Daily Times

Why our society is so much in the thirst of women’s blood to raise and protect its honour? The blood must be of some young, beautiful woman, who has rage for independence and revolt.

Every other day, news stories of women being killed by their ‘near and dear ones’ appear in the media.

If the woman is somewhat in the limelight – like of Qandeel Baloch – the media follows it for some days. The media and the government will also act watchdog when the victim is a UK national, yes I am referring to Samia, and a House of Commons member wants its trial.

Horrible times refuse to go away for women in our society. The horrible thing is that the horror emanates the near and dear ones.

Qandeel Baloch was strangled to death by her brother in Multan, who thought of her video work as immoral.

Nasir Hussain killed his two sisters, Kausar Bibi and Gulzar Bibi, in Vehari just days before their formal wedding because they were marrying the men of their choice.

A security guard gunned down his daughter, son-in-law and her brother-in-law in Lahore. Saba was the mother of two-month old child and she did court marriage against the will of her family.

British beautician Samia Shahid was killed by her family. Her family was unhappy with her divorce and second marriage to Mukhtar.

Twenty-year-old Muqaddas, who married with Tauseef in court, was killed by her mother. Her mother was against her love marriage.

A pregnant woman and her husband were found dead in a canal with gunshot wounds to the head, a day after they were a reportedly snatched by relatives following dispute. Aqsa, a healthcare worker, had been married to Muhammad, who worked in a government school, for four years. Her family was against her marriage with Muhammad, so they killed both of them.

Another couple was murdered in Lahore for marrying without their family’s consent. Muhammad Ashraf, 56, killed his daughter Saba and her husband Karamat Ali a day after the couple returned to Kahna area to smooth over rocky relations with the family, who disapproved of the marriage.

The word ‘honour killing’ is used to justify the murder of a female family member by males. In such cases, we view the murder of a woman from the eyes of a man thus justifying it. In fact, there is no honour in killing. The murder is a murder and it can never be justified no matter what. Most of the time, if observe honour killing cases, it doesn’t seem like honour killing but the attempt of a man to calm his masculinity. After all, what’s more fragile than a woman’s heart? A man’s ego!

As much as the society is gaining education, such violence is supposed to diminish. But the fact is that, there is a stunning increase in the number of such cases. In just one month, there had been a huge number of honour killing cases including Zeenat, Qandeel, Samia and many more.

Alas that in case of Qandeel’s murder the entire nation seemed to be celebrating the act of violence. There were very less number of people to mourn her death. It’s so ironic.

Honour killing in Islam

In our society, everyone wants his daughter and wife to be like Hazrat Fatima (R.A), but irony is that no one tries to be a father like Hazrat Muhammad (S.A.W.W) and a husband like Hazrat Ali (R.A).

Honour killing is more about masculinity than Islam. It is the ‘crime of passion’, that is mostly done due to jealousy by men who discover that their wife has committed adultery or is having a relationship with another man. In these instances, rage, jealousy and revenge are the real motives for the crime.

Although Islam does set 100 strokes for fornication (sexual relations between unmarried people), and death by stoning for adultery (married people who have sexual relations outside of marriage), these punishments are not really meant to be performed as much as they are meant to make these crimes hated in the eyes of the society in order to minimise their occurrence. The only practical way for these punishments to be performed in Islam is by confession of the guilty person. In these cases, Islam teaches that those who receive these punishments during their life will have their sins wiped away and will not have to face punishment for these crimes in the afterlife. However, Islam strongly recommends that Muslims, who commit crimes repent, regret their mistakes and not to tell others about what they have done. Those who truly and sincerely apologise to God, regret their sins and commit themselves to never repeating them again, God will forgive their sins and wipe them away. This is demonstrated by the following verses:

“Those who invoke not, with Allah, any other god, nor kill lives which Allah has made sacred, except for just cause, nor commit fornication, and any person that does this meets punishment, and their penalty on the Day of Judgment will be doubled, and they will dwell therein in ignominy, unless they repent, believe and perform righteous deeds, for Allah will change the evil of such persons into good, and Allah is Oft-Forgiving, Most Merciful.” (Holy Quran, Chapter 25, Verse 68)