Muzzammil Hassan recently hacked off the head of his wife Aasiya. Everyone's wondering, how might one determine whether the brutal murder was one of honor or not? Was it a crime of passionate honor or merely a crime of passion? What difference does it make? Ask the old men, it is they who will tell you what's what. Some will nod in agreement, sighing resignedly they will note that it could be no other way: "She was leaving him with the children, he had no choice." Others will say, "no sir, Mr. Hassan erred in cutting his wife's head off. She should have been brought to heel long ago. His greatest mistake was in being so lenient towards his wife in the first place."
By what methods can we gauge whether the violence committed met some ineffable measure of one's sense of dignity and propriety? Is it the swiftness of the strokes of the knife which hack at the body of the wife, sister or daughter? The years of abuse and violence, can they too, in retrospect, be chalked up to maintaining one's honor? A wife's insolent gesture met with an honorable fist to the eye? A daughter's egregious flirtation met with a familial-prophylactic bullet to the head? Is the prayer mat still warm, denoting that a body recently laid there, prostrate and silent to the whispered imperative of God? Kill her, He commandeth.
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