Time Immortal

In the comments for this article, Muslim commentator Yursil provides a bit of information that puts a twist on what is known thus far about the honour killing of Aqsa Parvez. It makes for an interesting read, to say the least, and notes at one point that Aqsa’s five sisters also sometimes refused to wear the hijab, although nothing contextualizes that observation (did the parents know they did this? did they do it at home, or just at school like Aqsa?).

And I note in the article the following remark:

Canadian Imams have denounced the murder as un-Islamic, but underscored the importance of a hijab by saying that children who shunned it could make some parents feel like failures. Other observers say the discussion should centre around domestic violence, which affects all communities.

Once again, I find it necessary to re-iterate that I’ve always been told that hijab is an optional garment for women. Is this the case, or isn’t it? Unfortunately, I can’t really relate to this statement, because there’s no analog in Christendom — it’s not really considered to be a parental failure if, for example, a Catholic daughter doesn’t always wear a Crucifix or carry a Rosary. And even if a Catholic parent did take issue with that, I very much doubt that the end result of said taking issue would be a strangulation.

More to the point, though, I do note the statement that Aqsa’s sisters did not always wear the headscarf, a detail which until this point hasn’t been discussed. That is interesting to say the least, but I might point out that under some of the stricter Islamist interpretations of sharia, Aqsa may also have been marked for death by having moved out of the home, or by the suggestion (read: unfounded rumour) that she was seeing a boy outside the auspices of parental oversight and consent.

To sum up: this news is worthy of a note on the blog, because it does open up the possibility that Aqsa’s death wasn’t entirely, or wasn’t at all, about her refusal to wear the hijab (the story is ongoing, and it stands to reason that we don’t know the whole story just yet)…but there’s more than enough even in this article to uphold the suspicion that Aqsa’s death may have just been an honour killing.

One goes with the evidence one has. Hey, if I turn out to be wrong, then I’m wrong and will publish news as it arrives. Suffice to say that the optics on this one started out as bad, and the religion of the perpetrator seemed to be a large factor. Thousands of Canadian parents disagree every day with their teens over what clothes are worn, but none of them resort to strangulation to make the point clearer when the teenager tells them to shove it. Generally speaking, that escalation to violence is indicative of either mental instability (temporary or ongoing), or of a sense of entitlement to act with violence in the situation.

I recognize what some commentators here have noted, that honour killings are a cultural phenomenon that predates the rise of Islam in the Arab world. Point granted. But equally, I recognize that in many parts of the world, the link between honour murders and Islam is more than just coincidence, which means that in the world out there a lot of Muslims are getting it wrong.

And sometimes they bring that error into nations like Canada.

And I don’t particularly like that, and I don’t particularly think it should go unmentioned when they do what they do.