Practical steps include the following:

1. Emphasize that such killings have no sanction in the Qur’an, the Prophetic practice, or in Islamic law.

2. Declare anyone guilty of involvement in honor killings to be a cold-blooded murderer.

3. Encourage judicial authorities to enact the harshest penalties possible for anyone accused of involvement in such killings.

4. Educate our Muslim communities, especially in the West, about the un-Islamic nature of honor killings, and the pressures, nuances, challenges and complications facing young Muslims, male and female in the West.

5. Work to eliminate the double standards, and to expose the hypocrisy that exist in our communities, generally, concerning attitudes and standards relating to the indiscretions of males as opposed to females.

In conclusion, Islam honors the female, and values femininity. It is up to every Muslim to translate teachings in that regard into a beautiful reality that helps to elevate the status of women in all societies. Honor killings, domestic violence in general, murders of the type terrorizing women in Guatemala, female sexual slavery and trafficking, pornography, especially its more violent manifestations, are all crimes against humanity that we should oppose in the strongest terms and work strenuously to eliminate. If our women are not safe, psychically, emotionally, spiritually, or psychologically we are all at risk, for without women men are incomplete, and without men women are incomplete. Our Prophet, peace and blessings of God upon him alluded to this complementariness when he said, peace upon him, “Women are the complimenting halves of men.” We must all work harder to make our societies whole.

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IMAM ZAID SHAKIR is a scholar-in-residence at the Zaytuna Institute in Hayward, California, and author of the book Scattered Pictures: Reflections of an American Muslim, which was published in 2005. You can read more of his writings at his blog New Islamic Directions, where this was first published.

© New Islamic Directions, 2007