This is part four of the Islam vs. Women series. Click here to read part three.
One of the most horrific threats to women in the Muslim world is honor culture. More commonly discussed in the context of honor crimes or honor killings, honor culture is a code of morality that determines a family's honor (or dishonor) based on the actions of its (usually female) members.
In order to understand why honor crimes occur in the Muslim world, it is important to understand what honor culture is. Honor culture does not always result in the death of its victims. The punishments for breaking a supposed code of conduct vary depending on the "crime" of the victim and how far the aggressor is willing to go. With honor crimes, the reason that certain actions are punishable often comes back to the female supposedly tarnishing the honor and/or reputation of the family. Though Islam does not directly instruct males to murder females under any circumstance (murder is one of the major sins in the faith), it does lay down the foundation for aggressors to justify committing honor crimes in social or legal settings.
The foundation of honor culture lies within three Islamic concepts: mahram, awrah, and fitna.
Mahram
Arabic word محرم ("mah-ram"), from the root ح رم (h-r-m) meaning "forbidden"
A mahram is a person that you cannot legally marry; they are forbidden to you. Your mahram is someone in your immediate family, such as a father, brother, uncle, etc. for women, or a mother, sister, or daughter, etc. for men. According to Islam, a mahram cannot see you in a sexual way, as it would be unnatural (incest is forbidden). Non-mahrams are those who are not forbidden to marry.
Awrah
Arabic word عورة ("aw-rah"), from the root ع و ر (a-w-r) meaning "blemish" or "weakness"
The parts of someone's body that are considered vulnerable, therefore must not be exposed to the opposite sex are what Muslims call awrah. The parts that are considered to be awrah differ from scholar to scholar and even culture to culture. Generally speaking, a man's awrah is the area starting from his navel and ending at his knees, while a woman's awrah is every part of her body except for her face, hands, and feet. Many scholars also claim that a woman's voice is awrah, so she must not laugh, sing, or speak in an alluring voice in front of non-mahrams.
Fitna
Arabic word فتنة ("fit-nah"), from the root ف ت ن (f-t-n) meaning "to seduce" or "to incite conflict"
Fitna is a specific type of sin, which is the sin of falling for temptation. When a woman exposes her awrah to a non-mahram, she is calling for him to commit fitna; to fall for her charm and act on it. Generally speaking, it is a sin to even touch a non-mahram, including shaking hands, holding hands, hugging, etc. Moreover, certain interactions between men and women may be deemed "flirty", therefore are sinful, such as chatting, laughing, etc. This means that fitna is not necessarily premarital sex, and it could be as simple as innocent flirting or even the appearance of flirting. It is important to note that when fitna does result in premarital sex, it doesn't matter if the sex was consensual or not. The two partners could participate consensually or it could be rape, but in Allah's eyes, it is fitna all the same. This means that no matter the case, the woman is the siren who drowned a presumably innocent man to his doom.
These three concepts are the root cause of many social issues in the Middle East. Women are seen as walking temptations, so people are not open to allowing girls and women to join public spaces in order to avoid this sexual conflict. People are also not prone to taking girls and women seriously. After all, just about everything females do is for the purpose of seducing men, from being employed to laughing loudly in a public space.
These concepts are the brick wall that block Muslim societies from developing a sense of cohesiveness or familiarity between the sexes, and this brick wall is what we call honor culture.
When a woman's awrah is almost every part of her body, including her voice, and when the consequence of a non-mahram seeing her awrah is so severe, there is simply too much room for error. This makes Muslim women do their best to avoid being someone who is deserving of assault (which includes pulling themselves out of public spaces and making themselves small), and it empowers Muslim men to commit whatever crime they wish against a woman without much of need for reason.
Muslim men may "correct" girl's and women's mistakes (referred to in the list as "her") by some of the following common punishments:
Pulling her out of school or university
Isolating her
Forcing her to cover her body (or more of her body if she is already covered)
Going through her private possessions like her cell phone, diary, etc.
Forcing her to take a virginity test
Subjugating her to a hymen reconstruction surgery
Beating her
Forcing her into a marriage
Torturing her (physically or psychologically)
Killing her
And, unfortunately, so on.
Girls and women in Muslim communities live in constant fear of being punished for even the smallest crimes. Sometimes even for crimes that they did not know were crimes, because their oppressors may decide on a whim what action or behavior is deserving of punishment. The case of Israa Ghrayeb is a prime example of this. She was a 19-year-old woman whose family members beat her to death for posting a selfie video with her fiancé. The Muslim world was shaken to its core by this case: he was her fiancé, even by the logic of the most extreme fundamentalist Muslims, how on earth did she deserve this?
But her case is not the only shocking one... they all are.
Take 16-year-old Morsal Obeidi, who was stabbed to death by her brother for not living an Islamic lifestyle, a behavior he happened to have in common with her. Then you have Tina Isa, who was murdered by her parents after her father accused her of having premarital sex with her boyfriend.
Honor culture is so cruel that one of its favorite targets is victims. See 16-year-old Kifaya Hussein, who was raped and impregnated by her brother. After having an abortion, she was forced to marry a man 34 years her senior. When she returned home to her family after he divorced her, her (other) brother stabbed her to death.
These crimes took place in Palestine, Germany, U.S.A., and Jordan, respectively. There are many more unreported killings.
Muslim girls and women are locked in their bedrooms, beaten, and isolated from the rest of the world. Muslim girls and women living in the west are sent to their parent's home countries to undergo FGM or get trapped into arranged marriages. In some Muslim-majority countries, rapists may choose to marry their victims instead of doing jail time, leaving their victims no say in the matter. In Iran, women are sentenced to lashes and decades in prison for removing their hijab. Honor crimes against girls and women in the Muslim world happen every single day, whether enforced by the law or by individuals.
This is honor culture in Islam: it is the subjugation of girls and women on the basis that their sinful acts lead to the downfall of civilization. By the code of honor culture, girls and women are the reason for Man's deviation, they are the bane of his existence. Because of this, girls and women must adjust their behavior whenever they can, and they might be punished anyway. Islam crushes the souls of the girls and women who follow it because it tells them that whatever they do, it will never be enough because they are committing the crime of being female.