R.M. Ahmad
Jan 19, 2001

Atrocities are committed against women in the Islamic World especially in Kurdistan and
Iraq because of adultery in the name of honour cleansing. Mainly when a woman suspected
of having involved in adultery, her relatives murder her as simple as that, even if she is
innocent. Now why a woman pays with her life when accused of being involved in adultery.
Four reasons can be identified:

1-The culture of Stick (Truncheon): The mainstream culture of the area is sword-imposed
and doesn’t compromise. It is the rule of the stronger against the weaker and the stronger
consumes the weaker. This has led to a social order kept together by the force of stick. So the
stick rules around all aspects of social life. Who ever is stronger can use the stick against the
weaker. Physically, women are weaker than men because of the factors of child bearing.
This factor has translated the position of women socially as they are a sort of properties.
Properties have values and ownerships. When a property loses its value the owner feels free
to get rid of it. Adultery in this area degrades social values of women (property) and they
become useless.

What an interesting thing which I have remembered now. The cousin of Saddam Hussein
was teaching us Arabic in an evening class. I remember he was talking privately to a student
infront of me about the false prophets appeared after the death of prophet, Muhamad, pbuh.
He was quoting  “Surat Al-3assa” or “the Verse of  Truncheon” from the prophecies of one
those false prophets to the student. I remember his mouth was licking from the joy of reading
Surat Al-3essa. The rhythm of the words was similar to the Surat Qul Ahuzu Be-Allah.
Simply it was about how to make believers believe in the law of truncheon.

2- Religion: Islam prohibits adultery and punishes adulterers but only the guilty party, man
or woman or both. But so far we have not heard a man was punished for reasons of adultery.
It seems only women are punished guilty or innocent, doesn’t make different. So atrocities
against women in the name of honour cleansing has nothing to do with Islam and it is
anti-Islamic.

3- Ancient Tribal Tradition: We know some pre-Islamic tribes in the land of Arabia were
burying their newly born baby females alive and their women during tribal wars to prevent
their women enslaved by their enemies. Islam stopped this. This ancient tradition must have
a big bearing on inflicting atrocities against women today because Islam could not eradicate
them. As Arab Muslims came out from the land of Arabia, spreading around Middle East,
they brought with them their ancient cultures as well as the religion of Islam. But why
pre-Islamic Tribes took this drastic action against their women? There were two reasons on
the basis of a simple logic: 1- the harsh environment and 2- the scarcity of resources. The
severe environment (Desert) made the people very tough. The scarcity of the resources made
the weaker ones, mainly women, as a burden and a sort of property like. Gradually this
became social values (Tribal honour). So how one get rid of a burden (baby female) or
protect women (Tribal honour) from enemies?

4- Cultural and Practical Reasons: Any one, man or woman, becomes physically ready to
mate (have sex) an opposite sex to reproduce by the age of 15. A Muslim man cannot have
sexual relationships outside marriage life. Because of practical reasons and cultural
constraints, he can marry around the age of 25. So he has to wait about 10 years while he is
full of sperms. The natural drive to mate to reproduce forces a lot of them to violet the
nearest available women, mainly women relatives, who will be murdered later.

So what is the solution? Are we going to carry on murdering our women, the innocent
parties, forever in the name of honour cleansing?  If we carry on like that, we will always
going to worry about our women how to behave or what they should wear while other
nations build colonies in outer space with the help of their women working side by side with
their men. Some times ago in a Kurdish village, two brothers martyred their sister by
throwing her on a bridge in the name of honour cleansing. When they asked the Muslim
imam of the village why he did not stop it or did not speak against it, he replied: “If I had
done anything about it, I would have been labelled as a pimp.”  What an anti-Islamic
attitude!!!!  This attitude is reflected everywhere. I wander if Muslims have left any moral
right to speak in this case in the name of religion.  So we have to talk about this problem
in a secular common sense way in order to find a solution and eradicate it once for all.

What is adultery? It is a sexual relationship beyond Social Norms. These Social Norms are
Traditional and Modern.  The traditional social norms are different from place to place. In
the Islamic World, sexual relationships can exist only within the marriage life according to
some certain social and religious rituals. A Muslim man can have four wives at the same
time. In Tibet and Nepal, also sexual relationships can exist only within marriage life.  But
when a man marries a woman all his brothers become the husband of his wife. So here we
have two different extreme traditional situations. Which one is right and which one is
wrong? The answer depends on different points of views.

The modern social norms of sexual relationship are almost the same everywhere. It involves
natural rather than social rituals of courtship mainly by male to attract female.  On the
whole, the relationship depends on the common consents of parties, the male and female. No
one can coerce another one. Now for example in UK, even married couples cannot coerce
each another to bed. That will be considered a rape punishable legally. The basics of the
modern norms are one man for one woman and one woman for one man. If both compatible
to each another they will establish a loving relationship which may last all their lives.
The compatibility test involves a trial and error period during which both test each another in
all aspects of life including pre-marriage mating trials.

This modern trend is natural and nature always takes and must take its course. It reaches
everywhere as societies acknowledge the benefits of the modern way of life and
new-enlightened generations replace old superstitious generations. This modern trend
has already penetrated traditional barriers. If not for the fear of their lives, none of the
Muslim women will marry a married man or accepts coercion. The educated ladies in Nepal
and Tibet now refuse to go to bed with the brothers of their husbands. This has cost them
their social statues but they are luckier than Muslim women. They are not murdered.

Any way, whether we like it or not, the modern way of mating relationships will arrive
everywhere including Afghanistan and no one can stop it. If it is like that, so what it is the
point of creating obstacles like murdering women? Isn’t it better to take the situation with an
open mind at least by preventing women, the innocent parties, being murdered in cold blood.
To deal with the problem, we have to discuss the four points, which have degraded women,
about how to use them or reverse them and introduce new ideas: -

1- The Culture of the Stick (Truncheon): This has to be eradicated. To achieve this Iraq and
Kurdistan have to be run by elected authorities by universal voting system, which has to be
under the scrutiny of secular constitutional Supreme Court. This elected authorities must
ensure peace, freedom, democracy, equality, individual freedom and freedom of choice are
prevailed in favour of every one with a particular attention on women. The authorities must
legislate especially to protect women from their relatives and women should be free to take
necessary steps to protect themselves from whomever. Citizens should have the right to bring
lawsuit against authorities if they are victimised. Wife beatings and family violence should
be legally criminalized. Children should not be abused at home or school. Free legal advice
offices should be open all around the country to inform citizens about their legal rights.
Women should have the right to join police force and army. Any thing, earthly or heavenly,
discriminates between men and women should be considered invalid.

2- Islamic Religion: Honour cleansing murder is not Islamic. It is anti-Islamic. All Muslim
imams should speak against it. So far, they have always kept quiet. But it is not too late to
speak out against injustice if they feel they have the moral right to call themselves Muslims.

3- Ancient pre-Islamic traditions: This is 21st century, the age of space and men and women
are working beside each another.  There is no room in Iraq or Kurdistan for pre-Islamic
tribal cultures to prevail any more. These pre-Islamic tribal cultures are unnatural, exported
from the land of Arabia and imposed with sword. No longer any one, men or women, can be
forced against their will. This is the age of individual, men and women, freedom and free
choice. This culture, at its best, has produced Saddam Hussein Tickrity and given every one
else the mentality of Saddam Hussein Tickrity.  Iraq and Kurdistan cannot afford Saddam
Hussein and his mentality any more.

4- Cultural and Practical Reasons: The uncompromising attitudes towards mating
relationships have to be eradicated gradually. To protect women from their young relative
men, young people can be encouraged to marry as early as possible and to divorce easily if it
becomes necessary.  This leads me to open the subject of temporary marriage, which I have
already discovered, practiced by the second largest Islamic sect. But the largest Islamic sect
prohibits it.  Temporary marriage has its own social and religious rituals biased in favour of
men against women. Simply a man and a woman can marry temporarily for a known period
of time. After that, the man disappears but if the woman becomes pregnant, she has to bring
up the child a lone.

Because temporary marriage can some how solve an important natural needs, the scholars of
the largest Islamic sect should legitimise it and should not have a problem to get around the
prohibition. After all, a Muslim man is free to marry as well as to divorce. In any case, we
can benefit from the temporary marriage according to the following secular modern legal
criteria:

A- Any two unmarried consenting adults, a man and a woman, should be free to marry
temporarily without coercion.
B- No financial gains should involve.
C- If the temporary marriage causes the birth of a child, the marriage has to change to
permanent.

Fact Is Stranger Than the Imagination

The following is a true story about how a Muslim imam found a loophole to overcome an
Islamic prohibition.

According to what I remember, a Muslim man cannot remarry his divorced wife unless she
is remarried to some one else and then divorced or widowed.

An angry Muslim man, in the village, falsely swore with his Islamic marriage contract,
Talaq. Because he swore falsely, he lost his marriage contract. His wife became divorced
from him in a few seconds because of the heat of the moment without the poor wife having
any fault or warned in advance. He wanted to remarry her. The solution was to find some
one to agree to marry her and then after one night with her he would divorce her so that the
first husband could remarry her. But a Muslim villager will never accept his divorced wife,
whom he wants to remarry, to go to bed with another man even if the procedure is Islamic,
on his dead body.

So our man wanted to remarry his divorced wife, the mother of his children, without
accepting Islamic procedure takes it’s course. The Muslim Imam of the village found a
loophole to deal with the problem, off course after consulting higher Muslim scholars. He
remarried the poor woman to a water container. These water containers were household
items used to take water round the house conveniently. Any one could carry one full of water
with one hand. Each carried water enough to wash the face, hands and feet to prepare to
pray.  They had a narrow water inlet on the top and a handle beside water inlet. Also each
had a water outlet. This water outlet was in the shape of a narrow tube fixed to the container
at the opposite side of the handle but lower than the position of the handle.

These water containers were made from metal or clay. The one the imam used was made
from clay. The imam instructed the poor woman to go to bed with the water container for
one night and to put the mouth of the water container between her legs. The following
morning, the imam instructed the previous husband to go to kill (break) the new husband
(clay water container) to widow his previous wife.  After that the imam remarried them.

5- Eradicating Gender Barriers.
 
A best solution may be to build a modern society without barriers between men and women.
We cannot change present Iraqi or Kurdistan society to such modern condition. It is not
practical because men and women are brought up separately with big social barriers, as they
are two different beings from two different worlds. So such society without gender barrier
has to be built from the scratch. To do that we have to let new generations, male and female,
grow up and live together during their school life from the age of 1st year kinder garden to
the age when they can leave school on their own free choice.  This is over ten years
time.

This has to be organised legally to ensure all members of the new generation, male and
female, without exception can start their early school life together until each reach the age of
16 at least.  Special task force has to be established by sociologists and psychologists to
scrutinise the implications of the application of this idea and to deal with it. These include
teacher and teaching preparations, how to deal with the consequences and expectations of
this new privileged generation. This task force has to carry on until this new privileged
generation takes over all the responsibilities from the old generation.
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The Kurdistan Observer
www.kurdistanobserver.com