Arizona: Muslim ran down daughter for being "too Westernized," Islamic apologist hauls out usual denial and deception

by Robert Spencer

Denial and deception instead of any honest effort to come to grips with the root causes of honor killing. "Arizona Police Hunt for Dad Accused of Running Over Daughter: Police Say Faleh Hassan Almaleki Believed His Daughter Was 'Too Westernized,'" by Sarah Netter for ABC News, October 22 (thanks to James):  sharia

Police in Arizona are hunting for an Iraqi-American father who they say ran over his daughter with his car to punish her for becoming "too Westernized" and rebuffing the conservative ways he valued.

Memo to ABC News: "conservatives" don't generally run over their daughters with their cars for any reason at all.

Faleh Hassan Almaleki, 48, was last seen fleeing the parking lot of the Department of Economic Development in Peoria, Ariz., Tuesday after hitting his 20-year-old daughter and her boyfriend's mother with his Jeep Grand Cherokee. Noor Faleh Almaleki is in "life-threatening condition," Peoria Police spokesman Mike Tellef told ABCNews.com today. Her boyfriend's mother, 43-year-old Amal Edan Khalaf, is also still hospitalized, but with non-life threatening injuries. "It occured because her not following traditional family values. We've been told that by everybody," Tellef said. "He felt she was becoming too westernized and he didn't like that." [...]

Not "traditional family values." Western non-Muslims who adhere to "traditional family values" do not generally run down their wayward daughters with their cars.

Noor Almaleki had backed out of an arranged marriage about a year ago, police learned, and had been living with Khalaf and her son in a nearby town. Tellef said the young woman dressed in American clothing and was wearing typical Western attire when she was struck.

The family were all American citizens, though Tallef believes the parents were born in Iraq.

He said it was unclear if Faleh Almaleki intended to kill his daughter, but "it was definitely intentional that he ran them down." [...]

While Tellef had heard of so-called "honor killings" in other parts of the United States, this was the first such crime in Peoria.

Ibrahim Ramey, human and civil rights director for the Muslim American Society's Freedom Foundation, told ABCNews.com that whenever this type of crime involves a Muslim it can serve to elevate the fears of people who may already harbor misconceptions about Islam.

Typical denial and deception.

In the first place, what is the Muslim American Society?
"In recent years, the U.S. Brotherhood operated under the name Muslim American Society, according to documents and interviews. One of the nation's major Islamic groups, it was incorporated in Illinois in 1993 after a contentious debate among Brotherhood members." -- Chicago Tribune, 2004.

And what is the Muslim Brotherhood?

The Muslim Brotherhood "must understand that their work in America is a kind of grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and "sabotaging" its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and God's religion is made victorious over all other religions." -- "An Explanatory Memorandum on the General Strategic Goal for the Brotherhood in North America," by Mohamed Akram, May 19, 1991.

And secondly, instead of worrying about people getting "misconceptions of Islam," he should be working in the Islamic community to root out the assumptions that lead to honor killing. But you'll notice that he says nothing about that.

"It's reprehensible," he said of honor killings. "It's wrong." Ramey pointed out that a verse in the Koran specifically states that there is no compulsion in religion, meaning that people can not be compelled or coerced into being Muslim or adhering to a certain set of rules.
"People have to obey or adhere to Islam ... according to the dictates of their own conscience," he said.

Yet despite the fact that Koran 2:256 -- "There is no compulsion in religion" -- is in the Koran, honor killing is broadly tolerated in the Islamic world. No one, of course, dares to confront the root of the problem by pointing out such inconvenient truths as the fact that a manual of Islamic law certified by Al-Azhar as a reliable guide to Sunni orthodoxy says that "retaliation is obligatory against anyone who kills a human being purely intentionally and without right." However, "not subject to retaliation" is "a father or mother (or their fathers or mothers) for killing their offspring, or offspring's offspring." ('Umdat al-Salik o1.1-2).

In other words, someone who kills his child incurs no legal penalty under Islamic law. In accord with this, in 2003 the Jordanian Parliament voted down on Islamic grounds a provision designed to stiffen penalties for honor killings. Al-Jazeera reported that "Islamists and conservatives said the laws violated religious traditions and would destroy families and values."

Then this ABC story drags in Rifqa Bary:

Honor Killings Unfairly Cast Negative Light on Islam

The notion of an honor killing -- Muslim men murdering female relatives for dishonoring the family by violating Islamic tenets -- made the news over the summer when 17-year-old Rifqa Bary ran away from her parents in Ohio and turned up in the Florida home of Christian pastors Blake and Beverly Lorenz. Rafqa Barry [sic] claimed that her Muslim father had threatened to kill her for converting to Christianity.

Rifqa made tearful television appearance, crying on the Lorenzes shoulders, describing how she had to sneak around to attend church.

"They have to kill me because I'm a Christian. It's an honor [killing]. If they love me more than God, then they have to kill me," she told ABC's Orlando affiliate WFTV last month.

Blake Lorenz pointed to other honor killings, including the January 2008 murders of two Texas sisters who were believed to have been murdered by their Muslim father in a religion-fueld [sic] rage.

But Rifqa's father, Mohamed Bary, denied the accusation and said that while he preferred his daughter be a Muslim, she was free to practice whatever religion she chose.

"I don't believe my daughter would say this," Bary told "Good Morning America." "She's completely being coached -- I mean trained, influenced by these people. It's so sad."

An assertion without evidence, contradicted by the fact that she was a Christian for several years before she met those who allegedly coached her.

A Florida judge this month said he planned to send Rifqa back to Ohio after determining there was no evidence that her life was in danger.

See here for the facts.

Ramey said it's expected that incidents such as these will cause some backlash against the Muslim community, especially among Americans who have become fearful of Islam in the years since the war on terror and conflicts in places like Somalia.

But they can also open a door for discussion and questions so the community can understand that Islam is not a violent religion.

"It's certainly not part of the religion," he said," to run people down with vehicles."

That is merely a statement about the manner of killing, not about the killing itself.