Shafias convicted, not Islam

For the past three months, every detail of the Shafia trial has been reported.

On Sunday, Mohammad Shafia, Tooba Mohammad Yahya and Hamed Mohammad Shafia were each convicted of four counts of first degree murder.

The media storm didn’t end with the verdict and reporters searched for a new angle.

Members of the media have been quick to seek the opinion of Muslims, asking what the crime and conviction means for their demographic and what role culture played. With reporters opting for this religious and cultural angle, new questions are raised.

Mohammad Shafia is by no means an average Muslim man and the Muslim community is in no way obligated to respond to his actions, or those of his wife and son. It’s clear that the convicted, who murdered four women out of a twisted sense of honour, are exceptions.

These heinous crimes can’t be fully explained by singling out Muslims and asking about their response to the trial.

To expect anyone to have insight into these crimes, for whatever reason, is unfair.

Newly-appointed Kingston imam Sikander Hashmi addressed his congregation when the murder trial began in October, reported the Globe and Mail. He told the congregation that honour crimes are forbidden by Islam and Muslims need to be part of the solution.

Within a culture of various cultures and ideologies, there needs to be a shared core set of values binding together the groups involved. Murder is an unequivocally heinous crime, and no total justification of it exists. For the aggregate Canadian group to function together, it’s a value that every person of every culture needs to hold.

Honour killings aren’t bound to a particular culture or religion; they’re part of a value system. If that value system has anything to do with culture or religion, it needs to be investigated and reconciled, with the understanding that it doesn’t apply to a general group.

We need to critically examine value systems. Those that are incompatible with the laws and customs of Canada need to be regarded with special care. Cultural sensitivity is important, but it’s a value that shouldn’t be taken to an illogical extreme.

The prosecution said that Shafia couldn’t understand or come to terms with the world that his daughters were growing up in. It was Shafia, and not Islam that was convicted of murder. The Shafias, and not Islam as a whole, have to answer for their crimes.

Tags

Shafia, Trial

All final editorial decisions are made by the Editor(s)-in-Chief and/or the Managing Editor. Authors should not be contacted, targeted, or harassed under any circumstances. If you have any grievances with this article, please direct your comments to journal_editors@ams.queensu.ca.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Skip to content