Qur’an 4:34: “Good women are obedient….” And it’s just downhill from there. The letter and spirit of Qur’an 4:34 open the door for attempting to control women with violence in Muslim households: Allah says you can hit if you feel you need to.
Authorities did not help Shafilea Ahmed. In 2003, she told them: “My parents are going to send me to Pakistan and I’ll be married to someone and left there.” (The mention of the prospective groom being a cousin is also at the preceding link.)
The problem of forced marriages has since gained greater recognition in the U.K., but a day late and a pound sterling short for Shafiliea, whose body was found dumped months after she died from being “strangled or smothered.”
“Parents held over death of Shafilea Ahmed,” from BBC News, September 2:
The parents of so-called “honour killing” victim Shafilea Ahmed have been arrested on suspicion of her murder, police sources have said.
Shafilea went missing from her home in Warrington in September 2003, aged 17. Her decomposed body was found in the River Kent in Cumbria in January 2004.
A coroner ruled in 2008 she had been unlawfully killed. No-one has ever been charged with her murder.
Iftikhar, 50, and Faranza Ahmed, 47, were arrested in Warrington earlier.
There is a police presence outside the family home in Great Sankey, Warrington.
Police have previously arrested the couple on suspicion of kidnapping, believing it was a so-called “honour killing”, but the Crown Prosecution Service later concluded there was insufficient evidence.
‘Vile murder’
Five other family members, from Bradford, were also arrested but never charged.
The family have always denied any involvement in the schoolgirl’s murder.
Shafilea went missing on 11 September 2003. She was reported missing by a teacher a week later.
East and South Cumbria Coroner Ian Smith, who presided over Shafilea’s inquest, said the teenager suffered a “vile murder”.
He said the concept of an arranged marriage was central to Shafilea’s death.
A medical expert told the hearing the schoolgirl had been smothered or strangled.
The coroner said he believed she was taken from her home on 11 September 2003 and that she had not run away.
Drunk bleach
The Muslim teenager feared she was being forced into an arranged marriage by her mother and father, the inquest heard.
A few months before she was killed, Shafilea had refused an arranged marriage, and, during a visit to Pakistan to meet a prospective husband, had drunk bleach.
In his evidence to the inquest, Mr Ahmed said an arranged marriage would need the consent of the young people involved.
He said he accepted his daughter’s reply of “no way” when a potential suitor was mentioned….