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Below is my FrontPage article for today, "Islamic Misogyny," about the feminist Left's silence on the Aqsa Parvez case. I wrote this article before the murders of Amina and Sarah Said, but as it happens, it touches on many themes that are newly relevant in light of their horrific deaths. For this morning Islam Said, the brother of Amina and Sarah Said, says that the killings were not honor killings: "It's not religion. It's something else. Religion has nothing to do with it."
Maybe they weren't honor killings. But whether they were or not, one certainty is that the denial among Muslims in America will continue. There is no doubt whatsoever that even if it were definitively established that Yaser Said murdered his daughters because they had brought shame on the family by dating non-Muslims and behaving in a non-Muslim manner, Muslim spokesmen would be on TV and radio insisting that this had nothing to do with Islam, and that it was a product of the culture in which Yaser Said was raised.
Indeed, we had a commenter here last night insisting that he was a friend of one of the murdered girls, and bearing in his email address the name of a friend of Sarah who is quoted in this Dallas Morning News article. This person claimed that Sarah longed to read the Qur'an and know more about Islam, and that her father was irreligious and even anti-religious. This person was indignant that we suggested that the girls were killed because they were dating non-Muslims, although in reality that suggestion came from the boys they were dating, via KXAS-TV in Dallas, and claimed they were killed for cultural, not religious reasons.
I have no idea whether or not this person is who he claims to be, or whether or not what he wrote here about Sarah Said is accurate, but there are several good reasons for doubt:
1. People who will go out of their way to clear Islam from any responsibility in any wrongdoing by any Muslim are legion, we have seen them at this site many times, and they have never shied away from the most brazen lies;
2. What he says contradicts the reported statements from the two boys dating Amina and Sarah;
3. There is no indication of any burning interest in Islam on the material we have from the girls;
4. If the poster here were who he claimed to be, some similar statements might have shown up in that Dallas News article in which Sarah's actual friend whose name was used here is quoted -- since that article touches on exactly the same issue raised here, the relationship of the killings to Islam.
However, none of that is conclusive. The IP checks out as being from the Dallas area, which is where the girls lived. So the comment may indeed be authentic. In any case, what's more important is the content of the message. Because now Islam Said has said essentially the same thing: this has nothing to do with religion. It is a cultural matter. The Daily Mail glibly informed us yesterday that female genital mutilation "is not even mentioned in the Koran," and the same thing can be said for honor killing. So that means it is an un-Islamic cultural practice, right?
Well, it is not so easy as all that. It is interesting to watch Islamic spokesmen happily affirm that Islam encompasses every aspect of life, and then, when confronted by unpleasant aspects of the culture created by Islam, turn around and claim that such things are untouched by any aspect of Islam whatsoever. Well, which is it? Does Islam encompass all of life, and hence leave an indelible mark on the cultures of the societies that adopt it, or does it leave untouched large areas of life, in which pre-Islamic pagan practices continue?
That's a serious question, and for which there is no single or easy answer. But I don't think there can be any serious doubt that a culture in which a man can write in a mainstream newspaper that violence against women is necessary for the stability of the family and the society, and invoke Islam to support his view, and a culture in which a national parliament can reject on Islamic grounds an attempt to stiffen penalties for honor killings, is a culture that has been deeply influenced by Islam. And since Islam is used as the justification for such barbarities, it becomes incumbent upon Muslim spokesmen to confront this directly, and work for positive change, rather than simply to consign it all to culture, as if that absolves Islam from all responsibility. For this is the culture that apparently gave Yaser Said the idea that he had to kill his daughters. It is a culture suffused by its religion, thoroughly permeated by its religion -- such that a clear distinction between the two is not so easy to find.
But the denial and obfuscation will continue. That is as certain as the sunrise. Not a single Islamic spokesman will read this and take up my challenge to confront honestly the elements of Islamic culture that create people like Yaser Said and Muhammad Parvez. That is as certain as oxygen. No fearless, un-PC conservative TV host will challenge any of these Islamic spokesmen on this obfuscation and denial. That is as certain as the oceans.
And it isn't just Islamic spokesmen, either. Here is my piece about the denial and finger-pointing on the Left.
A Muslim girl has been murdered, and the Left, which claims to care about women and their oppression, is silent.Aqsa Parvez, a sixteen-year-old Muslim girl living in Canada, was, according to police, strangled to death by her father because she refused to wear the hijab. Muhammad Parvez, Aqsa’s father, has been charged with murder, and her brother, Waqas Parvez, with obstructing police. A friend of Aqsa explained: “She wanted to live her life the way she wanted to, not the way her parents wanted her to. She just wanted to be herself, honestly she just wanted to show her beauty, and not be pushed around by her parents telling her what she has to be like, what she has to do. Nobody would want to do that.”
One might have assumed that the Left would be leading the charge against a culture that victimizes those who want to live their lives the way they want to, but that has not been the case. Leftist publications had little to say about her death. Feminist writer Katha Pollitt, as of this writing, still hasn’t written a word about it. Nor has anyone else at The Nation. CounterPunch? Not a word. The National Organization for Women? Nothing. Even Human Rights Watch has shown no interest in the case of Aqsa Parvez.
By contrast, on December 14, Horowitz’s FrontPage Magazine published an article about the incident called “Horror Under the Hijab,” by Stephen Brown. Then followed my article, “Canadian DisHonor Murder,” on December 19. Of course, Katha Pollitt and others on the Left would take issue with both of those articles, since Brown wrote about an “unbelievable attempt to detract people’s attention from the real issue of Muslim intolerance, even hatred, towards females’ desire for freedom,” and I suggested that “an examination of some elements of Islamic theology and culture was necessary in order to try to prevent more young Muslim girls from being similarly victimized in the future.”
The Daily Kos was not moved. It devoted one of its two posts on the killing of Aqsa Parvez to asking, “Why, why, WHY is it that whenever someone who is Muslim, or has a Muslim-sounding name, does something... it’s automatically blamed on Islam?” Of course, the answer to this is that Muslims who commit acts of violence so often explain those actions by reference to Islam, but that possibility isn’t part of the Left’s worldview. It is noteworthy also that the Daily Kos has not hesitated to blame Christianity for the decline of public education, for instance, or to claim on the basis of the actions of a few individuals that “Apocalyptic Premillennial Dispensationalist Christianity is the de-facto state endorsed religion in the US armed forces.” Only when it comes to Islam are such large conclusions, no matter how well supported by the evidence, never acceptable.
Rather than making the hijab murder a cause celebre the way it did, for instance, with the Matthew Shepherd murder, the Left has, moreover, attacked Horowitz and Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week for raising concerns about Muslim women in the first place. “The Islamofascist Awareness people aren’t interested in what’s actually going on in the Muslim world. They just use the woman question as an easy way to target Muslims.” So said Columbia University anthropologist Lila Abu-Lughod over the phone to Pollitt, who highlighted the quote in an attack on Horowitz in The Nation. Pollitt airily dismissed the central charge of Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week organizers--that the academic Left was ignoring the plight of women in the Muslim world—with a flick of the wrist: “And how likely is it that women’s studies professors think female genital mutilation is great and honor killing is ‘just their culture’?” Abu-Lughod also told her that Columbia’s women’s studies department was offering three courses on women in the Islamic world, “none of which paints a rosy picture.”
But if this is the case, why is every Islamic crime of violence against Muslim women--and the Parvez case is just the most recent in a long line—met with silence? Why hasn’t Katha Pollit been using her bully pulpit to make this murder a major story? Because she is more interested in protecting “the Muslim world” than its victims.
The silence extends also to Noorjehan Barmania, who took up Pollitt’s criticism of Horowitz in The Guardian. “It was Katha Pollitt,” she declared, “who made me see it….She speculated that by focusing on the oppression of women, Horowitz had found an easy way to target the Muslim world.” Well, then, why doesn’t Barmania offer an alternative from the Left? Why doesn’t she outdo Horowitz in championing the rights of women in the Islamic world? Why doesn’t she demand justice in the Aqsa Parvez case and eloquently, more eloquently than David Horowitz, decry this barbaric murder? Because to do so would be to break ranks with the Left’s vision of an America that is inauthentic in everything except its Islamophobia. Barmania and Pollitt seem impervious to the irony: although they attack Horowitz for allegedly being a faux feminist, his FrontPage magazine is one of the few places that is actually standing up for this poor girl, and calling for an end to the conditions that led to her murder in the first place.
Pollitt concluded her attack on Horowitz in The Nation by recounting Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s “rightward trajectory,” and suggesting: “Maybe we leftists and feminists need to think a bit more self-critically about how the AEI -- to say nothing of the clownish Horowitz -- managed to win over this bold and complex crusader for women’s rights.” This is a calumny against Hirsi Ali, who accomplished more in one book, Infidel, than Katha Pollit has in an entire career, and who is forced to move through her public life with five bodyguards because of the cowardly ambivalence of people like Pollit who see her merely as a prize won by the vast right wing conspiracy. If such people will not unambiguously defend Aayan Hirsi Ali, perhaps the most knowledgeable and outspoken critic of violence against Muslim women in the world, it is little wonder that they won’t defend a 16 year old girl in Canada whose life was taken by that violence.
Posted by Robert at January 4, 2008 7:15 AM
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"That is as certain as the sunrise."
"That is as certain as the oceans."
From the Qur'an? Explain.
Posted by: Hugh![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.jihadwatch.org/nav-commenters.gif)
at January 4, 2008 7:25 AM
By the sun and his midday brightness,
By the moon, which rises after him,
By the day, which reveals his splendor,
By the night, which veils him!
(From Sura 91)
Posted by: jihadwatch at January 4, 2008 7:29 AM
Well, that is not the same thing as "as certain as the sunrise" and "as certain as the oceans." Is there another conceivable Muslim source? Or is it possibly from somewhere else?
Posted by: Hugh at January 4, 2008 7:30 AM
Hugh,
I don't know.
Sometimes I actually think of things myself.
Sometimes I write something that has been rattling around in my head, and later find that it comes from somewhere else.
I do think it's a bit Qur'anic, but I can't find a reference. It may be from some hadith.
Or it may be that just this once, I have had an original thought. Or, in this case, an original cliché.
Yrs
Robert
at January 4, 2008 7:34 AM
While 'Christian' is a somewhat popular name in the West, I doubt that non-Christian parents would be much inclined to use it, in naming a child.
Therefore, a man who names his son "Islam" isn't likely to be "irreligious".
Yes, Islam Said denies that religion or culture played a role in the deaths of his sisters, and that's the headline. Yet, further into the article we're reminded that Said's assertion is just a guess, and that only Yasser Said can tell us why his two beautiful and promising daughters "had" to die, by his own hand.
Posted by: Abscedere at January 4, 2008 7:52 AM
Abscedere,
While it is indeed strange, it is less strange in Islamic culture, where such names are common even among comparatively non-religious people.
Or, it may be that Yaser Said was religious at one time, when he named his son, and then drifted away from Islam. It is even possible that he had a religious awakening occasioned by the specter of his daughters living as secular Americans, and acted accordingly.
Cordially
Robert Spencer
at January 4, 2008 7:59 AM
It's both culture and the perverted "religion" that informs it.
Posted by: darcy at January 4, 2008 8:08 AM
Mr. Spencer, you have a mention in the Comments of "Sons of Apes and Pigs" right now. Do you think that what the Commenter says is true?
http://www.sonsofapesandpigs.org:80/2008/01/happy-new-year-or-kol-sana-wen.html
at January 4, 2008 8:21 AM
Specifically:
"Hal, if anyone having a suitable platform would make such revelations from that platform, it would be his last performance; he'd never have access to that platform again. If Robert Spencer would come right out and say it, he would never get near a microphone again. Several talk show hosts have been fired for lesser revelations." --Comment from website "Sons of Apes and Pigs"
at January 4, 2008 8:23 AM
It is interesting to watch Islamic spokesmen happily affirm that Islam encompasses every aspect of life, and then, when confronted by unpleasant aspects of the culture created by Islam, turn around and claim that such things are untouched by any aspect of Islam whatsoever. Well, which is it?
Exactly.
You've hit the nail on the head.
This is the main issue of every discussion on islam that claims misunderstanding.
When you are in the middle of something it's hard to see it from the outside. That's why muslims cannot see the link.
Kind of like the Englishman saying they have no such thing as British culture, when any tourist visiting London would know in an instant that there is.
You almost have to be outside it to analyse it.
at January 4, 2008 8:41 AM
Let me understand: It is okay, according to Muslims in denial, to say, "Beware of Egyptians; they are often violent because of their violent culture, which by the way, is totally separate from Islam."
Is that right? That it's okay to bash a culture, if it's done to protect Islam? Is that the left's stance in general now, or just of the Islamofascist left?
at January 4, 2008 8:47 AM
The 'culture' just arrived in Sydney:
http://sheikyermami.com/2008/01/04/honor-killing-comes-to-sydney/
at January 4, 2008 8:56 AM
"It is interesting to watch Islamic spokesmen happily affirm that Islam encompasses every aspect of life, and then, when confronted by unpleasant aspects of the culture created by Islam, turn around and claim that such things are untouched by any aspect of Islam whatsoever."
Excellent commentary Robert.
Islam Said, said Islam had nothing to do with it. Its practically a tongue-twister.
These distinctions between what is deemed Islamic and what is merely "cultural", are valueless.
It is not disimilar to the well-trodden semantical argument of whether Islam is the problem or the unrelated stranger known as "Islamism".
Six in one, half dozen the other.
Same old, same old.
Posted by: awake at January 4, 2008 9:13 AM
"female genital mutilation "is not even mentioned in the Koran"
perhaps not. But the hadith is taken seriously. Especially this one:
As for those from whom ye fear rebellion, admonish them and banish them to beds apart, and scourge them” (4:34).
Whack them 'if ye fear rebellion'- means to crack down hard before they can even think about rebelling. They must be kept in constant fear for their lives...
This is another gem that would exite any S&M fetishist:
Bukhari Volume 7, Book 62, Number 132:
Narrated ‘Abdullah bin Zam’a:
The Prophet said, “None of you should flog his wife as he flogs a slave and then have sexual intercourse with her in the last part of the day.”
Ideally when you flog one of your wives, let her recuperate that day and sleep with your other wives or your slave girls
at January 4, 2008 9:14 AM
Sarah Said also had a myspace.com page:
http://www.myspace.com/200867641
She does not look like someone yearning for Islam anymore than Amina did.
http://www.myspace.com/semirockerchic
Posted by: Wimbledon Womble at January 4, 2008 9:16 AM
If these girls were wanting to be such pious muslims, why did they have so many dogs? They even fed their little puppy cheetos. My muslim neighbors would rather run into oncoming traffic than walk on the same sidewalk as me and my dog.
Posted by: joesamas mama at January 4, 2008 9:26 AM
These distinctions between what is deemed Islamic and what is merely "cultural", are valueless.
Well, they do buy Muslims time to immigrate to the West and perform "demographic jihad", which I suspect is the goal. If and when Islam is established firmly in the West, the distinction will disappear, I'm sure.
This kind of debate does point out the fundamental flaw in Islam's claim to be the best system for humanity. Well, everything about Islam does that, but this in particular. I studied philosophy in college and it changed my way of life and how I acted in fundamental ways. For a Muslim, philosophy, as a discipline, is the mere result of human cognition, hardly fit for comparison to Islam. Yet, their own self-proclaimed "best" religion can't change it's adherents in ways comparable to the changes philosophy set in motion for me (which definitely include inculcating a sense that killing your daughters, for whatever reason, is wrong)? It doesn't make a shred of logical sense. Again, none of Islam makes a shred of logical sense, so I'm not surprised.
Posted by: venividivici at January 4, 2008 9:30 AM
"My muslim neighbors" --posted by joesamas mama.
Wow, don't know if I could deal with that situation. For many reasons. Do the females wear their veils and curtains? Do these neighbors acknowledge you, or do you have to acknowledge them first as a sign of your inferiority?
Posted by: darcy at January 4, 2008 9:35 AM
Culture or Religion? Mr. Roberts raises an interesting question and good point. It is easy to hide behind "culture" when you want to sanitize a religion. But "religion" is an aspect of "culture," if you use the term "culture" in the anthropological sense that culture is the full range of learned human behavior patterns. If culture is viewed as a range of learned behavior patterns, then one cannot ignore what behaviors religion teaches as an aspect of "culture."
Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism each teach "Thou shall not kill." In contrast, islam teaches the same sentence with "Thou shall not kill, unless."
Islam teaches on the anniversary of the sacrifice of the willing Ishmael for an father and his son to take a human size animal and cut its throat from ear to ear killing it in a religious way. The act of killing the large mammal as taught and practiced in islam is a learned human behavior pattern that arises out of the religion. To argue islam has nothing to do with it, would only be the case if these learned human acts were not part of Mr. Said's world. It does not matter whether he is religious. It matters whether or not he sanctions the conduct as moral or right.
Mr. Said, if you are not religious, how many goats did you sacrifice during your lifetime during the Eid? Mr. Said, if you are not religious, how many lectures did you attend where the immam said women were to be beaten? Mr. Said, if you are not religious, how many lectures in school or mosque did you attend where it was said that infidel women were whores to be murdered or used as sex toys, enslaved or killed, given to you as booty from your god allah?
We all know that in the part of the world Mr. Said grew up in, he has no power to separate islam from his daily culture? islam is a strict religion of guidance by fatwa. We know that if islam forbade honor killings, there would be very few and killers would be severly punished!
Posted by: David England at January 4, 2008 9:41 AM
Re the question is it culture or religion...? I respectfully say, what difference does it make? Many muslims have not advanced in either much past the seventh century A.D., in thought, word and deed.
All they know is what their "preachers of hate" teach them at mosque on Fridays. This has not changed since muhammed started his psychotic ramblings which became the foundation of both their religion and culture.
Their religion IS their culture, and vice versa.
The first four letters of culture are C-U-L-T, as in cult of the murderers for allah.
As contrast, God the father Almighty does not permit our judging and punishing of sinners. He reserves that to Himself.
Posted by: n.a. palm at January 4, 2008 9:47 AM
Darcy:
Mr. Spencer, you have a mention in the Comments of "Sons of Apes and Pigs" right now. Do you think that what the Commenter says is true?
No, it isn't. I should think that by now it would be rather obvious that I have never shied away from saying something I believe to be true because to do so would put me in personal danger, or even because it would make talk show hosts dislike me.
Cordially
Robert Spencer
at January 4, 2008 9:54 AM
Darcy,
Yes, some wear veils and others garbage bags. Most do not acknowledge me and I respond in kind. They slam the door if they see me walking up the stairs with my dog. At first when I moved in, I would try and walk my dog away from them but then I realized that made me inferior to them.
Now I make them run away while he chases them. It is kind of a game I like to play.
Posted by: joesamas mama at January 4, 2008 9:46 AM
Wow, wow, wow. I couldn't deal with that. Garbage bags, my God.
"Infidels" are supposed to acknowledge a Muslim first as a sign of our inferiority.
Posted by: darcy at January 4, 2008 9:55 AM
"Now I make them run away while he chases them. It is kind of a game I like to play."
LMAO
Posted by: Elric66 at January 4, 2008 9:58 AM
Darcy:
Mr. Spencer, you have a mention in the Comments of "Sons of Apes and Pigs" right now. Do you think that what the Commenter says is true?
No, it isn't. I should think that by now it would be rather obvious that I have never shied away from saying something I believe to be true because to do so would put me in personal danger, or even because it would make talk show hosts dislike me.
Cordially
Robert Spencer
Posted by: jihadwatch at January 4, 2008 9:54 AM
Thanks for reading that comment to the article on "Sons of Apes and Pigs" and replying. May many many MANY "microphones" be in your future! --darcy
at January 4, 2008 10:00 AM
Wow, wow, wow. I couldn't deal with that. Garbage bags, my God.
"Infidels" are supposed to acknowledge a Muslim first as a sign of our inferiority.
Posted by: darcy at January 4, 2008 9:55 AM
Yeah, but this "infidel" acknowleges them with a 60 pound Australian Cattle Dog. He really hates the Glad bag women.
Posted by: joesamas mama at January 4, 2008 10:01 AM
Yeah, but this "infidel" acknowleges them with a 60 pound Australian Cattle Dog. He really hates the Glad bag women.
Posted by: joesamas mama at January 4, 2008 10:01 AM
LOL, mama, keep standing your ground.
at January 4, 2008 10:04 AM
Hi, honour killings are practised by a number of Middle Eastern communities, and also in India. Do you remember the teenage Yesevi girl who was stoned to death by her people in northern Iraq because she was dating a Muslim boy?
This sect is actually pagan but they still practice this barbarity. In the UK there have been cases of honour killings amongst immigrants which did not involve the Muslim community.
There was also a recent horrific killing of a woman and her four children by a Muslim, but the guy had mental health issues and it wasn't clear whether it was this that had prompted his horrific crime (he burned them all to death in the house as they slept) or not. There have, unfortunately, been instances of non-Muslim white people who kill wives and/or children following messy and acrimonious breakdowns of the marriage in which one spouse gets a bit unhinged. Sick. You can be mad and bad.
Posted by: devorgilla at January 4, 2008 10:06 AM
" Some wear veils and some wear garbage bags.."
posted by a neighbor
There is a touch of irony blended with poetry and justice there.
at January 4, 2008 10:21 AM
And so it goes.
On and on because there's no unifying voice in Islam.
Islam encompasses every aspect of life, except when it doesn't.
Hijab is not mandatory, except when it is.
You can't fully comprehend the Qur'an without the Sunnah.
Oh, no, that's a weak hadith.
You don't speak Arabic.
Muslim scholars disagree on.....
Etc.
It's a game that effectively diverts attention and time from the real issue to the lengthy process of trying to disprove the latest in an unending stream of obfuscation and outright lies.
And the process is repeated until the original issue becomes lost in the back and forth.
at January 4, 2008 10:28 AM
Hi again, I think we must aim here at getting Muslims to renounce this whole patriarchal conception of ownership of the female body and fear of female sexuality that is rife in Islam.
IMHO men want to control women when they feel they don't control anything else. Far from being 'manly' it's actually an admission of a kind of impotence. Like when their entire personal world falls apart. They sort of revert to monkeys. Some primitive primate instinct surfaces and takes over and they cease to be men, rational human beings, in control of their lives and themselves, exercising their manhood wish for control in productive areas like the economy, social responsibility, and getting ahead in life. Instead its 'Cherchez la femme' or some such primitive urge to blame and control females. It's a kind of salve to a sick male personality that feels displaced, overpowered: like Susannah and the elders, when they got an eyeful of what they didn't expect, and found (surprise, surprise) they weren't half as holy as they thought.
That's one big reason why the west's economy is strong and the Middle East's is a basket case. Because men here put their manhood where it's supposed to be - out there in the world - and don't (for the most part) keep their brains in their trousers.
Monkeys on the other hand, count power by the number of females they control.
There's nothing wrong with manliness - the only issue for us girls (and for the rest of the world) is if it is 'primitive' or 'evolved'.
Posted by: devorgilla at January 4, 2008 10:30 AM
The answer to this is YES, it is Religious and Cultural.
Do we not understand how many centuries it took the West (e.g. Judeo/Christian society) to split this religion/culture hair?
As for other cultures and people who commit these crimes against women - yes, yes, we all get that this happens. Duh. What we are trying point out here is its predominance within Islam, and few other places at this point in time.
And why is that??? Hmmm???
Posted by: Miss_Anthrope at January 4, 2008 10:34 AM
You can be mad and bad.
Posted by: devorgilla at January 4, 2008 10:06 AM
One can also be bad and not mad, although I truly believe that islam creates psychopaths who are considered exemplars of islamic piety by their co-religionists. Islam is evil. It should be outlawed in Western lands.
at January 4, 2008 10:38 AM
OT - pert. to a previous thread:
People, I'm sure you recall the "John Lennon" debate of a few days ago, whether or not he'd be on the side of the Islamists today.
Well, this is interesting. In researching Enoch Powell this morning, I read that the Beatles' song "Get Back" is a protest song against Powell's 1968 "Rivers of Blood" speech. You know, "Get back to where you once belonged" i.e. immigrants. I.e. The Beatles, including Lennon, did not approve of Powell's viewpoint concerning the Pakistani immigration to England. So, IMO, I still think that Lennon would be siding with the Islamists today. Here. Take a gander.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Get_Back
Posted by: darcy at January 4, 2008 10:42 AM
"You can be mad and bad."
-- from a posting above
And dangerous to know.
Posted by: Hugh at January 4, 2008 10:53 AM
"You can be mad and bad."
-- from a posting above
And dangerous to know.
Posted by: Hugh at January 4, 2008 10:53 AM
LOL, I thought the same thing, Hugh. Said about Lord Byron by Lady Caroline Lamb, but can also apply today to a whole group of people called "Islamists."
Posted by: darcy at January 4, 2008 10:56 AM
The Yemen Times is a mainstream newspaper? That's a first. Islam Said did not say the killings were a cultural matter as you paraphrased about six graphs into your post. So the cultural excuse did not come from the family.
http://13martyrs.blogspot.com/
Posted by: 13 Martyrs at January 4, 2008 11:03 AM
Still unsolved, half a year later is this case in Atlanta, GA last Summer.
Slain mom, daughters sought asylum
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution ^ | Published on: 08/02/07 | YOLANDA RODRIGUEZ, TOM OPDYKE
Posted on 08/03/2007 6:42:53 AM PDT by beaureguard
You have to pay for AJC archives, so this link is to Freerepublic.
I have to admit I did hear an update on the ABC station about a week ago. At one point the Atlanta PD sent detectives to Kenya without any results.
There never has been any disclosure of what, if anything, the two boys who survived had to say about motives for the slayings. Also no speculation as to why the boys weren't killed.
at January 4, 2008 11:06 AM
Lying is an integral part of Islam. It's written in the Quran. That's why islam is not really a religion but an invention of a man after power, nothing more. Don't believe me? Read the quran, see the way mohammed contradicts the "word of God" for his own ends. Mohammed effectively says that allah is too stupid to make a decision and stick to it, even though he is apparently omnipotent.
As Aisha (mohammeds child bride) stated when old mo wanted to marry his sons wife Zainab(strictly forbidden until mohammed wanted to do it):-
"Thy lord works in haste to do they biding".
Even the "perfect mans" wife thought him a liar and a fraud. And I think she should know better than anyone what sort of a man mo was. She was one of his victims after all.
Posted by: DaveMate at January 4, 2008 11:08 AM
"Thy lord works in haste to do thy bidding."
Yeah - when Mo wanted to marry Zainab his son's wife which was forbidden. However, "Allah" quickly changed the rules so that Mo could get underneath Zainab's curtain.
Uh huh, Aiesha was on to him.
Posted by: darcy at January 4, 2008 11:24 AM
"That is as certain as oxygen"
I'm getting to this thread a bit late, and I see Hugh already queried "sunrise" and "oceans"; but what about "oxygen"?
at January 4, 2008 11:26 AM
I see the Islamic Apologist, 13 Murderers, has arrived.
Number of brain cells you have, too.
Posted by: darcy at January 4, 2008 11:27 AM
Yep...not only do they need to control women but they needed to invent an Arab friendly "god" that would do their bidding. Notice how their god seems to hate the traditional tribal enemies of Arabs. In their religion the surest way to heaven is to kill the enemies of allah (translated:enemies of Arabs).
PS: allah gives them dominion over women too...natch.
at January 4, 2008 11:33 AM
The Yemen Times is a mainstream newspaper? That's a first. Islam Said did not say the killings were a cultural matter as you paraphrased about six graphs into your post. So the cultural excuse did not come from the family.
Posted by: 13 Martyrs at January 4, 2008 11:03 AM
Rob,
The Yemen Times is a mainstream paper in Yemen. I think you are assuming Robert meant mainstream like the LA Times, which I am sure is not considered mainstream to the people in Yemen.
Regarding your second point, Robert was paraphrasing the common theme we hear as an excuse from Islamists and Islamic apologists alike.
In all fairness, Robert specifically quoted the son in the first paragraph:
For this morning Islam Said, the brother of Amina and Sarah Said, says that the killings were not honor killings: "It's not religion. It's something else. Religion has nothing to do with it."
There is no "gotcha" moment here and let it be a lesson to you about the caveat of skimming through articles.
at January 4, 2008 11:34 AM
"For this morning Islam Said, the brother of Amina and Sarah Said, says that the killings were not honor killings: "It's not religion. It's something else. Religion has nothing to do with it."
Excuse me, but - bullcaca.
It's an obvious daughter-slaughter aka "honor killings."
at January 4, 2008 11:39 AM
OT
The British police are being allowed to investigate the murder of Bhutto but they have been told to "not go on any wild goose chases."
Loosely translated I think this means that the police are allowed to pinpoint the mechanics of her death but don't go too far in finding out who orchestrated the murder. Out.. you damned spot!
at January 4, 2008 11:42 AM
darcy said:
"Well, this is interesting. In researching Enoch Powell this morning, I read that the Beatles' song "Get Back" is a protest song against Powell's 1968 "Rivers of Blood" speech. You know, "Get back to where you once belonged" i.e. immigrants. I.e. The Beatles, including Lennon, did not approve of Powell's viewpoint concerning the Pakistani immigration to England. So, IMO, I still think that Lennon would be siding with the Islamists today. Here. Take a gander."
"Get Back" is a Paul McCartney song. When the Beatles Anthology was released and the earlier versions of the song came to light, McCartney actually got flak for being "racist." How ironic. It was obviously sung in irony and, as you point out, they were opposed to Enoch Powell. PC multiculturalists are so fascistically self-absorbed and humorless that they can't even get irony and even attack those who are their "own side."
Posted by: Wimbledon Womble at January 4, 2008 11:56 AM
Get Back" is a Paul McCartney song. When the Beatles Anthology was released and the earlier versions of the song came to light, McCartney actually got flak for being "racist." How ironic. It was obviously sung in irony and, as you point out, they were opposed to Enoch Powell. PC multiculturalists are so fascistically self-absorbed and humorless that they can't even get irony and even attack those who are their "own side."
Posted by: Wimbledon Womble at January 4, 2008 11:56 AM
I wonder how McCartney feels about Powell now, considering that "rivers of blood" ARE being shed worldwide, due to the global jihad. Wonder how he feels about that ever-present sign held up outside the Finsbury mosque - "UK your 9/11 is coming."
Powell was a Cassandra. And like all Cassandra's he was disbelieved and vilified. Also like all Cassandra's, he was right.
at January 4, 2008 12:05 PM
There have, unfortunately, been instances of non-Muslim white people who kill wives and/or children following messy and acrimonious breakdowns of the marriage in which one spouse gets a bit unhinged. Sick. You can be mad and bad.
True. But you have to admit that when "non-muslim white people" hack off someone's head with a blade, it is an anomaly, whereas if a moslem saws off a head, it is just business as usual.
Posted by: interestinconundrum at January 4, 2008 12:12 PM
If it's just a cultural thing, then 1400 years of Islam has had no effect on this culture.
Why?
If FGM is just a cultural thing, then why don't ALL Muslims condemn it?
There are Islam "scholars" who support FGM.
Why?
The Qur'an establishs that women are the property of men.
It doesn't surprise anyone familiar with Islam culture, history or religion that Muslim fathers would kill their daughters and spare their sons?
Why?
Posted by: tanstaafl at January 4, 2008 12:12 PM
I agree 100% with Mr. Spencer. Excellent!
Permissiveness!
That was the word I was thinking of late last night. Women are not given equal treatment to men in Islam, thus the culture that is created based on Islamic teachings creates a permissive environment for violence against women. The punishments for male relatives (in the Islamic world) who commit violent acts against women are weak. Also because (as Mr. Spencer says above) Islam is the all in-compassing everything, it is hard separate Islam from the culture.
Thus the blame is on Islam, because, so much of the culture created by Islam is anti-female. Women do not have recourse to defend themselves on equal footing with men under the faith, law, and culture. Also because Islam is so dam ridged and inflexible, the reforms that have allowed women so much freedom in the West will be much harder in the Islamic world (if not impossible) without major reforms in the interpretation of Islamic scripture. In the end, Christian-Judaic culture is more flexible to change.
That is one of the reasons the west is successful and the Islamic world is not. We don’t subjugate 50% of our population. Just look at these two girls who were killed. They both had great grades and were intelligent. They had bright futures in our culture, even if they did have boyfriends and dressed in tight clothing. Amina, for example, wanted to be a doctor. Who knows what accomplishments were lost by her death? By allowing our women to be free, we create more competition in the work place and in debate. In the Islamic world, where women are not given those freedoms, any thought of being a doctor would be less likely (although still sometimes does happen).
The clash of cultures over the treatment of women is one of the reasons we have this clash of civilizations. We have different core values, derived from religion (Christian-Judaic) and traditions (Greco, Roman, Enlightenment), from the Islamic world. One can evolve and the other is less adept at that. Different ground rules….
at January 4, 2008 12:12 PM
Check out this interesting new study on how American's view Muslims.
What a Difference a Shawl Makes
- Perceptions Differ of Woman With and Without a Shawl on her Head -
FLEMINGTON, N.J., Jan. 4 /PRNewswire/ -- A new national study of more
than 600 Americans revealed that a woman wearing a shawl or hijab,
typically worn by Muslim women, is viewed significantly different than the
same woman without the traditional headwear.
The study was conducted by HCD Research, using its mediacurves.com web
site during January 2-3, to determine whether Americans possess different
views of a woman based on whether or not she wears traditional Muslim
headwear.
Participants were divided into two randomly assigned groups. Members of
each group were asked to view one of two separate photos of an attractive
young woman. Neither photo was identified in any way. Each sample was then
asked identical questions about the woman, her age, perceived personality,
activities, and how acceptable she might be as a neighbor.
One-third of participants indicated that they would rather have the
woman with the traditional headwear live in another place, another city,
and maybe out of the U.S., as opposed to living in their neighborhood.
However, a clear majority of participants (89%) reported that the woman
without the shawl would be welcome in their neighborhood.
The woman with the shawl on her head was perceived as somewhat older,
and somewhat better off financially than the woman without the shawl. While
the woman with the shawl was more likely to be a stay at home mother, the
woman without the shawl might be a working married woman.
The woman with the shawl on her head was also viewed as much more
traditional than the woman without the shawl. Participants also indicated
that the woman with the shawl was strict and rigid, a good wife and devoted
mother. She was also perceived as keeping to herself or a tight circle of
people. Conversely, the woman without the shawl was perceived to be lively,
friendly, and humorous. She was also viewed as a person who "always looks
at the bright side" and might even be the life of the party.
Overwhelmingly, both photos of the woman were viewed as being
attractive. However, more people thought the woman with the shawl was
beautiful, and both women were seen as trustworthy.
At the end of the questionnaire, the participants specifically
identified the woman with the shawl on her head as Middle-Eastern in origin
and a Muslim; the woman without the shawl was perceived as an American and
a Catholic (maybe Protestant or Jewish).
For detailed information on this study, please go to
http://www.mediacurves.com The Media Curves web site provides the media and
general public with a venue to view Americans' perceptions of popular and
controversial media events and advertisements.
Headquartered in Flemington, NJ, the company's services include
traditional and web-based communications research. For additional
information on HCD Research, access the company's web site at http://www.hcdi.net
or call HCD Research at 908-788-9393.
at January 4, 2008 12:33 PM
The bit about Aisha and how conveniently Mo got his revelations is discussed here.
http://thriceholy.net/internal.html
at January 4, 2008 12:34 PM
The American Left is selective in its anger and in its definitions of "oppression of women".
Clarence Thomas was accused of sexually harassing Anita Hill while Bill Clinton had an affair with another consenting adult. A lawyer was harassed while a lowly intern was a willing partner of the most powerful man in the US. Go figure.
How much of this silence can be attributed to the fact that the murders took place in Canada? The Left would have a hard time blaming Bush and they can't make a fuss about another country. It goes against the grain. The US has no business interfering in the internal affairs of other countries.
Where are the Canadian feminists? Do they not care about the status of women in Canada?
Posted by: PMK at January 4, 2008 12:41 PM
That is one of the reasons the west is successful and the Islamic world is not. We don’t subjugate 50% of our population.
I read at some point in the past year that Bill Gates was paid to come give a lecture on economic development in Saudia Arabia and how to improve it. He made this basic point the foundation of his lecture.
How friggin' stupid must Muslim males be if they have to fly Bill Gates to Saudi Arabia and pay him to tell them this?
Posted by: venividivici at January 4, 2008 12:53 PM
venividivici
The best part is..
You pay for advice that you will not listen to!
Brilliant!
at January 4, 2008 1:04 PM
Here is that specific part, interestinconundrum:
"In the Hadith, Mohammed is held up as living under the same rules as everybody else: "Bukhari...from A'isha: 'The prophet did something and thus permitted it for others, but some people still abstained from it. And that came to the Prophet, and he went into the pulpit, and praised God. Then he said, 'What ails these people who refrain from a thing I have done? For by God, I know God better than they do, and I am more fearful of offending him.'" (The Hadith, p. 82, Islam, John Alden Williams).
Yet as a matter of fact, he lived by a different set of rules than he laid on them. Muslim men are allowed up to four wives: "And if ye are apprehensive that ye shall not deal fairly with orphans, then, of other women who seem good in your eyes, marry but two, or three, or four; and if ye still fear that ye shall not act equitably, then one only; or the slaves whom ye have acquired: this will make justice on your part easier..." (Sura 4:2). Yet he collected wives like some folks collect postage stamps -- by special permit, it would seem: "O Prophet! we allow thee thy wives whom thou hast dowered, and the slaves whom thy right hand possesseth out of the booty which God hath granted thee, and the daughters of thy uncle, and of thy paternal and maternal aunts who fled with thee to Medina, and any believing woman who hath given herself up to the Prophet, if the Prophet desired to wed her -- a Privilege for thee above the rest of the Faithful." (Sura 33:49). His wife A'isha said it all when she told Mohammed, "Truly thy Lord makes haste to do thy pleasure." (quoted p. 40, The Emergence of Islam, Mostafa Vaziri)."
Posted by: darcy at January 4, 2008 1:09 PM
- Perceptions Differ of Woman With and Without a Shawl on her Head -
I frequently see younger women wearing complete head covering in my grocery store. I know they're not wearing the kerchiefs some women wore decades ago. Times have changed. We don't wear hats or shawls in the middle of the day in the middle of summer.
I don't remember seeing hijabs in America before the Iranian revolution. Like it or not, the people who dress this way hold the same religious views as those who seek to kill us. They are setting themselves apart from other women and they are letting us know it.
Posted by: PMK at January 4, 2008 1:09 PM
"1. People who will go out of their way to clear Islam from any responsibility in any wrongdoing by any Muslim are legion, we have seen them at this site many times, and they have never shied away from the most brazen lies"
Removing the burka of denial from jihad watch.
This is exactly what our president does on a daily basis ,what out media does and what Homeland Security ,the FBI,CIA ad infinitum do on a daily basis.
The major explosion in Jacksonville about 2 1/2 weeks ago ,did anyone ebver hear the names of the dead reported.
The only time this is covered up by the government media complex is when there is a dead moslem in the middle of it.
If they are non moslem the names pop up immediately .
That should always be a sign that they have something to hide.
They don't want to alarm the canaries in the coal mine about the methane moslems they import into this country by turning a blind eye to illegal immigration and other acts of treason.
That is Bush policy to this day as is his yearly Eid al Fitir at the White House and his words of praise for the great religion,cult of death Islam.
With corrupt leaders like Bush and the Democrats it's no wonder CAIR has such aid and comfort on our shores from no less than our own corrupt government.
at January 4, 2008 1:11 PM
greatcometof1577,
I know, they probably wanted him to come and tell them how great Islam is and were disappointed in his message.
I'm surprised they didn't call Gates an Islamophobe and behead him for insulting their "prophet".
Posted by: venividivici at January 4, 2008 1:14 PM
The determined,and wilfully misinformed young woman who writes in as "friendofSarah [Said]" wishes to believe, clings to the belief (and tells us, further, that the same belief was held by her murdered friend and her murdered friend's sister) that Islam, pure wonderful Islam, had nothing to do with the Said father's malign treatment of his daughters.
There is nothing surprising about this. In bad old Soviet times, all kinds of determined, brainwashed Communists simply refused to believe that good Papa Joe, sweet Papa Joe, kind Father-of-the-Motherland and Mother-of-the-Fatherland Papa Joe Stalin, could possibly know anything about what some of those bad people under him -- you know, people like Andrey Vyshinsky at the Show Trials in 1938, or people like Lavrenij P. Beria of the NKVD (Narodnij Komitet Vnutrennykh Del) or others like them -- were doing, behind the back of Stalin, and his equally good, kind, sweet altogether well-meaning Communist Party.
This young girl cannot face up to what Islam teaches. So let me tell her. In Islam, women are clearly inferior. Look at the rights of women under Shari'a. The man triple-talaqs to divorce a woman. What can the woman do? A man can take up to four wives, and concubines too. What can the woman do? A woman is regarded as a dangerously sexual being, and in order to counteract that, two things are done in Islam. The first thing is to diminish the sexual pleasure of women (hence the female genital mutilation that may be a "cultural practice" in some places, but in Islamic societies it has the textual support of the view of women provided by Qur'an, Hadith, and Sira, and backed up by Muslim commentators. The second thing is to hide the allurements of those women from poor, forked men, who would not bew able to withstand the agony of those allurements, would almost certainly have to rape women, so strong would be the sexual urge, if those women appeared without being properly covered up (the nature of that covering-up can range from the hijab all the way to the Taliban's extra-strength burqa).
Women must produce four male witnesses to support a charge of rape. The testimony of women in Shari'a courts is worth half that of men. Women inherit half what men heirs can expect. The women are to remain out of sight, hidden -- just look at every photograph you have seen, not only of Gaza but of elsewhere in the Arab Muslim world. Men, all men, and these all-male crowds, nothing gentled without the presence of women, are particularly disturbing to Western observers.
It doesn't matter if Said the father went often, or never, to mosques. He was a Muslim. He had his firm ideas, inculcated by those who back in Egypt had helped to form him, about the inferiority and role of women. He would not stand for his daughters refusing to obey him. He would not stand for his daughters dressing in a non-Islamic fashion. And he knew that in Dar al-Islam those men who committed "honor killings" against their daughters or wives were not punished at all, for other Muslim men sympathized completely.
Yet this girl ("friendofSarah") is so hellbent on defending Islam from prying Infidels, that she will ignore -- or refuse to read about --the many ways that women are subservient to men under Islam.
Posted by: Hugh at January 4, 2008 1:15 PM
Has anyone else noticed that Yasir Said was 30 years old when he married his 15 year old wife, Patricia???
Isn't that akin to pedophilia???
Now, I'm no psychologist, but (as Glenn Beck would say) I am a thinker... And, don't most pedophiles also sexually abuse their own children???
That might explain why he was so upset with them dating... Just thinking out loud here...
Cheers
Posted by: Doctor Bulldog at January 4, 2008 1:15 PM
Whether this is a religious (I believe it is) or a cultural happening, you are living in the US and this country does not believe in or practice murdering our daughters out of some warped sense of family honor. You want to live in this country then play by our rules or leave.
Posted by: HOV Dummy at January 4, 2008 1:16 PM
If Muslims keep doing something over and over, that's a pretty strong indication that whatever they keep doing is an ISLAMIC practice. True, there may be other people may be doing some of these same things the Muslims are, but one difference the political leftists may have missed is that most non-Muslim people do NOT need to use the same book over and over again to tell them how and when to make virtually all of their life's decisions for them to please al-lah espcially when it comes to that same book telling them how and when to kill other people (which also tells them to kill unbelievers with about the same state of mind that goes into baking a cake or replacing a spent lightbulb).
Please, someone tell these leftist fools to stop pissing on our legs and telling us it's raining outside!
Posted by: pythagoras at January 4, 2008 1:18 PM
I have no statistics, but I wonder if honor killing
is also done by non Arabic converts, or by non Arabs
born in Islam? It may be cultural, but I don't see how to avoid the Islamic connection. The young ladies in both cases were acting in un-Islamic ways.
That calls for punishment, or even death.
I think the root is not the 'shame' of the family, but to show their brothers that they are good muslims, practicing pure Islam. This is not shame only, but fear of attack for not being muslim enough, and allowing the daughters to flaunt Allah and the Prophet. If that's the case, the killer(s), are protecting themselves from the wrath of Allah, and their brothers, by sacrificing their daughters.
Human sacrifice for self enriching reasons, is the vilest of practices. This is just another in a long list of vile practices Islam indulges in and wants to share with the rest of the world.
No thanks, I would never sacrifice my daughter to Allah, not even to save my own butt...Of course thats because I love my daughter more than I love my butt...
at January 4, 2008 1:34 PM
Again, I appreciate your honesty with another great article. Why is it that so few are willing to confront facts?
I don't understand what being liberal has to do with it. One is liberal or conservative when there is an opinion needed. I honestly tend to the liberal side of many issues. Here, however, we are talking facts not opinion. Fact is that the Quran and Hadith have numerous verses directing Muslim men towards violence against women. Fact is that the culture clearly follows the religious books' misogynist message. The fact is that Muslims are doing "(dis)honor killings" at a rate that no other group (theist or atheist) approaches. This topic is not a matter of opinion.
Posted by: Silly Allah at January 4, 2008 1:40 PM
Robert is right - this is no friend of Sarah's!
I completely agree with Robert's assessment of this so called "FriendOfSarah", and that she/he isn't a friend at all, but a Muslim opportunist who has crawled out from under a rock; and I would even add that this is not a young girl at all, but possibly an older man or woman.
I came to this conclusion after reading the comment by "FriendOfSarah" and noted how mature the writer is, and not at all how I imagine a teenage girl who just lost a close, dear friend would come across.
Plus, there was too much emphasis on "defending Islam", and barely a hint of tearful remorse over losing and defending a precious friend. If that had been me, I would have been more grievous over the loss of my friend and still in shock, and that shock would have been conveyed in my writing. Instead, this writer paid too much attention on how ISLAM LOOKS, and how ISLAM is being treated - and barely any time was spent on what her monster of a father did to her. Very strange.
Secondly, the writer made TOO MANY ERRORS in how he/she formulated sentences, which leads me to believe that they were not born in the US, but that they learned English somewhere else. Read the comment very carefully and you will notice the same thing, that the writer sounds too much like how an educated foreigner and not a native born US citizen.
Lastly, #2 of Robert's list lends itself as being the best evidence that this is NOT some friend of Sarah's, but a bogus imposter, because the boyfriends of these two girls are a reliable source of information; and like Robert states, their statements only reveal that this commenter is a phony friend:
"2. What she says contradicts the reported statements from the two boys dating Amina and Sarah"
And doesn't religion dictate culture?
Posted by: champ at January 4, 2008 1:40 PM
First, Egyptian culture was significantly different from Islamic culture. Until the 1960s you had women in Cairo University going around in miniskirts, and all with their heads uncovered. Look up Suad Hosni for crying out loud. And Um Kharthom: you can see her hair! She wore an honest-to-goodness dress, not a garbage bag! You sort of had both influences coexisting for a long time in the place.
It wasn't until after the Ikhwan came to prominence, and the overthrow of the Shah in Iran that this ultra radical, violent, oppressive culture began to become anywhere near as prominent as it is now.
Yes, culture is to blame for this: Islamic culture is to blame. Its killed Egyptian culture. We're next.
And as for Sarah's "friend": Please. It fits with nothing we can all see on the MySpace, fits with nothing you'd expect a teenager to write, fits with nothing you'd expect an actual friend of the girl to do shortly after the death of such a close friend (go onto political websites and write a polished piece? or visit the actual people in your community and cry over the girl).
How hard can it be for a well-organized special interest movement to find someone in the Dallas area to make an email addy with the name of a girl quoted in a local paper? Like the odds of the same girl the paper found being attracted to this site are higher than the odds that someone found that name and saw it to be convenient for propoganda purposes?
Ugh. Please. Totally transparent attempt to cover up blame.
Posted by: hope_and_justice at January 4, 2008 1:48 PM
It is possible that the "FriendofSarah" who posted on JW is the friend of Sarah referred to in the Dallas Morning News article, Zohair Zaidi, who is male who went to Lewisville HS, is a year older than Sarah was and is now a college student at ASU.
In a Facebook post, Zohair Zaidi uses the same invocation as in the JW post and the language of the text appears similar:
Zohair wrote at 12:04am on December 5th, 2007
In the name of Allah, the Most Beneficent, the Most Merciful.
Asalam Alaykum wr wb,
First of all, Jazak Allah khair for all those users who commented and gave feedback, positive and negative, regarding this application. Due to technical and personal difficulties, I was unable to change the application for a while. Now alhamdolillah I have updated the application and added the sources and books as requested. Now I cannot work on this alone and need the help of 4 - 5 sincere brothers and sisters who will be willing to help me with this project and make it even better insh'allah. If you are willing and dedicated, please send me a message.
May Allah give you all the best of blessings and guide us all through the beautiful sayings of the Holy Prophet (saw) in our daily lives,
Peace be with you,
Zohair
http://www.facebook.com/wall.php?id=2434622357
at January 4, 2008 1:49 PM
I wonder why the wife took off and was reported missing. Where did she go to? And being named Patricia was she Christian?
Posted by: Silvester at January 4, 2008 1:58 PM
"it is little wonder that they won’t defend a 16 year old girl in Canada whose life was taken by that violence."
Recall D'Souza's main point: if the majority votes that it is OK for parents to kill 16 year old girls for bringing shame to the family by dating outside of their religion, or whatever else offends the family, that is legitimate. That is Democracy. Anything else is immoral irreligious secularist tyrants trying to shove their ideas about individual inalienable God-given rights of mankind down your throats.
And thus has the Right has found common ground with the post-modern Left:
Collectivism.
("... a Republic, if you can keep it ...")
Posted by: hope_and_justice at January 4, 2008 2:03 PM
duh swami
Of course it's rife in Turkey also, so there goes the (arab) culture argument.
at January 4, 2008 2:05 PM
Self-correction on my above comment:
Robert stated: "I have no idea whether or not this person is who she claims to be, or whether or not what she wrote here about Sarah Said is accurate, but there are several good reasons for doubt"
I made it sound like Robert had concluded that this is NOT a friend of Sarah's, when in fact he merely stated that he doubts that she is. Sorry about that.
Posted by: champ at January 4, 2008 2:11 PM
Posted by: Wimbledon Womble at January 4, 2008 1:49 PM
Nice find WW. It is certainly possible.
at January 4, 2008 2:24 PM
greatcommet:
"That is one of the reasons the west is successful and the Islamic world is not. We don’t subjugate 50% of our population."
It has larger effects than that. If you have a society whose structure is based on domination, the little people on the bottom are likely to be troublesome unless there's someone they can feel like they're dominating. That's where women come in.
It isn't just Muslims. There are some non-Muslims conservatives here explicitly calling for a return to Patriarchy. Some are considered more PC and are considered more respectable in Republican circles than Spencer is.
The actual solution involves rewinding liberalism back to the time of the founders, where it meant freedom and responsibility, not communism and identity politics.
PMK:
"I don't remember seeing hijabs in America before the Iranian revolution. Like it or not, the people who dress this way hold the same religious views as those who seek to kill us."
Ditto Egypt, on the hijabs. Ditto most of the Middle East. It is a political statement as much as a religious one.
Anyone here see Persepolis, by the way?
Posted by: hope_and_justice at January 4, 2008 2:35 PM
"Like it or not, the people who dress this way hold the same religious views as those who seek to kill us. They are setting themselves apart from other women and they are letting us know it."
And in 2008, we are setting ourselves apart from
them.
Guys, one of our own is being threatened with arrest in the UK for "inciting racial hatred" by blogging about the ill effects of Islam in his country. Please check this out and if you have any ideas, let's hear 'em.
http://www.jihadwatch.org/dhimmiwatch/archives/019442.php#comments
at January 4, 2008 2:42 PM
"This person was indignant that we suggested that the girls were killed because they were dating non-Muslims, although in reality that suggestion came from the boys they were dating, via KXAS-TV in Dallas," from the article
Another small point. Given what most of us know about the teachings in our public schools today, I doubt most teenagers in this country have an inkling that Muslim girls are not allowed to socialize with non-Muslim boys.
They wouldn't get that idea from TV or the movies, thanks to CAIR and the 'Hate that we shall not name' campaign.
Seems to me the only place they could get that information was from the girls themselves. Who would know best what their father thought.
Truth is, if that statement had been made to the print media it would have been edited out before it went to print.
OT note to darcy about Paul McCartney, check out the song he wrote the night the towers went down. He sang it at a concert right afterwards, I don't remember the name of it.
Posted by: Aunt Bea at January 4, 2008 2:43 PM
The problem here is pretty simple: There are three choices:
1) Islam enables such pathologies as honor killings.
2) Islam goes against such pathologies as honor killings.
3) Islam is neutral with regard to such pathologies as honor killings.
If #2 is correct, Islam has been doing a piss-poor job of it, and therefore doesn't seem to be a very effective ethical force in society.
If #3 is correct, and Islam has nothing to say about such a serious ethical problem, Islam is not a very good ethical system for society, is it?
That leaves us with #1 -- and this makes the most sense since, as Spencer pointed out, Islam is claimed by Muslims to be in fact a powerful almost all-encompassing force for social ethics and behavior as well as individual beliefs.
at January 4, 2008 2:44 PM
Isabella,
Getting the story out will help. Email media outlets you think will actually report the story. I emailed Fox News.
Posted by: Elric66 at January 4, 2008 2:46 PM
Yes, the Facebook entry strongly suggests that Zohair Zaidi, a man, is the "FriendofSarah" whom I, and others, had assumed was a woman. Why was that assumption made? Because that "FriendofSarah" writes about talking to her through a whole night, and naturally that would be most strange, and un-Islamic, for an unmarried girl to talk all night with a man not her relative. But then I realized it must have been on the phone. Yet even that, had the father found out about it, would have enraged him, would have been one more thing that he would not have been able to accept -- his daughter spending hours and hours on the phone with a man (assuming he might have overheard them, or might have asked her whom she was talking to). I wonder if Zohair Zaidi, who is careful to claim now -- there are no witnesses to say otherwise -- that the girls were not only good Muslims but the father was a completely non-observant (not even a Qur'an in the house, according to Zaidi) Muslim, so his murder of his daughters, therefore, must have nothing to do with Said's upbringing in Egypt, in a society suffused with Islam.
Perhaps it is that very conversation, that heartfelt one conducted all night with "friendofSarah" Zohair Zaidi, that helped convince the father, Mr. Said, that his girls were not going to obey him, and that their failure to submit violated the rules, the code, the tenets, the attitdues, of Islam, and he was simply not going to endure the dishonor of being shamed by their present and, still more worrisome, potential future behavior, and therefore decided to kill them.
As for Zaidi's tendentious insistence that the girls were good Muslims and wanted to be even better ones -- well, it is entirely possible that one of the girls would say that, just to satisfy Zaidi, to tell him what he wanted to here. Or one can imagine Zaidi interpreting, after the fact, what they said in exactly the way that he thinks would most protect the image of Islam. And as for his claim that the father was not a "good Muslim" -- well, we have Zaidi's self-interested word for this, don't we? Let's wait to see if Said is taken alive, and what he declares as his reasons for killing his daughters.
Posted by: Hugh at January 4, 2008 2:50 PM
10,000 $ bounty on Said's head. He's gone.
Posted by: jindle86 at January 4, 2008 2:54 PM
Said will be featured on America's Most Wanted tomorrow night.
Posted by: jindle86 at January 4, 2008 3:06 PM
OT note to darcy about Paul McCartney, check out the song he wrote the night the towers went down. He sang it at a concert right afterwards, I don't remember the name of it.
Posted by: Aunt Bea at January 4, 2008 2:43 PM
Thanks, Aunt Bea. I don't know that song.
All of the continual protesting of the "goodness and purity" of Islam by Muslims lets me know right away that in fact Islam is bad and soiled.
Posted by: darcy at January 4, 2008 3:10 PM
Does anyone know of statistics that show what percentage of honor killings worldwide are performed by Muslims?
Posted by: Wellington at January 4, 2008 3:12 PM
If Sara and Amina were such devout Muslims, why did Amina leave out any reference to religion on her My Space page. Over the past few days I've checked out her friends; posts and many of them list their religion.
I also think it is curious that the girls' brother made such an issue of these murders being NOT religiously motivated. (What does he know that we haven't heard yet to make him so sure this had nothing to do with religion?)If something like this happened in my family, the last thing I would say at a prayer vigil would be that the murders were not religiously motivated.
I do have a couple questions though, regarding Yaser Said filing a missing person's report on his wife a few days before the murder. Was she perhaps leaving him and killing the girls was an act of revenge or possibly, prevention, of the mom taking the girls with her? Why did the mom and both girls quit their jobs at the grocery store right before Christmas? Were they planning to flee and the dad decided to nip that idea in the bud? And why was the mom gone and the girls still with their dad?
I'd also like to know from the girls friend, Miss Wong, what she has to say about how Muslim the girls were. She said that Sara was afraid of her dad but I never heard her say, in print or in the video where she is interviewed by the newscaster that the girls were practicing Muslims. Don't you think she would say something relating it to the dad being Muslim if she knew the girls well if in fact they were going against their religion?
Posted by: Isabellathecrusader at January 4, 2008 3:16 PM
Posted by: hope_and_justicePMK:
"I don't remember seeing hijabs in America before the Iranian revolution. Like it or not, the people who dress this way hold the same religious views as those who seek to kill us."
Ditto Egypt, on the hijabs. Ditto most of the Middle East. It is a political statement as much as a religious one.
Funny you should mention this . . . just today I received this note from MEMRI:
Posted by: justamomof4Special Dispatch-Egypt January 4, 2008 No. 1801Egyptian Weekly Reveals Elementary School Girls in Rural Areas Wear Veils Covering Their FacesTo view this Special Dispatch in HTML, visit: http://www.memri.org/bin/opener_latest.cgi?ID=SD180108An investigative report by journalist Asma Nassar, recently published in the Egyptian weekly Roz Al-Yousef, revealed that elementary-school girls in many Egyptian villages attend school wearing a niqab – a veil that covers the face – even though Islam does not require this.The report also revealed that the girls' parents, influenced by extremist Salafi movements that are gaining strength in their areas, forbid their daughters to mix with boys and with girls who do not wear the niqab. Some are not allowed to participate in music and art classes, to go on school trips, or to play with their classmates.Commenting on this phenomenon, Nassar wrote that it is "inhuman and alien to the [true] spirit of Islam." She added: "Extremism leads to nothing but greater extremism... In all the advanced countries of the world, there are laws for the protection of children, which compel parents to protect their children's innocence, and [prevent them] from inflicting their insanity on their [sons and daughters]. [I call upon] all reasonable people in this country and upon everyone who cares about our children... to find a solution [for this problem]..."Reacting to the publication of the article, other journalists in the Egyptian press criticized the Education Ministry and the Ministry of Religious Endowments for failing to supervise the religious education of schoolchildren in Egypt.The following are excerpts from Nassar's article and from one of the responses to it:(1)I Felt as Though I Was on a Visit to Afghanistan"[Many] schools in the Al-Sheikh District are full of girls and women teachers wearing the niqab, as well as bearded male teachers who lower their eyes when speaking to the older girls and even to the youngest ones... I came out of there [feeling] as though I had not been visiting part of my own country, but [some corner of] Afghanistan...
at January 4, 2008 3:17 PM
"Perhaps it is that very conversation, that heartfelt one conducted all night with "friendofSarah" Zohair Zaidi, that helped convince the father, Mr. Said, that his girls were not going to obey him, and that their failure to submit violated the rules, the code, the tenets, the attitdues, of Islam, and he was simply not going to endure the dishonor of being shamed by their present and, still more worrisome, potential future behavior, and therefore decided to kill them.
As for Zaidi's tendentious insistence that the girls were good Muslims and wanted to be even better ones -- well, it is entirely possible that one of the girls would say that, just to satisfy Zaidi, to tell him what he wanted to here." from Hugh's post
Hugh your last post is the real reason Muslims refuse to debate.
Thinking within the box the way Islam insists that they do prevents them from know when they are giving what we would call 'too much information'.
You are in your Sherlock Holmes mode today or you are getting ready to join the writers union after the strike and really jazz up those awful soap operas on daytime TV.
Posted by: Aunt Bea at January 4, 2008 3:17 PM
Interesting odds - that Zohair knows about Jihad Watch.
I think it's unlikely that "FriendOfSarah" and Zohair Zaidi are one in the same person because what are the odds that he knows about this site?
I realize that Zohair used the same greeting that FriendOfSarah used, but if Wimbledon Womble could easily locate this letter on the internet, then so could FOSarah, and he simply used that greeting to add legitimacy.
There seems to be a greater chance that he copied that greeting than the chance that this same person has heard about this particular site.
Posted by: champ
at January 4, 2008 3:19 PM
This may be a bit obvious but as Islam makes no distinction between it's religion and its culture, or between it's religion and its politics then this murder MUST have been religious in nature. If not then islam as a religion has just proved itself to be untenable.
Posted by: DaveMate at January 4, 2008 3:20 PM
Champ the reverse holds true. What are the odds of a teenage girl knowing about Jihad watch? Or taking the time to read it?
The first few lines seemed to bear some knowledge of what we discuss here.
at January 4, 2008 3:38 PM
This is posted way down on the first article over at Dhimmi Watch, so I'm going to post it here.
The blogger "Lionheart" in the UK is going to be arrested by British police for "inciting racial hatred."
http://lionheartuk.blogspot.com/
Posted by: darcy at January 4, 2008 3:40 PM
justamomof4,
Yeah, that sounds about right.
Extremist Islam is spreading like wildfire, because its adhrerents have the oil money, and will to spread it.
Most of the West has lost its will, it can't spread its core values (and I mean non-violently) because it mostly fails to see spreading beliefs as anything other than colonialism. Places that not much more than 50 years ago were potential ideological battlegrounds are lost.
IMO the reason is post-modernism. If all beleifs are just constructs of social power, you can't genuinely believe anything, it is all just power games. Thus, any attempt to argue or reason with others is really just an attempt to dominate them.
The view of "Democracy" shared by folks from Clinton to Dinesh D'Souza fit right in with this, because they involve group determination of laws and legally-recognized rights. So it doesn't fit in with the reluctance to stand for ideas and principles; it is sort of the negation of standing up for any idea or principle other than that each group gets to dominate its members as it likes.
I mean to say, in post-modernism the idea that there isn't much to belief or attempts to find truth other than power over others is weirdly combined with the idea that only groups have rights and legitimate powers, so attemtping to reason with a person from another group is colonialism, in the sense that it infringes on the other group's dominance over that other person.
This ideology is what is dominant with our intellectual elites, and IMO it is at least as evil as Islam. It is also the conduit by which Islam will take over Europe and make huge inroads into the US.
The only antidote is the classical liberalism of the founders - which you will recall was tolerant of the religious and non-religious alike, giving each space within a framework of rights to pursue their beliefs. The patriarchial leanings of some conservatives merely pave the way for various Collectivist syncretisms and syntheses between Marxisms of various sorts, Western patriarchy, and Islam.
champ,
"I think it's unlikely that "FriendOfSarah" and Zohair Zaidi are one in the same person because what are the odds that he knows about this site?"
Maybe jihadwatch.org is more popular with Muslims that we'd guess. Remember the the two-minute hate in 1984 and the social purpose it served?
Posted by: hope_and_justice at January 4, 2008 3:55 PM
Isabellathecrusader,
I've been wondering the same thing. Spent the better part of 30 minutes trying to get a feel for the family dynamic. Found the occasional question of where is dad, which I found odd. On my stepson's myspace his friends always asked about "parents." Your theory that the mom and kids may have been preparing to leave is sound. The only reason I can think of that the mom would disappear was her attempt to find a new place to live and a new job first. As to her not taking the kids, possible mom never suspected that Said would go this far. I don't know. And not knowing is driving me crazy. I also can find no reference to islam save two "friends." One asked about Eid and another involved a pic of two ladies wearing burqas.
Posted by: Kevin at January 4, 2008 4:03 PM
The word "culture" surely stems from the word "cultus" i.e. the religious (or otherwise) belief system and worldview which gives basis to the actions, sensibilities and priorities of any given culture.
If this is so then the dividing line between the Islamic religion and the culture of the Islamic peoples is not as clear as the Islamic apologists would have us believe.
The fact that the west tends towards democracy while the Islamic world tends towards authoritarianism should not surprise anyone.
I think somebody just wrote a book on this kind of thing ;)
Posted by: Liam1304 at January 4, 2008 4:10 PM
To the Columbia prof's bit about how likely is it feminist academics are pro-genital mutilation:
There was, a few months ago, a leftist academic feminist who argued for the "right" of other cultures to do this to their women, and in perfect post-modern relativist academic language.
This sort of thing is probably why the Columbia woman had to phrase her sentiment as a rhethorical question. That, and such a phrasing belittles the opposition, rather than respectfully addressing their legit concerns about women.
What is absolutely preposterous is that while these nutballs can't be bothered to stand up for women thanks to their paranoia about supposed US racism of the yokels populating the country, the actual citizens in the US -- including plenty of white male rural farmers in Iowa, for that matter -- are well on their way to electing their first black president.
at January 4, 2008 4:54 PM
"It's not religion. It's something else. Religion has nothing to do with it."
------------------------
Correct. It's not the "religion", it's the "Sharia". The "complete blueprint for living" develops the mindset that a man makes the rules for the family, period, no discussion. Being insufficiently obedient to the head of the household (the leader as though Allah had appointed him) is disrespect to the husband and, by extension, an affront to the authority of Allah who created man to be the leader of the family. Makes all the difference in the world, right? ...
Guess not, especially to the wives and daughters of this miserable "culture".
at January 4, 2008 5:00 PM
"It is a cultural matter. The Daily Mail glibly informed us yesterday that female genital mutilation "is not even mentioned in the Koran," and the same thing can be said for honor killing. So that means it is an un-Islamic cultural practice, right?"
I believe with just several questions one can put the Islamic reasoning in a self-made corner for everyone to see its uglyness for what it is.
So what is a good teaching of islam? Well it teaches brotherhood and kindness.
Ok, and where does that insperation come from? From the koran of course.
What about alcohol, I mean thats a past time for me? Sorry to say thats forbidden.
Where did that come from? Our profit Mohamed commanded us to abstain from that.
I heard in some isalmic countries that all the women have wear the viel, is that true? No, no that is never directly mentioned in the koran, so its purely cultural.
Does that go for female genitial mutilation and honor killings as well? Exactly, now your getting it.
All right, but I have three more quick questions. Are muslim terrorist following real islam? No, they do not practice true islam.
But is it not written in the koran to use all tactics of war upon the kuffars until they submit? Yes.
Then by your reasoning what is writtin in the koran is islamic, and what is not is cultural, except the violent passages, right? ...
I hope that this is helpfull. My writing skills are by far one of my poorest qualities. With some fine tuning this could work out well. The denial of the these crimes being influenced by islam or perpetuated by its teachings from the original cultures are both worthy of denouncement.
at January 4, 2008 5:20 PM
Also i found this last night, it is long but an explanation for left liberal thinking and how it influences their thinking on islam
http://video.stumbleupon.com/#p=gtdjp3dki3
Posted by: 19thgenamerican at January 4, 2008 5:25 PM
The left would say you are insensitive and provocative.
Personally, I am impressed by your idea. Excellent PsyOp.
Posted by: patagonianplato at January 4, 2008 4:19 PM
And yes I am insensitive and provocative, but a genuinely nice person!
Posted by: joesamas mama at January 4, 2008 5:35 PM
Britney Spears had better be very very careful.
http://yedda.com/questions/Britney_Spears_Adnan_Ghalib_romance_1494143120456/
at January 4, 2008 5:41 PM
'Unislamic?'- I don't think so.
Qur'an 64:14 "Believers, truly, among your wives and your children there are enemies for you: so beware of them! ... Your wealth and your children are only a trial."
Qur'an 8:28 "And know that your property and your children are just a temptation."
Posted by: sheik yer'mami at January 4, 2008 5:54 PM
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