Tuesday, June 26, 2007
Adrian Morgan has part 3 in his look at Honor Killings and whether they are more tribal or religious in nature up at FSM: Mutilation And Killing For Muslim "Honor": Religious Or Tribal Custom?. I'm not sure there's an answer here, other than to say that religion and tribal custom ("culture") are as tightly bound together and impossible to separate as one would expect them to be:
The second Caliph - Omar (Umar, died 644 AD) - was a close friend of Mohammed. He is said to have only cried once. This happened when he recollected that in the time of jahilayah he buried his infant daughter alive, and as he did so, she brushed away the dust from his beard. Under the first Caliphs, Islam was spread by the sword, and within three centuries it had expanded to Spain in the West and to Afghanistan and parts of India in the east. Yet it is true that in Indonesia, the most populous Muslim country, honor killing is almost unheard of. In Malaysia too, honor killings are apparently nonexistent. Islam did not arrive in South-East Asia until the 13th century, which may explain why honor-killing is not common in this region...
In an honor/shame culture, truth is subordinate to appearance:
, p.73
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