| The Death of Aqsa Parvez: An Interfaith Call to Action | | Print | |
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We must be good shepherds. Just a few days ago The Republican reported that domestic violence deaths have reached record numbers in Massachusetts where there have been 38 deaths from domestic violence, and 12 suicides by perpetrators this year alone. Murders of pregnant women are rising across the country. “A year-long examination by The Washington Post of death-record data in states across the country documents the killings of 1,367 pregnant women and new mothers since 1990.”
People have killed themselves because of some perversion of religion like the Heaven’s Gate mass suicide. and like Jim Jones and the People’s Temple, or the Solar Temple Murderers have killed others to fulfill some “religious” nightmare.
Sikh and Hindu “honor" killings are still prevalent in India. Jaswinder Kaur Sidhu, a young Sikh Canadian girl was murdered at the order of her own family in 2003. A Christian Palestinian girl was murdered by her family in an honor killing and in fact this problem is widespread in Palestinian society no matter the religious affiliation. Rabbi Shlomo Arar committed an honor killing when he murdered a boy who was involved with his daughter. A Christian father starved his infant son to death because of a “vision" from God. A Christian mother killed her baby to give her child to God. Parents have killed their children because they thought they were gay, for stealing to buy drugs, over a video game, to avoid paying child support, because of worry over gambling debts, because they were autistic and hard to care for, over a fight with a spouse. Andrea Yates, Deanna Laney , and Lawshaun Harris (devout Christians) killed their children because “God told them to”. Constance & Larry Slack (devout Christians – Jehovah’s Witnesses) beat their daughter to death for being disobedient. A pastors son killed his mom and shot his dad. The list goes on an on and would take up volumes to list. The truth is that family murder is ‘too awful to contemplate’, and yet we must contemplate this crisis and find ways to reach distressed families before any more lives are lost. It has been noted that: “Women who kill their children commonly cite God, the devil and other religious influences for their actions. Although the mothers are also often found to be severely mentally ill or psychotic, the recurring theme of religiosity begs the question: Is religion to blame? Theologians, sociologists and psychiatrists generally say no. They say religiosity is a common theme among psychotics because hallucinations and delusions usually take familiar forms. “Most of the people in nut houses are religious because most Americans are religious,” said Rodney Stark, a social sciences professor at Baylor University. “We know what causes schizophrenia and it isn’t going to church. It’s biochemical.” One article about the Aqsa Parvez case had the title ”Girl’s death puts Islam in hot seat”—if that is true, then all the other deaths must also put Christianity, Judaism, Sikhism, Hinduism, etc. all in the hot seat. We have a serious problem in our society, and members of all faith communities need to work together to attempt to find solutions, and to educate our own faith communities in the actual teachings of our various belief systems. Although individuals may attempt to justify their actions on the basis of some distortion of religious teachings, there is no justification for this behavior. In attempting to see this as “their” problem and not “our” problem, and pointing the finger of blame elsewhere, we take away any chance of working effectively together to get at the root problems and stop this from ever happening again. See also:
Domestic Abuse by Muslim Men? Is the 18% Statistic Too Low? | Dr. Robert Dickson Crane
SOME RESOURCES:
Muslim Women’s Resource Center
There are a number of organizations working to stop this epidemic, and there is a list of Jewish, Christian, Muslim, and other resources available on the Religion Newswriters site. ____________________ SHEILA MUSAJI is the editor of The American Muslim, an open forum for the discussion of ideas and issues of concern to Muslims in America from various points of view © The American Muslim, 2007 |