Ma’an (Arabic) has an article about honor killing statistics this year, saying that the number of such killings has gone down this year to only 9 as opposed to somewhat higher numbers in years past.
One very interesting paragraph (autotranslated and cleaned up):
The study revealed that some of the murders, which are committed against women for reasons of honour, in reality are caused for a completely different reason. They are often related to the question of inheritance, in the refusal of many large families granting women their share of inheritance, being careful that the money not go to a strange man in the event of her marriage. As a result, the proportion of “spinsters” are high in wealthy families.
So not only are women’s lives worth less than “family honor,” but they are also worth less than family money as well. And the women who are unfortunate enough to have been born into wealthy families have a hard time getting married, as their families pressure them to remain single to keep the money in the family.
Perhaps some enterprising Islamic lawyer can create a sharia-compliant pre-nuptial agreement?
(cross-posted at Elder of Ziyon)
