Muslims commit 91 percent of honor killings worldwide. A manual of Islamic law certified as a reliable guide to Sunni orthodoxy by Al-Azhar, the most respected authority in Sunni Islam, says that “retaliation is obligatory against anyone who kills a human being purely intentionally and without right.” However, “not subject to retaliation” is “a father or mother (or their fathers or mothers) for killing their offspring, or offspring’s offspring.” (‘Umdat al-Salik o1.1-2). In other words, someone who kills his child incurs no legal penalty under Islamic law. In this case the victim was the murderer’s daughter, a victim to the culture of violence and intimidation that such laws help create.
The Palestinian Authority gives pardons or suspended sentences for honor murders. Iraqi women have asked for tougher sentences for Islamic honor murderers, who get off lightly now. Syria in 2009 scrapped a law limiting the length of sentences for honor killings, but “the new law says a man can still benefit from extenuating circumstances in crimes of passion or honour ‘provided he serves a prison term of no less than two years in the case of killing.’” And in 2003 the Jordanian Parliament voted down on Islamic grounds a provision designed to stiffen penalties for honor killings. Al-Jazeera reported that “Islamists and conservatives said the laws violated religious traditions and would destroy families and values.”
Until the encouragement Islamic law gives to honor killing is acknowledged and confronted, more women will suffer.
“Sons kill mother for contracting second marriage,” by Shamsul Islam, Express Tribune, February 24, 2017 (thanks to The Religion of Peace):
FAISALABAD: A divorced woman was shot dead by her two sons on Thursday over contracting a second marriage with her brother-in-law in Chak No 235 GB in Sadar Jaranawala Police jurisdiction.
Police said Zubaida Bibi, 42 was married to Muhammad Liaquat Ali some 23 years ago and the couple had six children. On November 18, 2015, she got divorced from her husband and contracted a second marriage with Gulzar Ahmad, 42, a real brother of her former husband, living in the adjacent house.
This infuriated her sons. Zubaida’s eldest son Muhammad Kashif was not happy with the divorce and subsequent second marriage of his mother with his uncle.
On Wednesday night, he along with his brother Muhammad Rafaqat, 19, shot dead their mother when she was asleep at her house. Police shifted the body to Tehsil Headquarter Jaranwala for autopsy.
Investigation Officer Sub-Inspector Muhammad Afzal said Zubaida was not happy with her former husband and got divorced. She then married Gulzar Ahmad, who lost his wife to cancer few years back.
A case has been registered under Section 302 PPC on the complaints of her husband Gulzar Ahmad.
The cases of violence over matrimonial issues are rampant in Punjab. Hundreds of women were killed for the sake [of] honour over the last two-and-a-half years….