Chocoholic wrote:Key sentence 'confine them to houses until death do claim them' - that does NOT mean 'kill' them!
There are other passages that relate the actions of a prophet who killed a child because he would dishonor his parents ('honor killing').
That verse alone, that it is in the Koran and a prophet of God carried out the honor killing, is religious justification enough for them to be performed by literalists.
I'm interested in knowing whether the verse Gertrude brought up is still believed to be followed by Muslims today. Another member mentioned the Saudis have followed this verse when they have in the past home confined a number of princesses and other female members of the royal family.
What is 'lewdness' and whose home are these women to be locked up forever in?
There's another interesting fact about honor killings, in Islamic Law, from what I heard, the family of a murder victim will often decide the punishment for the convicted murderer. In the case of an honor killing, the victim's family is often in agreement with the actions of the killer, who is almost always a member of the family.
So, honor killers get off lightly because the family agreed with the killing and the killer is a member of the family.
It would be interesting to know where this law derives from. Would Muslims ever disagree with the rule if it was shown to originate from Koran?