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Posted in: Islamic Gender & Religious Apartheid, Honor Killings

Published on Feb 22, 2016 by Phyllis Chesler

Written for New York Post

How academia whitewashes Muslim honor killings


In January, the Journal of Family Violence published "An Exploratory Study of Honor Crimes in the United States" by Brittany E. Hayes, Joshua D. Froelich and Steven M. Chermak. It was an act of cowardice as well as a shoddy piece of research. It broke absolutely no new ground, either theoretically or statistically, and is so "politically correct" that it completely misses an entire forest for a tree.


A classic honor killing is a family conspiracy mainly against a young daughter; fathers, mothers, sisters, brothers, aunts, uncles and cousins — sometimes even grandfathers — may join in. Westerners don't often kill their teenage daughters.

The reason Hayes et al. place honor killings within the broader context of "violence against women" is clear. They don't want to be accused of "Islamophobia" or of targeting any ethnic or religious group.

They don't tell us the names of any of the 16 honor-killing perpetrators or the names of their victims. The phrase "Muslim perpetrator" and "Muslim honor killing" appear nowhere. In 10,000 words, only 14 are related to "Islam," "Muslims," "Arabs" or "Middle Easterners."

Three times, Hayes et al. rail against "Western media coverage." They write: "Significantly, media reporters in the United States may be more inclined to cover honor crimes, especially those committed by Middle Easterners, compared to other fatal crimes because they may be perceived as more 'exotic' and news worthy." They insist, "Reporters may search for an honor crime angle when the victim and/or offender are of a particular ethnicity or religion . . . there is a need to study honor crimes in the United States that involve victims and perpetrators from other cultures, like India, or extremist ideologies."






Ironically, this comparison of Hindu and Muslim honor killings actually supports a politically correct view: The origin of honor killings probably resides in shame-and-honor tribalism, not necessarily in a particular religion. I don't understand why other scholars have not yet absorbed this point.

The Koran does not command that a woman be honor-killed. It does, however, demand male and female "modesty" and female "obedience," and it allows husbands to physically chastise wives. Perhaps extreme misogynists have allowed superstitious and illiterate people to believe that committing intimate family femicide is religiously sanctioned.



Cross-posted at Middle East Forum, Arutz Sheva, FrontPage Mag, and Great Falls Tribune.


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