Islam Vis-à-vis Honour Killing and a Comparative Review of Women s Need

Abstract

The economic and sociological rights of women have remained under
question since far past and thereof, grudge of Islamic critics showed no mercy
in declaring Islamic world to sabotaging women’s rights to access economic,
educational, inheritance and sociological needs. Instead, there exists a
universal impact without any regard to a particular religion or a specific
culture in this regard. It is witnessed in the course of Islamic conferences and
authenticated Islamic fatwas that honour killing is entirely dissociated from
Islam in any form of its existence. The Holy Prophet Muhammadصلى الله عليه وسلم has
ackhnowledged utter and profound judgement that women be considered our
trustworthy associates on exact equality basis, as part of an Islamic society.
Islam has favoured freedom of women to marry at their own will and protects
their marriages under a legal contract and ‘mehr’ in shape of money or kind is
established as consideration to fulfill conditions of a legal contract, while
other religions lack in such legal provisions. It is a fundamental attribute of
Islam that women should have equal access to needs as men do and so
maintain their dignity level as respectful human being. Islam supports them to
maintain moral values and attain all possible opportunities to procure
personal nourishment. They are assigned a duty to maintain a healthy life by
having nutritious food, ensure enough sleep duration, keep away from any
kind of addiction, and manage to remain neat and clean. In view of women’s
need, Maslow’s theory, formulated in west, sought as the best approach to
characterize an ideal life, could not even compare to injunctions of Islam.
Unlike rulings ordained in Islam, the Maslow’s theory could not avoid
discriminatory status of women, and failed in providing exclusive status of
women to encompass point of self actualization. However, Shariat laws bestow
such status to women without any dependence on men, and promote rights of
inheritance for women, right to vote and right to sit in parliament, right to
choose partner for marriage, and right to separate from her partner if her
rights are not fulfilled. Therefore, extensive research analysis shows that
honour killing is an independent phenomenon and is entirely disconnected
from Islam.