exquisite wrote:
thanks for the links I.M.O.M
You are welcome.
Tim wrote:
Religions are also a cultural practice. Millions upon millions of people are religious because it's how they were raised. The % of people converting to a new religion or lack thereof is a low % compared to how many pass down their religious beliefs from generation to generation.
Listing a handful of cultural honor killings doesn't change the fact that there are many more being carried out by Muslims and defended by other Muslims. If it truly has nothing to do with religion, which I do believe it's not actually connected to the Qur'an, then more Muslims must distance themselves from such practices and stop making excuses for the murderers.
Quote:
There is nothing in the Koran, the book of basic Islamic teachings, that permits or sanctions honor killings. However, the view of women as property with no rights of their own is deeply rooted in Islamic culture, Tahira Shahid Khan, a professor specializing in women's issues at the Aga Khan University in Pakistan, wrote in Chained to Custom, a review of honor killings published in 1999.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news ... ing_2.htmlThe problem with getting other Muslims to distance themselves from it, is that a good deal of Muslims have that same cultural mindset because they are from that same culture, and when they immigrate to other cultures, that cultural baggage tends to come with them. The Muslims who do condemn it are those who were never a part of that culture to begin with (converts for example) or those that have broken free of that culture, and a lot of times, they happen to be from the 2nd generation of immigrant families from those cultures.
As the saying goes
"You can take a bear out of the woods, but you can't take the woods out of the bear". This isn't always the case as some abandon their old cultures and adopt to their new culture when they immigrate. However, it more often tends to be that they bring their cultural baggage with them.
Religion is a part of culture but the culture is not necessarily a part of the religion, and a lot of times when religions are adopted on a massive scale into a culture, compromises are made. The diffusion of a concept/religion/ideology over a large area, naturally guarantees it. Consequently, for many people, the two become so intertwined that they seem to be inseparable, even though the religion and the culture are a lot of times conceptually independent of (and contradictory to) each other.
The most appropriate solution to this issue, is education about the relationship between both, as once people understand what is actually a part of their religion and what is not, they are able to more easily contextualize, and therefore more easily distance themselves from, the excess cultural baggage that is not a part of the religion, and ultimately become more flexible/adaptable to the laws of their newly adopted cultures. The cultures themselves, with education, would also become more susceptible to progress, and less attached to outdated cultural practices that are no longer applicable.
