I recently finished my first novel, Mother of the Believers, which tells the story of Islam's birth from the perspective of Aisha, the Prophet's young wife. As a scholar, poet and warrior, Aisha was one of the most influential women in history, and her life reveals how empowered the women of Islam were at the onset of the faith. As I researched the story of early Islam for my novel, I was struck by how central women's rights played in the community's identity from the beginning. The Prophet was a sensitive man who had been orphaned at a young age and grew up in poverty. He saw from childhood the suffering of women and children in pre-Islamic Arabia, where the strong crushed the weak, and dedicated his life to changing the system.
One of the first Arab practices he outlawed was female infanticide. Pre-Islamic Arab men would bury alive unwanted baby girls in the desert, a horrific tradition that Prophet Muhammad ended forever. There is a powerful scene in the Holy Qur'an depicting Judgment Day where the souls of all girls who were slain would rise and confront their fathers, asking the men: "For what crime did you kill me?" And then their fathers would be flung into Hell. It is a vivid image meant to inculcate the true horror of such crimes in the minds of Arabs accustomed to centuries of brutal child murder.
The Prophet also established women's right to inherit and own property -- rights that were not given to Christian women until the 19th century in Europe and America. Considering his concern for women's welfare, it is not surprising that the Prophet's earliest followers were female. The first Muslim was his wife Khadijah, a wealthy widow who had been his employer and had proposed marriage to the penniless Muhammad when he was managing her caravans. The first martyr of Islam, Sumaya, was an elderly woman who was killed by Meccan idolaters for refusing to renounce monotheism.
So if all this is true, where does this idea of "honor killing" come from in the Muslim world? Unfortunately, it is one of the ugly elements of pre-Islamic Arabian culture that continues to reassert itself, despite the Prophet's efforts to eradicate the practice. In fact, Prophet Muhammad nearly lost his own beloved wife to the madness of the crowds screaming about "sexual honor." In my novel, I detail how his wife Aisha was once falsely accused of adultery and was the victim of a gossip campaign meant to destroy her reputation and potentially her life. The Holy Qur'an exonerated her of the false accusations, and then demanded that anyone accusing a woman of adultery would have to bring four witnesses to the act of sexual intercourse. Of course, such a requirement is impossible to meet, and its purpose was to end the threat to women's lives under claims of "preserving honor." Aisha was saved, but generations of women continue to be haunted by this curse from The Days of Ignorance, as Muslims refer to the era before Islam. The greatest tragedy of Islam is that some Muslim men continue to uphold these pagan practices that the Prophet outlawed 1,400 years ago.
As a believer, I have no doubt that those who commit murder in the name of Islam will face the wrath of God in this life and in eternity. But personal belief is not enough. Islam is a religion of action. Muslim men must stand and fight against this evil of "honor killing" that destroys lives and families, shatters the bond of love between men and women, and brings disrepute to Islam, which was sent as a beacon of light to the world. If we fail to do so, we will have failed to follow the example of Prophet Muhammad, a kind and compassionate man who never struck a woman or child in his life. If we remain silent, we will have earned the cruel labels that Islamophobes and bigots seek to give us -- barbarians, fanatics and monsters.
But this guy founded Bridges TV to improve the image of muslims here in america. But he beats his wife and then beheads her.... Seems counterproductive.
