Women in Dark Times by Jacqueline Rose

Author:Jacqueline Rose
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Published: 2014-07-07T16:00:00+00:00

They were responding at least partly to a documentary on honour crimes, screened internationally as well as at the UN, which opened with the image of a mosque and the sound of a call to prayer.70

Whether Fadime Sahindal was a Muslim became the subject of fierce dispute. The Islamic Council in Norway pronounced that she was not. But others saw her family, although they were not active worshippers, as part of an immigrant Muslim community whose identity relied on religious precepts, even if these were not strictly observed. You are born and remain a Muslim throughout your life unless you declare your desire to leave Islam. For those adhering to this view, Sahindal’s state funeral in the cathedral in Uppsala, a media event attended by Crown Princess Victoria, the archbishop, two government ministers and numerous other dignitaries, was an affront (even if, out of respect for Islam, the canon took any reference to the Trinity out of her address). There is a tightrope to walk here. The Islamic Council was most likely repudiating Sahindal, rather than intervening to protect her family from racial hatred in response to her death. But the tacit condemnation, if that is what it was, should not be taken to mean that Islam condones her killing – or, according to one common but mistaken argument, requires it. Honour killing is not a religious act and no justification for it can be found in the Qur’an. In the Qur’an, life is sacred and can only be taken in pursuit of justice. Slave girls must not be forced into prostitution ‘when they themselves wished to remain honourable’;71 if they are, they will be forgiven by God (compare this with the cases of women killed after they have been raped, often by a family member). Men and women are punished equally for adultery. Denigration of females, to the point of infanticide, is the practice of the pagan, whose folly is demonstrated by the fact that he imputes daughters to God while valuing only sons for himself. On the Day of Judgement, the baby slaughtered at birth will be resurrected and asked for what sin she was killed.

The point is not to suggest that the Qur’an is a progressive text for women. It famously assigns men to ‘a degree’ above women (how far that degree extends is a matter of dispute).72 It exhorts the husband to beat a disobedient wife. Spiritual equality between men and women is not matched by equality in relation to marriage, child custody or divorce. But nowhere in the Qur’an is it suggested that women who are raped, have sex outside marriage, choose their husband against the wishes of their father, or in fact do none of these but are simply talked about as if they do, should be killed. According to a 2002 report of the Egyptian Women’s Centre for Legal Assistance, the mere suspicion of indecent behaviour was the grounds for 79 per cent of all crimes of honour.73 ‘I know that killing my

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