By framing the deaths of Zainab, Sahar and Geeti Shafi and Rona Amir Mohammad so quickly as honor killings - an unproven allegation that flags the tragedy with religious and foreign overtones many find both salacious and comforting - Canada's media and the Kingston Police are exploiting what may end up having been a tragic accident, and missing an opportunity to confront and condemn the greater issue of domestic violence: a scourge which affects us all.

Domestic violence occurs with horrid frequency in every race, culture, creed and country around the world. The 2001 report on Family violence by the Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics reported that when a child or youth is killed, family members are most often to blame. Stats Canada added in 2005 that while 7% of women and 6% of men end up being victimized by their partner, women are twice as likely to be injured or killed.

Although it has lately, frequently and popularly become associated with the Muslim religion, honor killing crosses every racial, religious and cultural line as well. The world-wide incidence estimated by the United Nations as five thousand deaths per year is likely a gross-underestimation: World-wide, when a woman dies, friends and family are always the most likely perpetrator, and a recent New York study found that 50% of female deaths there were at the hands an intimate, done in anger. So-called "crimes of passion and honor" have always shared similar precipitating circumstances, cultural antecedents, and variable levels of official and religious scrutiny and condemnation.

It is worth noting that the Shafi family was apparently not conservatively religious in their Islamic practice. However, even if they had been, their Muslim faith should have prevented family violence. In Arabia at the dawn of Islam, family violence was common: Umar, the second Caliph beat his sister for converting to Islam before him. That was the state Islam was revealed into, with it's world changing declaration that as far as God was concerned men and women were equals, and that in His society, each would have equivalent rights regarding each other. Likewise, in Islam parents and children are commanded to honor each other. Umar himself recounted the story of the day he learned that as a Muslim, if he yelled at his wife she had the right to yell back at him. By the time he was found fit to rule he had progressed so far that when an old woman called him out in Islamic conclave for making a bad decision, he told the entire assembly that she was right, and he was wrong.

Every culture struggles with gender relations and parenting, and religion has often been abused to justify abusing the rights of others. However, none of us have the right to hold our heads high until we acknowledge that our honor NEVER gives us the right to dishonor or abuse another. I actually feel sorry for any Muslim man who goes to Judgment Day thinking that he's going to get away with abusing his family. According to Muhammad, such a man will only be resurrected from the waist up, and then stand before God to face the penalty for his crimes. Populist misogynistic scholars may have striven for a thousand years to obscure the Quran's message, but Muslims also have the Acts of our Prophet, called the "Sunnah" to guide us. We have always known what Muhammad's example calls us to, he never abused any wife or family member, despite a few vexing him so much God had to intervene, even if we've sometimes hoped we could get away with less, or more.

No religion on earth condones taking another's life in anger, or exploiting another's suffering or death for our own purposes. The Shafi family has been torn apart, no matter why Zainab, Sahar, Geeti or Rona died. Whether it was a tragic accident, a murder, a murder-suicide or an honor killing, we should honor their memory by striving to find out why, and by making sure it doesn't happen again to someone else.

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Dr. David Liepert is a director of the Faith of Life Network and spokesperson for the Muslim Council of Calgary. He is the author of "Me and You Beyond Belief, Together: A Path to Peace All Our Faiths Can Share," and a columnist for the Faith of Life magazine. Faith of Life Network is a Canada-wide Muslim organisation dedicated to bridging cultures and faiths with education and shared service to humanity. For more information, please visit www.faithoflife.net.

Press inquiries
Dr. David Liepert , Calgary, (403) 650-4025