The Cultural and Social Evil – Karo Kari

How many of you have ever been scolded by your fathers? Doesn’t matter for what reason, bad grades, not helping around the house whatever. Now how many of you got beaten by him too? Has it ever gone so far that you were threatened with eviction and complete disownment? Just the thought of being turned out is pretty disturbing! The whole moving out to your own apartment scenario doesn’t quite fit into our lives and yet some of us have had to face that too because of great sins. Now just one last question, exactly how many of us have ever been told that if we don’t get our act straight and  uphold the family’s honour, we will be chopped up and thrown in a backside field or perhaps shackled and gagged and dumped in a river?

Precise figures are hard to obtain, especially for the more remote rural and tribal areas; but Pakistan is thought to hold the world record in honour crimes. [Source]

Karo kari has been literally defined as “black male” and “black female,” metaphoric terms for adulterer and adulteress. Karo kari is not strictly speaking an honour killing and more often than not, scores are settled which mainly are related to the inheritance problem or feud-settling or just to get rid of wife to re-marry. [Source]

At the end of the day, it just doesn’t matter what the motive or method was. I swear to you, if you would just look at some of the pictures that you can find just by typing the word, it would make your skin crawl! It is beyond barbaric, beyond ruthless, beyond any semblance of civilized human reaction. I defy anyone to look at the pictures and the extent of the brutalities inflicted upon the wretched souls and not feel stung. Weeping is a plausible option too.

What familial honour and social image could there be for fathers and brothers to get so twisted in raging fury to even contemplate a crime so heinous? How does it even start? How do you and at which point, do you as a father begin weighing this particular alternative in the balance? Is it when you first start hearing rumours from your “advisory committee”-whose life does not seem to extend further than keeping tabs on your daughter-about how they saw her glance at God forbid!!!! a male specimen? Or is it maybe when you yourself see her talking to him? No wait, you don’t need to see the proof with your own eyes before you decide to kill your daughter. Could it be the time when you confront your daughter and ask her if she was chatting with some random guy-or being stalked by him-but then again, why bother doing that either? The important thing to focus on is whether to use arson, acid, axe, gun or the clichéd poison.

Photo searched from Google Images

Such illogical chain of events may not be the case in every scenario, but even if your daughter or son was indeed embroiled in the worst of scandals and completely burying your name in the dust-even in the worst-case scenarios, does anyone really have the right to pointblank slaughter you? How do you justify living up to your communal standing at the price of killing you child without having guaranteed details of the actual event?

Rasul-ul-Allah (S.A.W) said

The blood of a Muslim may not be legally spilt other than in one of three [instances]: the married person who commits adultery; a life for a life; and one who forsakes his religion and abandons the community.

Karo kari does not fall into one of these categories, so regardless of whether we belong to the system or not, we have a God-given duty to pass judgment on it as being evil. Every Muslim should hate this murderous cultural practice and strive to see it eliminated because it runs contrary to Islam. [Source]

Official data published by the Pakistani Senate showed that more than 4,000 people died in the 6 years 1998-2004, as result of karo kari. Of the victims almost 2,800 were women and just over 1,300 were men. Thus twice as many women as men lose their lives to this most barbaric social custom. Moreover, reports show that there was an unprecedented rise during 2008.

Karo kari is the maddest form of human madness. The zaniest factor of this barbaric custom is that suspicion and accusations alone are many times enough to defile a family’s honor and therefore enough to warrant the killing of the woman. This violation of the code of “decent behaviour” can be anything such as a woman refusing to enter into an arrange marriage (in many cases they held properties that the male members of their families did not wish to lose to someone outside the family), if she seeks a divorce (even from an abusive husband), if she has relations with a man outside of marriage (sexual or non-sexual), flirting and even if she is the victim of rape. It’s like making sure that the victim doesn’t get a moment’s solace and her suffering is drawn out for life!

Honour is a precious commodity and its dearness can only be compensated by blood. So many lives have been, still are, and continue to be lost if this practice isn’t checked. The shocking part is that the murders of these women in the name of honor are thought to be a private matter in many parts of Pakistan and rarely are the murderers ever brought to justice or punished. More appallingly, despite taking serious steps, this monstrosity seems to be spreading like an airborne disease and has pervaded in overseas Muslim communities of Europe and North America. One sordid example is, on New Year’s Day, 2008, Yaser Said was accused of killing his daughters Amina (18) and Sarah (17) after finding out they had boyfriends (named Eddie and Eric, respectively).

Nor take life which God has made sacred, except for a just cause (al-Isra’, 17:33)

Under any law known to man, karo kari will never ever be a “just” cause. The perpetrators dealt with the society. It will soon be Allah’s turn to deal with them. Justice shall then prevail.

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