Yet Another Honor Murder

Noor Almaleki is dead.  Her father Faleh ran her down in his car as an "honor murder" because she was becoming too Westernized, and rejecting his Muslim "values."

I firmly believe that instead of referring to such acts as "honor killings," we should refer to them as "honor murders."  The contradiction in terms is much more apparent, and the cruelty of the act is much more emphasized.  This is not an isolated event, folks!  As Mark Steyn points out, we in the West have not begun to understand the worldview guiding people like Faleh.  We throw out terms like "radical Muslim" or "radical extremist."  We try to convince ourselves that only a certain subpopulation of Muslims would actually engage in, or condone acts of brutality.  But such smokescreens can't protect us from reality.  At its heart, Islam is not about love.  It's about submission.  Those who cross Allah must pay the penalty.

Where's the emphasis on free will?

Sorry -- you're looking in the wrong religion for that.

What's curious to me is that while Islam has existed for millenia, those of us in the West are just becoming acquainted with its predictable-but-no-less terrifying atrocities. 

Looking through Western literature, there are many glimpses of Muslim violence.  Take, for instance, the Song of Roland.  Or even Mark Twain's story of a group of tourists attacked by Muslims and violently told to convert to Islam.  Or take this poem by Victor Hugo:

The Fallen Veil

THE SISTER

What has happened, my brothers? Your spirit to-day
    Some secret sorrow damps:
There's a cloud on your brow.  What has happened?  Oh, say,
For your eyeballs glare out with a sinister ray
    Like the light of funeral lamps.
And the blades of your poinards are half unsheathed
    In your belt -- and ye frown on me!
There's a woe untold, there's a pang unbreathed
    In your bosom, my brothers three!

ELDEST BROTHER

Gulnara, make answer!  Hast thou, since the dawn,
To the eye of a stranger thy veil withdrawn?

THE SISTER

As I came, oh, my brother! at noon--from the bath--
    As I came--it was noon, my lords--
    And your sister had then, as she constantly hath,
Drawn her veil close around her, aware that the path
    Is beset by these foreign hordes.
But the weight of the noonday's sultry hour
    Near the mosque was so oppressive
That--forgetting a moment the eye of the Giaour--
    I yielded to th' heat excessive.

SECOND BROTHER

Gulnara, make answer!  Whom, then, hath thou seen,
In a turban of white and a caftan of green?

THE SISTER

Nay, he might have been there; but I muffled me so,
    He could scarcely have seen my figure.--
But why to your sister thus dark do you grow?
What words to yourselves do you mutter thus low,
    Of "blood" and "an intriguer"?
Oh! ye cannot of murder bring down the red guilt
    On your souls, my brothers, surely!
Though I fear--from the hands that are chafing the hilt,
    And the hints you give obscurely.

THIRD BROTHER

Gulnara, this evening when sank the red sun,
Didst thou mark how like blood in descending it shone?

THE SISTER

Mercy! Allah! have pity! oh, spare!
    See! I cling to your knees repenting!
Kind brothers, forgive me! for mercy, forbear!
Be appeased at the cry of a sister's despair,
    For our mother's sake relenting.
O God! must I die?  They are deaf to my cries!
    Their sister's life-blood shedding;
They have stabbed me each one--I faint--o'er my eyes
A veil of Death is spreading!

THE BROTHERS

Gulnara farewell! take that veil; 'tis the gift
Of thy brothers--a veil thou wilt never lift!

This is very first piece in the 1928 collection of "The Works of Victor Hugo."  The publishers, Blacks Readers Services Company, must not have anticipated the political correctness that would be so in vogue seventy-one years later.  I wonder how many collections of Hugo's work include this piece today?

In Noor's case, her father, not her brother, was her murderer.  What does her brother Peter-Ali have to say about her death?  "Different cultures, different values.  One thing to one culture does not make sense to another culture."  That's relativism for you.  No condemnation of his father's actions.  He is understandably upset about his sister's injuries, but he still tries to cover for his dad!  He reports that his sister was increasingly disrespectful to their father, and this is the ultimate insult that can be paid to a traditional Muslim man.  Further, it's the people his sister was living with that triggered his father's anger.  Evidently the real victim, in Peter-Ali's estimation, wasn't Noor, but Faleh -- the father.

A religion that requires "moderate" brothers and fathers to murder their sisters and daughters is a religion I want nothing to do with.  This is not an isolated event, folks!  The one glimmer of hope I saw in this story was that the mother was not complicit with the father, as sometimes Muslim mothers are.  We're not told the mother's name, but when Faleh called her while he was on the run, she yelled at him and hung up.  I was so, so glad to know that she did not support her husband in his decision.

What about the Muslim community at large?  Do they condemn Faleh's actions, or are they filled compassion for women like Noor, deciding to change their attitude toward women who distance themselves from Islam?  I searched the CAIR (Council on American-Islamic Relations -- anyone wonder why American and Islamic must be hyphenated?  Is this a tacit admission that the two are mutually exclusive?) website for any mention about Noor's story.  Incidentally, just below the search box is the phrase "In the Name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful."  Evidently Allah's compassion and mercy is only abundant to certain people in the world.  The search function seemed to be disabled, but I could readily see that the CAIR home page and press release page carried no mention of Noor or her family.  No, the mission of CAIR seems to be to protect Muslims from outsiders (dare I say "infidels"?), not to protect Muslims from other Muslims.

There's been numerous discussions about CAIR's silence.  One apologist on the Talk Islam site said, "[T]he business about Muslim organizations having to sprint to the microphone to get at the head of the line for denunciations of honor killings is bosh, a bit piece of what is becoming a modern-day blood libel against Muslims about 'honor killings.' The targeting of CAIR – as opposed to any other American Muslim organization that hasn't yet denounced or commented on the Noor Almaleki case, is arbitrary and selective."  "What's more, if one Muslim organization does denounce, then the Islamophobes go around to all the other orgs to bully them with it and hype the negativity."  Evidently, the truth is far too uncomplimentary, so it should be buried as soon as possible.  We don't want the facts to cloud the narrative.

Below this discussion was an ad for "The Muslim Matrimonials Site" -- Muslima.com.  The ad was complete with a picture of a stylish, smiling Muslim woman, and a button for "Browse photos now!"  Anybody else creeped out?

(Originally written 11/7/09)