Honour Killing by Ayse Onal

Author:Ayse Onal [Onal, Ayse]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Social Science, Violence in Society, Sexual Abuse & Harassment, Family & Relationships, Abuse, Domestic Partner Abuse
ISBN: 9780863568077
Google: gDshBQAAQBAJ
Publisher: Saqi
Published: 2012-07-15T04:14:13+00:00

6

NAILE

Bahri knew that the coffee-house preacher was a significant person. Every Friday he went to listen to the sermon that he preached in the coffee house instead of in the mosque. Because Bahri often forgot what was said, he wanted to take notes, but he did not dare attempt to do so in the coffee house because he knew that it would be misunderstood. It was considered a queer and suspicious thing to sit in a coffee house and scribble. Nobody in this town had anything to do with writing, except the teacher. And whenever Bahri wanted to take notes, he had neither paper nor pencils on him. It had been so long since he dropped out of school that if ever he saw paper and pencil he stared at them as if they were inventions which he knew to exist, but which he himself had never touched.

Each time he repeated the preacher’s words to himself when he returned to work, but he never managed to remember them all.

‘If you put a leg of lamb in front of a wolf, would the wolf say, “No, I won’t eat it”? It would swallow it in the blink of an eye. Who is guilty? The wolf who tears into the meat offered to it, or those who whet its appetite? You can say that the wolf is wild; it would eat a whole lamb if given the chance. Then look at the cat at your door. If you leave meat outside, the cat will come and eat it. Who is responsible for this, the cat or the meat?

‘I will not answer this question. You will work it out yourselves. A man who does not think is no different from an animal. You will think, so that you will remember that you are a human being. You will think, so that you will find the truth.

‘The man who lets his daughter go out with her head uncovered and wearing make-up is no different from the man who lays the lamb before the wolf. If a man who commits no sins raises his child as a sinner, he himself becomes a sinner. Letting our daughters make up their faces and display the intimate parts of their bodies is a disaster for coming generations, and not just for them. The girl who thinks of putting make-up on her eyes and revealing her intimate parts is going astray! She is lost! The real danger is that her daughters will also be sinful. God ordered women to cover themselves as the first trial of fidelity and virtue. Covering and chastity go together hand in hand.’

Bahri nodded with satisfaction. His mother and four sisters never once put on make-up or revealed their intimate parts, let alone permitted anyone to see even one strand of their hair. The family was raising chaste girls for society. Bahri felt a wave of affection for his sisters who had not behaved in a way that would defile the dignity of the family. His middle sister was sick, and his father had taken her to a doctor.

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