The killings of Katie Summers and Tulay Goren
Posted on Friday 18 December, 2009
Filed Under Society
SEXUAL jealousy, personal insecurity, the pain of rejection, mental illness, twisted religious belief, and oh so many other reasons few of us could ever begin to comprehend; men murder women in a huge range of circumstances, as illustrated by two stories in the media this week.
Greater Manchester Police finds itself having to explain how it failed to stop Brian Taylor stabbing Katie Summers to death at the home she shared with their children, despite being called out 11 times in the 16 months before the fatality. Indeed, the Old Bill had contact with Ms Summers five times in the four days leading up to the crime.
Incidents such as this are by no means rare. On average, one or two women in this country are killed by partners or former partners every week.
Meanwhile, Londoner Mehmet Goren has been convicted of the premeditated murder of his 15-year-old daughter Tulay, because he was an Alevi Muslim and therefore disapproved of his daughter’s relationship with a Sunni Muslim twice her age. The part-time fish and chip shop worker drugged her with sleeping tablets prior to strangling her with a washing line.
The religious motivation qualifies the case as an ‘honour killing’, and there are on average 12 of them each year in England and Wales, the Home Office believes.
Compare and contrast what happened to Katie and what happened to Tulay, and we face some troubling and uncomfortable questions. Do we regard both under the generic heading of male murder of women, and thus no different in principle and so equally reprehensible?
Clearly domestic violence is a problem for all faiths and none, and it would be unfair to stigmatise Islam as somehow uniquely prone to its promotion. I’m uncomfortably aware that knocking the missus about a bit if the stupid cow gave you any lip was a feature of the white, nominally Christian, working class culture in which I grew up in 1960s Britain.
But to leave it at that implicitly sweeps the religiously specific nature of honour killings under the carpet. These murders very clearly justified on the back of a certain interpretation of Islam – and notice I say ‘one interpretation of Islam’, not Islam as such – and there are Muslim clerics in the Middle East who explicitly defend the practice.
Other Muslim leaders, including those feted by sections of the British left as ‘progressives’, limit themselves to preaching that it is permissible for a husband to admonish his wife ‘lightly with his hands, avoiding her face and other sensitive parts’.
But surely what happened to Tulay is an example of where divine sanction of even ‘mild’ violence against women can end up. The left wouldn’t consider that sort of talk acceptable from some cheap US televangelist huckster; why they find it any more acceptable from the mouth of Yusuf al Qaradawi is beyond me.
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165 Responses to “The killings of Katie Summers and Tulay Goren”
“Andrew Coates – Read Bill Corr above. THAT is where you are in danger of ending up. Corr’s diatribe is right outside any civilised – let alone “socialist” – discourse.”
The tosser was there long ago!
See where all this yapping about theology leads us? Howling at one another like rival sectarians in Christian Alexandria!
Civis and “civilization” have an odd way of creeping in everywhere, don’t they?
O John Palmer -
If I am guilty of writing errors of fact, it might be helpful to list them.
Am I the only contributor here who is actually resident in the Middle East, as a matter of interest?
And as for Coates, tell him again that he’d better watch himself or he’ll end up like me, one of the damned souls Virgil pointed out to Dante.
“Look! There’s Coates, a Pabloite whose haughty pride led him to this dreadful fate. Don’t waste any pity on him. He might be up to his neck in bubbling pitch but he’s standing on Bill Corr’s shoulders.”
“To restrict this to Muslim clerics and invent an “honour killings” myth around them is reminiscent of the anti-semitic blood libels deployed against Jews for allegedly sacrificing Christian children in the Middle Ages.” John Palmer 9.22 Dec 23.
With all due respect, but what on earth are you talking about? What myth?
Perhaps you are trying to suggest that a mere reference linking the custodians of 7th century, islamic misogyny [the parasitic mullahs] to such practices as “honor” killings [amongst others] is an invention, mythical or otherwise? How can such a reference possibly be compared, in any way, shape or form to the anti –Semitic blood libels of the Middle Ages?
Anti honor killing laws in Muslim countries?? There is no such thing as anti “honor killing laws” anywhere; much less in Muslim countries. Unless of course, you mean the statutory penal codes which form part of their criminal justice system, in the more secular Muslim countries. Either way, when it comes to “honor” killings- the sentences handed down are a mere token. Sentences ranging from weeks to months, due to the “honor “defence, hardly a deterrent by any stretch of the imagination!
More bigoted Sunnis in Turkey do in fact regard Alevis as non-Islamic, though ID cards in Turkey refer to both Sunni and Alevi holders as “Muslim” – Alevis are officially regarded as a cultural category, not a religious one. Alevism is closer to Shia than to Sunni Islam – Khomeini issued a ruling that Alevis were Muslims, though apparently this reflected some doubt even among Shias.
Alevis are not regularly massacred by Sunnis in Turkey, but there have been sporadic incidents of great violence. In December 1978, there were at least 110 deaths, perhaps many more, when Sunnis and secular fascists staged a pogrom against Alevis in Maras. A rumour was started that Alevis and Communists were conspiring to destroy the mosques (this was at a time of left-right political violence on a sizable scale in Turkey). Another, smaller pogrom took place later in Corum. In July 1993, over thirty people, many of them Alevi intellectuals, were killed in a hotel fire in Sivas started by a Sunni mob. The Turkish atheist writer Aziz Nesin was one of the targets, though ironically he was one of the survivors of the attack.
The Sunni-Alevi difference is reflected in right-left conflict – fascists have sought to organise among the Sunnis. I have seen far right leaflets which are headed with Sunni prayers. The left in Turkey make an attempt to organise among Alevis. In my personal experience, Alevis are more likely than Sunnis to join Turkey’s left groups.
For goodness sake – just read through all of these posts hoping to get a socialist even Marxist idea about violence against women – both towards partners, wives and daughters.
Sadly no just a diatribe about different people mostly men’s opinions on Islam, hardly any men have actually discussed the nature of men’s violence towards women. Why not?
I suppose the police will use different techniques to investigate an “honour based” crime as there will be different things to consider in the death, kidnapping, assault etc of a non “honour based” incident involving violence against women, surely that is just basic detective work?
Do any of the clever men who went to the bother to post on this subject have ANY explanation why there is so much violence from men towards women? Or is that just for bourgeois feminists to worry about that – to come up with a theory that “marxist men” don’t like and dismiss and can go back to their economist arguments or trumping one another on their knowledge of Islam, other world religions and even agony aunties opinions on sex!
However some of the postings have been informative, interesting and even educational
All this stuff on Alevis is very interesting but it doesn’t really shed any light on Dave Osler’s claim that Tulay Goren’s killing was an example of a murder “very clearly justified on the back of a certain interpretation of Islam”.
I repeat the question I’ve already asked: if honour killings are indeed of a “religiously specific nature”, what specific Alevi interpretation of Islam did Mehmet Goren rely upon to justify killing his daughter?
The reason we don’t get a reply to this question is of course that neither Dave Osler nor Andrew Coates has a clue. They fling around this accusation not because they’ve made an empirical study of the subject and reached a rational conclusion, but because it just chimes in with their bigoted view of Islam.
So much for Enlightenment values, eh?
Well well. This could only get confused and ugly, couldn’t it?
Happy Christmas.
Forgive me for my naivety, John (Palmer): I’d missed all the “honour” killings of sisters and wives carried out by atheists, anglicans, jews, methodists and quakers: clearly it’s *racist* to suggest that gynophobic murder is connected with any particular religion. Of course it isn’t! And tough luck on women from that particular religion, versions of which which *don’t* persecute and oppress women!
So much for the traditional secularism and atheism of the Marxist left…
Great stuff guys!
It would appear that Denham has also missed the prevalence of “honour killings” among Hindus in north India. And the absence of such killings among the 200 million Muslims who live in Indonesia.
“It would appear that Denham has also missed the prevalence of “honour killings” among Hindus in north India”
I think we know why that is don’t we.
‘Honour killings’ is a label used to describe a particular form of subjugation of women. It does not represent a fraction of the people who claim to be adherents of Islam but to the likes of Denham this is of no concern. Like the BNP, war on terror enthusiasts and far right groups throughout Europe this of course does not matter, do not let the truth get in the way of spreading some bigotry is their motto. Spread hatred and fear of Islam and all its followers as wide as possible.
And some would call that Marxism!!
P.S. Happy Xmas one and all.
Perhaps Anon may have a too-rosy picture of domestic life in Indonesia’s many islands.
There ARE honour killings in Indonesia*, but not terribly many, considering just how populous Indonesia is; for most Indonesian Muslims the strict tenets of Islam are less important than lots of pre-Islamic superstitions and taboos which co-exist with a not-terribly-exacting observance of Islamic ritual, cock-fighting and the drinking of large quantities of beer when funds permit.
There’s also the fact that Indonesian wimmin are not at all cowed and submissive; they’re great one’s for drugging hubbie and slicing off his virile member – and throwing it to the ducks – as a punishment for his allegedly wandering affections.
* Indonesia is not merely populous and large, it is astonishingly diverse. The Batak highlanders of the Lake Toba region of Sumatra were ritualistic cannibals – they slew and ate the first three Christian missionaries to venture among them – before becoming enthusiastic Pentecostalists. Bali, a big island with its own quite distinct civilization, has a form of nutty primitive Hinduism and the island of Flores, once a Portuguese possession, is Catholic – and so on and so on.
However, the opinion of most informed observers is that Indonesia, like Egypt and Turkey, is becoming more strongly Muslim. Various causes are ascribed to this distressing development. Gulf money being spent on mosques and Islamic study halls and schools – Saudi and Kuwaiti money especially – is one but another is that promising young lads are selected by local preachers and sent off – at the expense of Gulf patrons – to Egypt and Arabia to study for a few years, to subsequently return as clear-eyed fanatics intent on stamping out impeity and backsliding, especially the sort of backsliding which is commonly found among the educated classes of Indonesia; various members of a family professing different religions and being very cheery and easygoing about the whole thing.
These returning young men full of righteous fire are a feature of life in the Balkans – Bulgaria included – and the Caucasus, too. This ain’t the Age of Aqarius at all, sad to say.
Happy Christmas, one and all. Pabloites included.
In traditional societies – and societies emerging into modernism – where non-Muslim religions were present violence against women has always also been prevalent. That explains why Christianity was in the past cited to justify burning to death women accused of witchcraft and Judaism was cited by traditionalists to justify stoning to death of women accused of “adultery.” These practices continued for long after clerics in both religions denied any scriptural or theological justification for such practices which they roundly condemned. Ditto the practice of suttee in 19th century Hindu India in spite of the opposition of Hindu gurus. In the more remote communities where Islam is the prevailing religion exactly the same situation obtains. This phenomenon has often been misappropriated and appropriated by racists, imperialists (including Islamophobes today) to justify their polemics, pograms and repressive policies. These attitudes are reminiscent of what “the soupers” – the British imperial evangelists in 19th century Ireland did when they offered the victims of the Great Famine soup in return for abandonment of their “superstitious” Catholicism and their embrace of the Mother Empire religion of their landlords. It is like the French state’s “embrace” of young Muslim women who want to wear the headscarf – a vicious caricature of true emancipation. How odd that it should have the backing of “comrade” Coates.
Eddie you should have kept that bottle of Polish vodka for Christmas.
Arabs and Turks are white btw. I defy you to say that most Turks can be distinguished from ‘Europeans’ by physical appearance.
I cite people I know, not ‘friends’ because this makes a point not based on what I have read but is grounded on experience. If you want X could make her own point to you.
You do however make a valid argument about violence against women.
Coates, erudide and bilingual Pabloite though is is, can be wrong on occasion. When he has the time he ought to travel by bus from the Kurdish [KRG] border eastwards to Ankara and then to Istanbul. Most Anatolian Turks are not at all convincingly European in appearance.
It is true that some Syrians and Jeddawis are more-or-less white, as are many of those Turks who work at Istanbul Airport, but most provincial Turks and 97% – 98% of Arabs of Peninsular Arabia are most certainly non-European in appearance.
The indigenous inhabitants of North Africa west of the Siwa Oasis are Berbers and most of them look much like Sicilians or Greeks; Gadhaffi looks Cretan [so does Bob Dylan as he ages.]
Race and racial purity and racial identity are not really issue among reasonable people unless one is, say, casting a movie, but for anyone to claim that “Arabs and Turks” as “white” flies in the face of the facts.
Out of three hundred students here at KFMMC in Dhahran-on-the-Gulf, I could select at most ten who might be mistaken for somewhat tanned Sicilians.
Many peoples inhabit Turkey, and their appearance is quite diverse. The majority are quite dark, though not as dark as many Arabs. Many look somewhat like Greeks. In central Anatolia especially, you get some people who look rather Asiatic. You do get fair-skinned people with blue or grey eyes – the Circassians or Cherkess are famous for it. Georgians and Laz are often quite light-skinned. Generally speaking, people in western Turkey and the Black Sea area are fairer-skinned than those elsewhere. Very fair-skinned people often turn out to have some Balkan Slav or Ukrainian ancestry.
It’s shame that ‘actually existing Islam,’ wherever you see it in power is repressive, brutal and philistine. The real religion is based on peace and love, and exists in some Platonic sphere seperate from history, politics and humanity.
It’s similar to the way some people rationalised events in the Soviet Union, contrasting the horrors of ‘actually existing socialism’ with the ‘real’ socialism that continued to exist in a pristine form within the imagination.
John Palmer seems to live in a world of his own making. No-one disputes that catacyclismic social changes cause intellectual ructions. Yes, the fear of the breakdown of the traditional world was one of the drives behind the witch persecutions, (what’s that about Jewish stoning of women though, I don’t get that reference), so why does Mr Palmer see that Islamicism is exactly the same phenomenon, and is not going to liberate the toiling masses of Dar-al-Islam, because it can’t go anywhere. It can’t rid itself of the straitjacket it has forced itself into. As for Andrew Coates point about Turks. I suggest he returns to his old stompiing ground of Palmers Green and studies the Turks on display here. He will notice that they do not pass as Northern Europeans. However, I do not think this physical anthropology stuff is worthy of pursuit; it is a case of social systems and economic development.
This story has obtained a lot of posts considering that religion is man made fantasy to keep the masses in docility and the clergy in a comfortable lifestyle.
Religion is interesting and worthy of discussion, not because of what it says about a suppositional deity, but for what it says about human beings.
Religion is indeed worth spending a lot of time discussing.
Marx hits the nail on the head;
Religious suffering is, at one and the same time, the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.
The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is the demand for their real happiness. To call on them to give up their illusions about their condition is to call on them to give up a condition that requires illusions. The criticism of religion is, therefore, in embryo, the criticism of that vale of tears of which religion is the halo.
From the introduction to A Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right.
Also invaluable is Paul Siegel’s ‘The Meek and the Militant’.
If you have plenty of time at hand and cannot be bothered helping the living I suppose discussing religion passes the time away.
Jimmy, if you read the quote from Marx, the whole point is that religion is about the living.
For myself, I have 4 granddaughters and have been an active socialist for more than 30 years, so always doing things for the living.
On my Facebook page I describe my religious views as Calvinist Atheist.
I am also co-proprietor of Islamophobia Watch.
I wouldn’t characterise the bizarre ‘Islamophobia Watch’ as having done anything for the living. It may have provided a few polemical opportunities for the living dead, but that’s another matter.
Maybe the Calivinist-Atheist fusion is responsible: A good dose of compulsory misery without any theological justification or political purpose just about sums up the site.
Marxism’s not dead. It’s just starting to smell funny.
Eddie. Islamaphobia is non existent. No such condition exists. It is made up just like religion. I do hope it keeps you busy.
I can’t send you all presents. But some of you may not know about this commentator:
http://salon.com/news/opinion/camille_paglia/
In spite of being female and American, she has some things to say worth reading.
‘Islamophobia Watch’ is useful in that it provides links to people who are saying 100% true stuff as well as links to nutters.
Here is a movie review – of AVATAR – which is brilliantly funny despite coming from a Reactionary Papist source:
http://catholicmediareview.blogspot.com/2009/12/movie-review-avatar-2009.html
DO read it. Please!
‘ISLAMOPHOBIA WATCH’ is such a slickly-produced and professionally-maintained site I had always assumed that there was Home Office money behind it ["... to rub the Right's nose in diversity," to quote Andrew Neather] but I just read what Eddie Truman posted above.
Are we to assume that it is run on a shoestring out of selfless altruism by a couple of self-hating white blokes who chuckle with masochistic glee at the heartening thought of you-know-who procreating and immigrating in ever-increasing numbers, making more and more demands – “We need more Somali-speaking social workers NOW!” “Halal food in every Young Offenders’ Institute NOW!” – and doing their best to elect lots and lots more you-lnow-who MPs?
What does it cost to run ISLAMOPHOBIA WATCH and where does the brass come from?
“What does it cost to run ISLAMOPHOBIA WATCH and where does the brass come from?”
It costs a lot, the money came from Ken Livingstone initially; probably Saudi/Gulf money now.
Running an Islamo-Trot alliance don’t come cheap.
I met an Afghan recently who described his colouring as “international beige”.
Another attempted bombing on a plane in Detroit by another peace loving Islamist. Unfortunately the devices failed to explode. No one was killed. How sad. No story for Islamaphobia Watch! No one to defend this time. The poor fellow was only doing his duty for allah.
Jimmy!
Muslim community fears backlash in the wake of tomorrow’s bombing!
And this stuff is right up your street, Jimmy [et al.]
http://frontpagemag.com/2009/12/24/much-ado-about-cair-by-deborah-weiss/
… a very doubleplusungoodthinkful source, of course!
Eddie Truman: “… if you read the quote from Marx, the whole point is that religion is about the living.
For myself, I have 4 granddaughters and have been an active socialist for more than 30 years, so always doing things for the living.
On my Facebook page I describe my religious views as Calvinist Atheist.
I am also co-proprietor of Islamophobia Watch.”
In other words, ‘I Eddie Truman, am a sophisticated, Western leftist, so atheism is approprite for me. But the superstitions of less educated and sophisticated people are appropriate for them and should be defended, even though I personally think religion is wrong . And I’ll mis-represent the militant atheist Marx and quote him of context, in order to justify my defence of religion (for others) and my patronisation of simple folk.’
Thanks to Jim Denham (for once) for drawing my attention to Andy Newman’s threats.
The first thing to say is that I don’t know what libel he refers to. I think it is the suggestion that he is a Stalinist, which I don’t see as an unresonable characterisation of someone who was a big fan of the USSR and GDR and is still one of Cuba and the Chinese repression in Tibet and Xinjiang. Clearly the use of the word libel is an attempt to intimidate, highly familiar to the host of this blog.[Perhaps he's using a very old definition of libel:http://dictionary.oed.com/cgi/entry/50132651?query_type=word&queryword=libel&first=1&max_to_show=10&sort_type=alpha&result_place=1&search_id=StLv-EGUBr1-858&hilite=50132651
but doubt it.]
Secondly, on the I am a human punch-bag thing, here’s a list of the abuse directed at me on just one thread at Newman’s Place:
Toxic, comrade.
skidmarx, you really are the saddest apologist for the SWP
You are just a pathetic troll
You delusional twat
Skidmarx has not got a closed mind for he/she has not got a brain.
there is a pathetic,whining tone in your post
All by people posting under pseudonyms. As Jim Denham says, Newman can dish it out but can’t take (even a fraction of) it.
I only chse to post under this name on his blog because I didn’t think anyone would recognise mine and because I’d seen the way he and other Respect supporters allowed by him “accidentally” revealed the names of SWP supporters on SUN. More deliberate was the recent article about an SWP member in which Newman acted like a scab in exposing said member to the risk of losing his job.
All in all, I think there is a pathetic,whining tone to what Newman says. I don’t think its that surprising when the split his buddies engineered in Respect was predicated on destroying the credibility of the SWP with lies and gossip, and feigning outrage when there was any response, a process that Newman continues to this day.
My apologies to Dave Osler for taking up space on his blog to respond to this nonsense and any risk I have exposed him to if Newman should take the Kaschke route.
Coates and Denham: This is from Bill Corr who came to support your stance on re Islaphopbia -
“Are we to assume that it is run on a shoestring out of selfless altruism by a couple of self-hating white blokes who chuckle with masochistic glee at the heartening thought of you-know-who procreating and immigrating in ever-increasing numbers, making more and more demands – “We need more Somali-speaking social workers NOW!” “Halal food in every Young Offenders’ Institute NOW!” – and doing their best to elect lots and lots more you-lnow-who MPs?”
I think you both deserve a chance to completely dissociate yourself from such reactionary poison.
It would be nice if Eddie Truman could or would explain his definition of Islamaphobia. Does he know anyone that has this non existent phobia. Who actually made this phobia up in the first place!
John: I’ll allow you the opportunity to completely dissociaste yourself from the postion that “honour” killings are simply some kind of expression of village life, to be found in any culture, and that a serious investigation of it is not really justified. You don’t agee with that, do you, John?
And you wouldn’t want to be associated with the likes of Truman, would you?
C’mon, John: I’m offering you the opportunity to completely dissociate yourself.
Racist caricatures of ‘traditional’ or ‘pre-modern’ societies are ok, just don’t criticise the alleged glories of monotheism. Ironically many traditional societies were matriarchal and relatively egalitarian. Histories not a simple, linear system – at least not for anyone actually paying attention to the facts.
Soviet ‘communism’ may have degenerated into a brutal diaster, but elements of Cherokee communism still stand as some kind of model for future social organisation.
Winston Smith may, alas, be overly romantic about the joys of what Engels and so on called ‘primitive communism.’
Those societies have their runaways, escapees, expelees and chuckouts just like the GDR did. The Mennonites and the unspellable Doukhobors are a case in point, as any Canadian social worker will tell you.
Perhaps it’s a sad but true fact that the only egalitarian societies to survive more than a generation or two are those under iron discipline, like religious orders.
Winston Smith, you don’t need to tell Marxists that history is not a simple, linear system. I believe they use a methodological tool called ‘dialectical materialism’, at least some do.
“Winston Smith may, alas, be overly romantic about the joys of what Engels and so on called ‘primitive communism.”
I hope not. So called ‘primitive’ or ‘traditional’ societies are too complex for any kind of facile generalisation, and that’s the whole point. Mind you, I think the ‘Potlatch’ has some significant advantages over current modes of corporate production/distribution!
JimD: I take it your surrealist response to my question is a kind of gudging acknowledgement that you should put distance between yourself and Bill Corr with his racist “jokes” about Somali immigrants and Halal food? I don’t think that even Max Schachtman would hesitate over such an issue.
John Palmer: I assume it was a commitment to racist surrealism that led you to refer to: “traditional societies – and societies emerging into modernism – where non-Muslim religions were present violence against women has always also been prevalent.”
A statement that doesn’t even rise to the level of farce.
John Palmer: I oppose all forms of racism, as I know you do. But:
1/ You will *not* guilt-trip me into responding to some quotations by someone I’ve never heard of…
2/ Have *you* heard of of Joe McCarthy?
3/ Do you *really* think that so-called “honour killings” can be explained away as simply the inevitable consequence of pre-industrial societies? If so, you’re a very foolish person.
Try, for instance, reading Tariq Ramadan (someone you undoubtably *have* heard of) on the subject of violence against women. I have already quoted his approval of the views of the vicious mysogynist al-Quardawi:
“He (Ramadan) condemns physical violence against women when it is committed in the name of Islam and at the same time he quotes as a theological reference the writings of Yusuf al-Quaradawi, a man who according to Mr Ramadan, knows how to “formulate appropriate Islamic solutions.” Mr wrote: “When a husband detects in his wife signs of proudness or insubordination, he has to fix the situation by all possible means.” After having tried to discuss, and then refused to make love to his wife, the husdand is advised to “try to hit his wife with the hand while avoiding hitting her violently, and preserving her face.” What a strange reference for an “Islamic feminist” like Tariq Ramadan…
Posted by Jim Denham | 03:00, 19 December 2009
…How about his response to objections to the stoning of adulterers?
“Muslim majority societies and Muslims around the world are constantly confronted with the fundamental question of how to implement the penalties prescribed in the Islamic penal code. Evoking the notion of sharî’a, or more precisely hudûd[1], the terms of the debate are defined by central questions emerging from thought provoking discussions taking place between ulamâ’ (scholars) and/or Muslim masses: How to be faithful to the message of Islam in the contemporary era? How can a society truly define itself as “Islamic” beyond what is required in the daily practices of individual private life? But a critical and fruitful debate has not yet materialized. Several currents of thought exist in the Islamic world today and disagreements are numerous, deep and recurring. Among these, a small minority demands the immediate and strict application of hudûd, assessing this as an essential prerequisite to truly defining a “Muslim majority society” as “Islamic”. Others, while accepting the fact that the hudûd are indeed found in the textual references (the Qur’an and the Sunna[2]), consider the application of hudûd to be conditional upon the state of the society which must be just and, for some, has to be “ideal” before these injunctions could be applied. Thus, the priority is the promotion of social justice, fighting against poverty and illiteracy etc. Finally, there are others, also a minority, who consider the texts relating to hudûd as obsolete and argue that these references have no place in contemporary Muslim societies.
One can see the opinions on this subject are so divergent and entrenched that it becomes difficult to discern what the respective arguments are. At the very moment we are writing these lines- while serious debate is virtually non-existent, while positions remain vague and even nebulous, and consensus among Muslims is lacking- women and men are being subjected to the application of these penalties….
All the ulamâ’ (scholars) of the Muslim world, of yesterday and of today and in all the currents of thought, recognize the existence of scriptural sources that refer to corporal punishment (Qur’an and Sunna), stoning of adulterous men and women (Sunna) and the penal code (Qur’an and Sunna). The divergences between the ulamâ’ and the various trends of thought (literalist, reformist, rationalist, etc.) are primarily rooted in the interpretation of a certain number of these texts, the conditions of application of the Islamic penal code, as well as its degree of relevance to the contemporary era (nature of the committed infractions, testimonials, social and political contexts, etc.).
The majority of the ulamâ’, historically and today, are of the opinion that these penalties are on the whole Islamic but that the conditions under which they should be implemented are nearly impossible to reestablish. These penalties, therefore, are “almost never applicable”. The hudûd would, therefore, serve as a “deterrent,” the objective of which would be to stir the conscience of the believer to the gravity of an action warranting such a punishment.”
Note that he doesn’t denounce and oppose such punishments… he calls for a “moretorium”, saying that they’re “almost never applicable” (not, I note, “never” aplicable)…
John, this is a much-feteted Muslim “moderate”: I think it’s *you* who nedd to make your position clear, starting by claer support for human rights – inclusing womens’ rights – and opposition from religious obscurantism.
Jim Denham. Human rights, democracy, trade unions, free speech are not an issue in the Islamic calendar. It is non existent. Just a plain old fashioned extreme political religious dictatorship. Say the wrong thing then off with the hands or head. The BNP are just a kindergarten in comparison.
That will not do Jim Denham and you know it. If Ramadan were to intervene in this debate and obfuscate about any religious sanction for violence against women I would condemn that without hesitation. The difference is that “Bill Corr” (who neither of us knows) intervened here in support of the attack on Islam in terms which were racist (“Somali immigrants etc”) and (Islamophobic – ranting about Halal dietary laws etc). Yet you refuse to make your opposition to his intervention open and clear. Why?
It’s difficult to see what possible relevance the views of Qaradawi and Ramadan have to the killing of Tulay Goren. They are prominent figures in Sunni Islam. Her killer was an adherent of a faith which, if it qualifies as Islam at all, is a highly heterodox form of Shiism.
Denham says he has “already quoted his [Ramadan's] approval of the views of the vicious mysogynist al-Quardawi”. But this has already been answered, without any attempt at rebuttal from Denham. Let us try again.
Qaradawi’s position is outlined here (in the final section, headed “Qaradawi and ‘wife-beating’”). Ramadan’s view can be found here (in answer to the first question in the interview). As can be seen, both Qaradawi and Ramadan are referring to an early Islamic ruling, the aim of which was to prevent domestic violence.
On the question of the stoning of adulterers, in the passage quoted by Denham Ramadan is referring to another early ruling by Islamic jurists. It was an attempt to prevent honour killings, by subjecting adultery to sharia law.
These early jurists ruled that it wasn’t adultery itself that was a crime but the sexual act itself and that four independent witnesses to the sexual act were required for a conviction. The death penalty was retained in theory to symbolise extreme social disapproval but the evidential requirements were raised so high that in practice it was impossible to convict anyone of the crime that carried that punishment.
This is what Ramadan means when he summarises the views of traditionalist scholars who uphold the ruling as follows: “These penalties, therefore, are ‘almost never applicable’. The hudûd would, therefore, serve as a ‘deterrent’, the objective of which would be to stir the conscience of the believer to the gravity of an action warranting such a punishment.”
In his proposal for a “moratorium”, Ramadan is trying to find a middle way between the majority of Islamic scholars who hold that traditionalist view and the minority who argue that the symbolic punishments should be scrapped completely.
But all Islamic scholars are opposed to honour killings. What the traditionalists are upholding is, to repeat the point, a ruling designed to stop such killings taking place.
Somebody wrote:
“So, to sum up then:
it is not clear who these leftists are who fete certain ‘progressive Muslims’ who in turn are somehow in favour of violence against female family members and by extension murdering them;
Islam prohibits ‘honour killing’, so this ghostly ‘sympathy’ for progressive Islam cannot be said to be accepting by association of ‘honour killing’.
Bollocks article, really, but it certainly lets the dogs out.
Posted by Lobby Ludd | 00:02, 20 December 2009″
Oh, blimey, that was me, several days ago.
Reading this thread is like being in the saloon bar and not drinking – there’s always somebody causing it, isn’t there?
(I was the ‘designated driver’ at a drinks party the other day. Fuck me, it was tedious. I persuaded my passengers they would be happier somewhere else, took them there, dumped them in fact, and went home.)
What does ‘…Islam cannot be said to be accepting by association of ‘honour killing” mean? I honestly cannot understand the syntax.
Why don’t these Islamic scholars and Mr Ramadan denounce every execution of adulterers and apostates? There was a young teenager who was raped in Somalia the otehr week, I don’t recall the MCB or any authorative Muslim body in this country making a big fuss, or any fuss.