UK with Muslim women and girls in the late 1990s.

It is in some ways a very circumspect book - to know why, read the 'Epilogue' before you read the rest.

But chapter three, 'understanding the concept of honor and shame' is still very illuminating.

This:

"If a member of the family is responsible for any wrongdoing {of course, we must remember that what Islam regards as 'wrongdoing' is generally quite different from what non-Muslims regard as 'wrongdoing' - dda} or if they are in circumstances that could be conceived [of] as shameful, it has to be kept within the family circle and hidden from the outside world. This must be done at all costs otherwise the family will be shamed. Even the birth of a baby girl can be considered shameful and the birth goes unannounced. Condolences can be given to the father. So honor and shame become the controlling forces in people's lives.

"Shame is not only an act against the accepted system of values {and we know what *those* are, as defined by the Quran etc - dda} but it can also include the discovery by outsiders that the act has been committed.

"A person who has done a shameful act must conceal it, for revealing the disgrace is to commit another disgrace. There is an Arab proverb that says, 'a concealed shame is two thirds forgiven'. To avoid this shame, lying or concealment is seen as honorable and therefore the right thing to do.
"However if a shameful act cannot be covered up by any means it must be avenged. This is sanctioned by the Qur'an - 'Believers, retaliation is decreed for you in bloodshed'.

"Here we enter the realm of honor killings...". [pp. 56-57]

Here is something that Mrs Sookhdeo was actually told by a Muslim family in the UK:

"One family told me that if their daughter was being beaten in a marriage *they would do nothing about it, as it could bring shame on the entire family. They would rather keep their honor and let their daughter suffer* {my emphasis - dda}. As long as it was hidden from the outside world, that would satisfy them". [p. 58].

{It occurs to me to wonder *why*, in the first place, this family thought it would be 'shameful' to find that one's married daughter was being beaten by her husband. In light of the passage from Nonie Darwish that I cited above, I would suspect it is because a Muslim family would take it for granted that if their daughter or sister was being beaten by her husband, she *deserved* it, i.e. that she had been a bad, rebellious wife, thus reflecting badly upon her family of origin who had failed to make her sufficiently submissive? - dda}.

A bit further along, Mrs Sookhdeo talks about honor killings:

"These crimes are an ever increasing phenomenon in multicultural Britain and such is the protective nature of the families and communities in which they occur that outsiders rarely become aware of the victim's sufferings. If they do intervene it is invariably too late. Most honor killings are characterised by extreme secrecy".

And more from Mrs Sookhdeo, the fifth chapter of her book, on domestic violence and 'honor-related violence', among Muslims in the UK, pp. 85-87:

"Some Muslim men accept the idea that it is normal for a man to hit his wife and that she is no more than a piece of his property...

"Based on information from grassroot leaders, social workers and activists, *at least* {my emphasis} 10 % of British Muslim women are abused emotionally, physically and sexually by their Muslim husbands.

"Despite the severity of the problem, the Muslim community has largely closed its eyes and devoted very few resources to helping the victims and stopping the abusers.

"Domestic violence is an ongoing debilitating experience of physical, psychological and/ or sexual abuse in the home, according to a Muslim social worker. [One must note that Mrs Sookhdeo's source here *is* from one of the few Muslim media outlets in the UK that did raise this topic - Q-News, article entitled 'Domestic Violence in the Muslim Community', June 1999].

"The most common form of abuse is emotional and mental abuse. The Muslim community tends to dismiss the seriousness of mental abuse, rationalising it as a petty argument between husband and wife, and saying it is not serious until he hits her.
"In Muslim homes it includes verbal threats to divorce the wife, to remarry, or to take the children away if she does not do exactly as she is told.
"In reality mental abuse does serious psychological harm to many Muslim women. It destroys their self-esteem and makes them question their self-worth; some have breakdowns, and go insane.

"Many Muslim women - like many victims of domestic violence of any faith - do not seek out help. They are afraid that if their situation becomes public they will lose their honor because of gossip, and fear that the abusers will get more hostile when the negative publicity gets back to them. Many abused women remain silent because they lack confidence in themselves and believe that they somehow deserve the abuse.
"They also keep quiet out of a feeling of hopelessness and a belief that no-one will help them, and because of their financial dependence on their husband or desire to keep the home together for the children's sake.
"Other Muslim women accept the abuse as a fact of life and learn to live with it. {See the passage I quoted from Ayaan Hirsi Ali, earlier, to get a handle on this tendency to acquiesce and submit - dda}.

"Of those who reach breaking point and seek help, many Muslim women [in the UK - dda] turn to Imams but often find them unhelpful. {I'll bet - understatement of the year - dda}.

"Looking for other sources of help, many Muslim women turn to relatives, only to be told to accept the abuse because making a big deal of it could hurt the family's honor and reputation.

"In desperation many abused Muslim women {remember, this is *only* talking about the situation in the UK - dda} turn to shelters run by non-Muslims.

"They are usually taken to one outside their area *so they are unable to be found by other family members* {Nota Bene - and why does Mrs Sookhdeo point this out? does an abused wife in a Western family, fleeing an abusive husband, normally have to hide from *her own family* as well as from the husband? - dda}.

"Many of these women visit the mosque and are then found by the family members, *as it is reported back* {Again, nota bene - would a church visited by a woman whom the congregation discovered to be in hiding from an abusive husband or family, automatically reveal her whereabouts to that husband or family? - dda}.

"Our daughter Ruth ran such a refuge in the centre of London for many years. She was constantly in touch with the police and social workers having to deal with many abusive situations.

"The issue still remains a taboo subject among all major Muslim organisations {I presume Mrs Sookhdeo means, here, 'all major UK Muslim organisations' - dda}.

And she then proceeds to the subject of 'honor-related violence', with some police stats:

"*Up to 17 000* women in the UK are being subjected to 'honor' related violence every year, *according to the Police Chiefs* {my emphasis - dda: this is not what people *say* is happening, this would be just those cases that have come to the attention of the Police, because of the discovery of a body, for example. And although there are some cases among Hindus and Sikhs, the overwhelming majority of victims of 'honor' violence are Muslim women and girls. Phyllis Chesler recently did a brilliant study comparing the typical features of 'honor' murders of Muslim women, with the typical features of murders of women and girls that take place among other cultural groups: the two sets of killings, among Muslims and among other non-Muslim groups, *are* quite different in significant ways}.

"They [the police] warn that the number of girls falling victim to forced marriages, kidnappings, sexual assaults, beatings and even murder *by relatives intent on upholding the 'honor' of their family is *up to 35 times higher than official figures suggest* {my emphasis - dda}. The crisis with children as young as eleven being sent abroad to be married has prompted the authorities to take more action."
END EXCERPT.

It should be noted that Mrs Sookhdeo and her husband Canon Patrick Sookhdeo lived for many, many years in a heavily-Islamified (and Islamifying) region of East London. She speaks not only from the sociological research she has done, but from years of personal experience and observation.