In the Qur’an, a mysterious figure, known as Khidr in Islamic tradition, kills a boy in an apparently random and gratuitous attack. He then explains: “And as for the boy, his parents were believers, and we feared that he would overburden them by transgression and disbelief. So we intended that their Lord should substitute for them one better than him in purity and nearer to mercy.” (18:80-81)
And according to Islamic law, “retaliation is obligatory against anyone who kills a human being purely intentionally and without right.” However, “not subject to retaliation” is “a father or mother (or their fathers or mothers) for killing their offspring, or offspring’s offspring.” (Reliance of the Traveller o1.1-2).
Muslims commit 91 percent of honor killings worldwide. The Palestinian Authority gives pardons or suspended sentences for honor murders. Iraqi women have asked for tougher sentences for Islamic honor murderers, who get off lightly now. Syria in 2009 scrapped a law limiting the length of sentences for honor killings, but “the new law says a man can still benefit from extenuating circumstances in crimes of passion or honour ‘provided he serves a prison term of no less than two years in the case of killing.’” And in 2003 the Jordanian Parliament voted down on Islamic grounds a provision designed to stiffen penalties for honor killings. Al-Jazeera reported that “Islamists and conservatives said the laws violated religious traditions and would destroy families and values.” In Iran, according to the New York Times, the legal system “treats parents who murder their children with relative leniency, as the maximum sentence for the crime is only ten years.”
“Father killed daughter for getting married,” by Emily Woods, Australian Associated Press, December 22, 2021 ( The Religion of Peace):
- A Melbourne father killed his daughter and son-in-law as they celebrated their first wedding anniversary because he was angry that his permission for the marriage was never sought.
- Lindita Musai, 25, was executed on her doorstep on December 31, 2019 and her husband Veton, 29, died in hospital the next day.
- Mrs Musai’s father, 57-year-old Osman Shaptafaj, pleaded guilty to the double murder in February and faced the Supreme Court for a pre-sentencing hearing on Wednesday.
- In the hours before the murders, the couple left the hotel where they had celebrated their one-year wedding anniversary catching an Uber to the Yarraville home they shared with Mr Musai’s parents, Crown Prosecutor Catherine Parkes told the court.
- That same morning Shaptafaj was driving around in his car, carrying an unregistered, loaded handgun and ammunition.
- He drove to the Musai family’s home about 8:30am but then left and returned to wait for the couple.
- When the Uber arrived at the house, just before 10:30am, the couple walked to the front door and rang the doorbell.
- While they were waiting at the door, Shaptafaj got out of his car and walked behind them, then shot the couple in the back of their heads from close range.
- He then walked away from the house to a nearby park and turned the gun on himself, with neighbours calling triple zero.
- Shaptafaj was arrested and taken to hospital where bullets were extracted from his head and his right eye was removed. He now lives with an acquired brain injury.
- Justice Andrew Tinney said Shaptafaj indicated to “other sources” he was “put out that his permission had not been sought to marry his daughter”….
- Shaptafaj had a history of family violence, including physical abuse towards his ex-wife and daughter.
- The last time he saw his estranged daughter, eight years earlier, Shaptafaj threw her against a wall in an argument about why the then-17-year-old was living with her mother and not him, the court heard….
