Honour killing – cultural?

When there’s a news report about a female muslim killed by a male member of her family, it’s usually obvious we’re talking about another so-called honour killing: a punitive killing carried out because it’s felt she’s somehow shamed her family and community. Generally speaking, her family and immediate community feel she must be killed because, as they see it, she’s behaved dishonourably. In effect what this means is that females are targeted if they refuse an arranged marriage, commit adultery, seek a divorce, or even if they’re sexually assaulted. Moreover, these so-called honour killings are commonplace in muslim societies; and in the West they’re on the rise.

Of course, as soon as any such news report appears we get no end of appeasers spouting the usual drivel, telling us that such killings have nothing to do with Islam: it’s just a ‘cultural thing’. The reality, however, is that a highly authoritative manual of Islamic law rules that no legal retaliation is required when a father or mother kill their offspring, or even their offspring’s offspring. (Page 584, Ahmad ibn Naqib al-Misri, Reliance of the Traveller: Classic Manual of Islamic Sacred Law (Revised Edition), Amana Books, 1997, ISBN: 0915957728). So let’s get this right… it appears in an authoritative and reliable manual of Islamic law, but it’s just a cultural thing, nothing to do with Islam?