Muslim Girls and Family Honour

I feel blessed to be a woman and a Muslim, albeit it has not been an easy ride all these years especially in a patriarchal community that neither appreciates nor values the female except as bearers of sons. I have a daughter who I hope feels blessed to be a Muslim and a girl in a household that continues to harness her personality and sense of self within the parameters of the faith. But this article on ‘An American Honor Killing’ reminds me of how fragile that feeling is for so many Muslim girls around the world who continue to live in an environment that considers them little more than a burden to bear till they are married off.

It troubles me that girls are not given the opportunity to decide who they should marry. It troubles me that fathers are not able to develop a stronger bond with their daughters over the years to the extent that the daughters would willingly give up all which is damaging to their faith to ‘please’ their dads. It troubles me to think that dads still demanded their daughters to ‘submit’ to what their elders thought best for them, as opposed to finding out what their daughters thought for themselves. It troubles me to thing that girls are still killed off, literally, for the ‘trouble’ they appear to give their fathers and family, like the times of jahilliah.

I don’t know what the solution is for such turbulent times in the father-daughter relationship that continues to mar the fabric of our faith. But I feel if fathers continued to treat their daughters as nothing more than a burden to unleash to the next man that comes a long, the dad has failed on so many accounts. He has failed to realise that it is in his relationship that he best nurtures the person that the child grows up to be and it is in his relationship that he fulfils his responsibility or ‘haq’ to his child. Killing the child off because she gives you shame merely leaves you with blood on your hands to carry with you through life and death and the hereafter. I end this heavy piece with a light one. Here’s a song that my daughter and I love that best captures the essence of the father –daughter relationship:

fathers be good to your daughters
daughters will love like you do
girls become lovers
turn into mothers
so mothers be good to your daughters too.