Featherstone, QC says:

Beheading is the Qur’anic-prescribed method/punishment for certain offenses, including apostasy and blasphemy.

Nowhere in the Qur’an is beheading a punishment for anything. Blasphemy is not punishable (by death or any other means) in the qur’an, and neither is apostacy (except in times of war, when people would join the religion to spy on the troops).

Just because the screwed up “shariah” courts of today punish everything with death and cutting off body parts, doesn’t mean it has anything to do with Islam. The same goes for domestic violence: just because uneducated people across the world think its OK to torture their wives to death, and just because corrupt religious leaders say its OK, doesn’t mean it has anything to do with the religion.

If you are going to bash this poor lady’s religion, at least make sure you are educated about it.

For example, the Koran sanctions women being second class citizens, to adopt a very conservative interpretation. Women must obey their husbands and can otherwise be disciplined, arguably beaten. From what I understand, the Koran is predominantly taken at face value. Women’s testimony is worth half that of a man, inheritance share is half, a woman’s life is worth half that of a man if she is killed.

While we cannot make assumptions about Muslims as individuals, it seems that many do feel the Koran is authoritative. Even if one allows for flexible meanings, is it so unreasonable to make comparisons? As second class as women are in other cultures, I think it’s fair to say in very general terms that there seem to be some differences in view of women and permissible treatment of women.

That said… I don’t think we can just categorically deny the possibility that this man’s actions might have been tied to his religious beliefs.

The truth is, wacky religious zealotry exists in ALL faiths, and that zealotry can manifest in horrifically misogynistic ways. To deny that there is a violently misogynistic aspect among some militant adherents of Islam is ignoring reality.

Heres the personal litmus test that I use. Lets say everything about this man was identical except that he was a Catholic, do you think he still would have killed his wife? I can buy the argument that his religion might have had a lot to do with the means he chose to kill his wife, but any more than that feels like looking for an excuse not to think about what this means for us. Sure his actions might have been tied to his religious beliefs but the person holding those beliefs, the person who committed murder, was using religion in a specific way for specific reasons that have little to do with the faith itself. We aren’t talking about someone of exceptionally weak will who has been indoctrinated by a charismatic leader over a period of months of years, we aren’t talking about the Manson Family or Synanon. We’re talking about a guy who practiced the majority religion of his culture and murdered his wife.

I dislike the line of argumentation, because it sounds awfully close to the line of argumentation used by conservatives who speak out against hate-crimes legislation.

Thats a poor analogy. If you beat the hell out of a black man to send the message that black men aren’t welcome in your community the act and it’s intent are clearly different from beating the hell out of a black man in a bar fight. I don’t think anyone is suggesting that the intent of this murder was to send a message to other women in the community, and I certainly haven’t seen much evidence of that.

The issue of faith is irrelevant to me in this case because I don’t believe it has anything to do with the underlying crime. If you have a man who is involved in shooting sports and he kills his wife during an argument, theres a good chance he’ll use a gun. That doesn’t mean the NRA had anything to do with the murder. If there hadn’t have been a gun handy (or if for whatever reason he liked the symbolism) he would have used a knife, or a lamp, or his fists, or any of a thousand other weapons. The fact that the man in this case used a sword to behead his wife might have a lot to do with his faith, but I don’t think it had much to do with why he killed her.

You can spin it however you want, but at the end of the day someone is dead because someone else thought they had the right. Everything else is, to my mind, irrelevant.

I dislike the line of argumentation, because it sounds awfully close to the line of argumentation used by conservatives who speak out against hate-crimes legislation.

They say, “Why should the motivation or method matter in deliberating a violent crime? Murder is murder, we don’t need a hate crimes law telling us that we need to treat violence and gays differently.”

Sure. Except I women are tortured and killed by their partners in “unusual” and horrific ways every day — we just don’t hear about them. On the heels of this case, a story broke a few days ago about a woman decapitated by her partner in Virginia. I have a feeling that if this woman’s killer hadn’t been Muslim, we wouldn’t even be hearing about it.

It’s true that had the beheading been done by a white person that we wouldn’t be hearing about it.

It’s also true that regardless of the perpetrator’s background, killing one’s wife is an abomination.

That said, beheading, while certainly an unusual way of murdering someone here, is far less an unusual practice in Muslim cultures.

I understand that we have become far too Islamophobic as a culture as a result of the moron who ran the country for the last 8 years, and I also understand that the vast majority of Muslims are no no more violent than the vast majority of people of any other religious background.

I also get disgusted by the loony wingnuts who are gleefully using this story as “proof” that all Muslims are uncivilized barbaric monsters.

That said… I don’t think we can just categorically deny the possibility that this man’s actions might have been tied to his religious beliefs.

The truth is, wacky religious zealotry exists in ALL faiths, and that zealotry can manifest in horrifically misogynistic ways. To deny that there is a violently misogynistic aspect among some militant adherents of Islam is ignoring reality.

And of course, I view the actions of Christian churches as being far more damaging to women in America when looking at society as a whole, but I don’t think that means we need to automatically dismiss the possibility that this man’s religion may have played a part in his brutal crime.

See, that is exactly what I’m skeptical of—how is that quantified? Especially considering the depths of silence and denial surrounding domestic violence. I don’t think the comparison with sexual harassment is apt, because it is only recently that sexual harassment has even been regarded as a problem, and it is something that was/is not only a part of workplace culture, but a public part of workplace culture. Even in communities where there is a certain de facto tacit acceptance if not approval of domestic violence (and folks, I’m thinking about my community here—it was a full house in my apartment building when my husband tried to kill me, and despite screaming at the top of my lungs for someone to call the police, no one did)—domestic violence happens mostly in private (or, where the perpetrator expects a certain amount of privacy or for witnesses to turn and look the other way).

Here’s the thing—from what I can read, Aasiyah Hassan did all the “right things” a woman is supposed to do to get out of domestic violence. Even down to the order of protection. And still she ended up dead. And instead of the majority reaction being “why does this keep happening? why don’t orders of protection actually help?”, there’s the inevitable reaction of this being related to religion, even though there is no evidence of that. Oh, and including charges of cultural relativism by feminists for pointing out that Aasiyah Hassan’s murder was just another murder by another abusive husband.

But I think there’s some nuance here that isn’t being discussed in the OP, perhaps in an understandable desire to be cautious around these issues.

Again, haven’t seen it yet but I appreciate caution on the subject, considering the myths and disinformation (some of which can be seen in that table Jill pointed out) that are out there. Shit, I’ve seen bogus responses on the subject by self-identifying feminists. Hell, my father has identified as a feminist for most of his adult life, including the years when he was beating his wife (and me). Domestic violence is something it seems everyone wants to believe is something “those other people” do. I haven’t met very many women who claimed rape was something they never worried about, but I’ve met lots of women who think DV isn’t something that is ever going to happen to them.

As for helping women actually stay alive, I’d like to see GPS ankle bracelets on the perpetrators, and 24-hour armed bodyguard protection for the victims. The GPS would help provide notice to the bodyguards on when to be locked, loaded and ready to shoot. You know, we provide fire departments to serve the interests of public safety, no? Why not have an anti-domestic violence department?