# Islam and Empathy **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [May 28, 2014, 7:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/islam-and-empathy/689489 "2014-05-28T19:07:19Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![bldysabba](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ecccb3/32.png) [@bldysabba](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bldysabba)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2014, 1:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/islam-and-empathy/689489/101 "2014-05-31T01:49:53Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > That’s not a “direct comparison” at all. Pakistan was always intended to be a Muslim country. India was always going to be a secular state. Beyond that, you totally made up the part about the minorities being “forcibly converted or killed.” I don’t know where you got those figures but they are parroted on numerous anti-muslim websites despite having no apparent basis in fact. Hindus make up approximately 5.5% of the Pakistani population today. Cite for the Hindu proportion of Pakistan’s population please? The best figure I can find is 1.6% And a thread I started on the issue of minority rights in Post partition Pakistan threw up this analysis - [http://www.bharat-rakshak.com/MONITOR/ISSUE6-2/sridhar.html](http://www.bharat-rakshak.com/MONITOR/ISSUE6-2/sridhar.html) Go through it. It’s well written and argued, and gives cites for all its facts. I’ll quote its conclusions > [@](#): > > There was a drastic drop in minority population as a proportion of the total population in Pakistan after partition. In West Pakistan, the proportion of minorities came down from almost 21% of the population to about 3% between 1941 and 1951. Even in East Pakistan, this number came down from about 29.5% to about 23%. The drop in minority populations was high in all four constituent provinces of West Pakistan, though it was highest in Punjab and NWFP and lowest in Sind. > > Almost 15 million people belonging to the minority communities were either killed or converted to Islam or forced to migrate to India during partition. This number is substantially higher than usual estimates. > > Of these 15 million, about 7.28 million migrated to India and the rest are unaccounted for. Presumably, they were either killed or converted into Muslims. > As much as 89% of the minority population in West Pakistan was affected by ethnic cleansing, i.e. killed, converted into Islam or forced to migrate to India. > > Even in East Pakistan, 41% of the minority population was ethnically cleansed. > In India, by comparison, the total proportion of Muslims who migrated to Pakistan or were killed in violence was less than 18% of the total Muslim population. It is a high proportion but certainly no comparison with those for Pakistan. The total number of migrants to Pakistan was 7.23 million by the year 1951 and the number of people unaccounted for is relatively small at 0.43 million. ---
**Author:** ![bldysabba](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ecccb3/32.png) [@bldysabba](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bldysabba)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2014, 2:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/islam-and-empathy/689489/102 "2014-05-31T02:03:30Z")
> [@madmonk28](#): > > Do you understand that a lot of Pakistan’s support for terrorism grew out of the US’ first intervention in Afghanistan during the Soviet invasion? The Pakistani military and intelligence establishment would certainly like you to believe that. Do you know that Pakistan had been using Islamist terrorists long before(and long after, of course) the Soviet Invasion? They used Islamist militias both to start wars in Kashmir(which later became India) in 1947 and 1965(and again, throughout the 80s and 90s) and were using similar tactics against Afghanistan in the 1950s. I don’t claim that this necessarily reflects on Islam in any way. Just on the various Pakistani regimes and their ability to employ it as a tool. ---
**Author:** ![mandala](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mandala/32/95_2.png) [@mandala](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mandala)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2014, 7:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/islam-and-empathy/689489/103 "2014-05-31T07:27:25Z")
> [@Annie-Xmas](#): > > Let’s face facts: Fanatical extremists of any religion have caused more damage to the world than any other group. But that applies to all religions, not just Islam. OK, please tell us how much the world has suffered from Buddhist terror, Hindu terror, Jain terror, Parsi terror, and Zoroastrian terror. Hopefully you can actually find a few cites. Most religions - particularly the Eastern / non-Abrahamic ones - do NOT contain the doctrinal framework that preaches violence as a tool to achieve political/religious/demographic domination. This feature is unique to the Abrahamic religions, particularly Christianity and Islam. To claim Islam is as benign as any other is taking political correctness to an absurd extreme. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2014, 7:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/islam-and-empathy/689489/104 "2014-05-31T07:35:59Z")
> [@mandala](#): > > OK, please tell us how much the world has suffered from Buddhist terror, Hindu terror, Jain terror, Parsi terror, and Zoroastrian terror. Hopefully you can actually find a few cites. [Example](http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/03/world/asia/myanmar-violence-buddhists-muslims.html?_r=0) of Buddhist terror: > [@](#): > > But according to accounts from the police officer, Lt. Col Kyaw Tint, and a villager who witnessed some of the fighting, the violence followed a disturbingly familiar pattern: sword-wielding Buddhist mobs rampaging through Muslim neighborhoods. > > “All the people who were found dead were from the Muslim community,” Colonel Kyaw Tint said. > > After flaring up last year in western Myanmar, anti-Muslim violence has spread to areas around the country this year, leaving dozens of people dead, almost all of them Muslims and some of them children. Buddhist nationalist groups have called for a boycott of Muslim shops, and radical Buddhist monks have stoked anti-Muslim feelings in sermons across the country. ---
**Author:** ![nani](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/58956e/32.png) [@nani](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nani)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2014, 7:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/islam-and-empathy/689489/105 "2014-05-31T07:43:28Z")
Quickly paging through the thread, a few thoughts: Islam – and other religions – should not be treated as monoliths. They are not interchangeable, and they are varied and rich. Their relationship to conduct in this world, and specifically violence, is invariably complex and unique according to time and place. Comparing them by body count is rarely helpful. You don’t have to study Islam (or other religions) deeply to have an opinion about it but you should be responsible for what you know as it relates to what you want to accomplish. “Religious Extremist” is a pretty useless term. The subset of views that are reasonably justifiable in Islam is wider in many cases than the subset of views that are considered acceptable in Western liberal society. As a result, you’re going to have a lot of Muslims (including in the West) who take views that many Westerners would find abhorrent. This explains a lot of polling data. The distinction between “culture” and “religion” is very dubious. There might not be an Islamic equivalent of the Pope, but Sunni Islam is not like Protestantism. There is the example of Muhammad that is highly detailed in the ahadith and other sources. There is the discursive scholarly tradition. There are different established legal schools (4, in Sunni Islam) and many Sufi brotherhoods. And on and on. Islamic law does not explicitly allow or encourage honor killing. However, specific loopholes (from the Qur’an and Islamic jurisprudence) are there for societies and leaders who wish to exploit them. The constant argument about whether some bad thing is religious or cultural is always so weird. In no place, Muslim or non-Muslim or mixed, does honor killing inhabit some purely non-religious cultural space. Addressing honor killing in places like Pakistan, specifically, demands engagement with Islamic traditions. ---
**Author:** ![BrightNShiny](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7bcc69/32.png) [@BrightNShiny](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrightNShiny)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2014, 7:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/islam-and-empathy/689489/106 "2014-05-31T07:57:26Z")
After the Iraq invasion, I have nothing but eyerolls for people who claim Islam somehow lacks empathy or is somehow unique. Did you cheer on the Iraq invasion like it was a football game? Did you vote for war criminal George W. Bush in 2004? Did you support letting the war criminals who architected the Iraq invasion get off scott free? If your answer to any of these questions is “yes,” then there is no difference between you and any Muslim terrorist. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2014, 8:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/islam-and-empathy/689489/107 "2014-05-31T08:25:45Z")
> [@BrightNShiny](#): > > After the Iraq invasion, I have nothing but eyerolls for people who claim Islam somehow lacks empathy or is somehow unique. > > Did you cheer on the Iraq invasion like it was a football game? Did you vote for war criminal George W. Bush in 2004? Did you support letting the war criminals who architected the Iraq invasion get off scott free? If your answer to any of these questions is “yes,” then there is no difference between you and any Muslim terrorist. Well, except that terrorists have killed a lot fewer people. ---
**Author:** ![Hector\_St\_Clare](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b5ac83/32.png) [@Hector\_St\_Clare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hector_St_Clare)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2014, 11:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/islam-and-empathy/689489/108 "2014-05-31T11:59:56Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > That’s not a “direct comparison” at all. Pakistan was always intended to be a Muslim country. India was always going to be a secular state. Beyond that, you totally made up the part about the minorities being “forcibly converted or killed.” I don’t know where you got those figures but they are parroted on numerous anti-muslim websites despite having no apparent basis in fact. Hindus make up approximately 5.5% of the Pakistani population today. Not really. Jinnah and his immediate successors intended Pakistan to be _culturally_ Muslim, but also a secular and tolerant state. It was by no means obvious in 1947 that Pakistan was going to take the path it did. ---
**Author:** ![TonySinclair](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/49beb7/32.png) [@TonySinclair](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TonySinclair)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2014, 12:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/islam-and-empathy/689489/109 "2014-05-31T12:21:58Z")
> [@mandala](#): > > Most religions - particularly the Eastern / non-Abrahamic ones - do NOT contain the doctrinal framework that preaches violence as a tool to achieve political/religious/demographic domination. This feature is unique to the Abrahamic religions, particularly Christianity and Islam. Er, and Judaism. Unless you consider total extermination a non-violent policy. And I’m not sure what you mean about Christianity, unless you’re talking about things like the Crusades, which IMO are not part of Christian doctrine. ---
**Author:** ![mandala](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mandala/32/95_2.png) [@mandala](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mandala)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2014, 12:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/islam-and-empathy/689489/110 "2014-05-31T12:54:56Z")
> [@Hector\_St\_Clare](#): > > Not really. Jinnah and his immediate successors intended Pakistan to be _culturally_ Muslim, but also a secular and tolerant state. It was by no means obvious in 1947 that Pakistan was going to take the path it did. Jinnah wanted a state for Muslims of the Indian subcontinent, with Muslims controlling the levers of power and Muslim law driving the nation. The long struggle for Pakistan saw the most communally divisive campaign imaginable. It is immaterial what he _intended_ Pakistan to be. Pakistan was _destined_ to be a theocratic Muslim state from the very beginning. > [@TonySinclair](#): > > Er, and Judaism. Unless you consider total extermination a non-violent policy. And I’m not sure what you mean about Christianity, unless you’re talking about things like the Crusades, which IMO are not part of Christian doctrine. The Dark Ages, during which the Church slaughtered countless people. If the Church says these people are heretics and heretics deserve to be killed, I take it that Christianity sanctions such violence, regardless of whether there is a written line in the Book that can be quoted in support. ---
**Author:** ![TonySinclair](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/49beb7/32.png) [@TonySinclair](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TonySinclair)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2014, 1:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/islam-and-empathy/689489/111 "2014-05-31T13:09:53Z")
> [@mandala](#): > > The Dark Ages, during which the Church slaughtered countless people. If the Church says these people are heretics and heretics deserve to be killed, I take it that Christianity sanctions such violence, regardless of whether there is a written line in the Book that can be quoted in support. IMO you are overgeneralizing. Many of the “heretics” were Christians themselves. And some of the same Popes who presided over the violence were also known for whoring and venality, so they could clearly go against scriptural doctrine. At any rate, even if you think the New Testament allows all of the above, there’s nothing in to rival the explicit genocidal directives in the Pentateuch, so I find it strange that you gave Judaism a pass. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2014, 1:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/islam-and-empathy/689489/112 "2014-05-31T13:20:04Z")
> [@TonySinclair](#): > > IMO you are overgeneralizing. Many of the “heretics” were Christians themselves. Well, yes, that’s what a heretic is. Indeed, Crusades were launched against pockets of heretical Christians. A Christian in, say, 1300 would not have considered a Hindu to be a “heretic,” he would likely have called them a pagan. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2014, 2:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/islam-and-empathy/689489/113 "2014-05-31T14:56:03Z")
> [@nani](#): > > The distinction between “culture” and “religion” is very dubious. Not so. Religion and cultures are clearly elements that shape each other, but there are places where the same religion is held in vastly different cultures. Islam and the current discussion are clear examples. The tribal cultural traditions that have led to honor killings are found in Christian and Hindu societies as among Muslims along the same geographic boundaries ranging from the Maghreb and the shores of the Mediterranean, across the Middle East, and into the northern portion of the Indian subcontinent, but have not followed Christianity into Northern Europe, Hinduism in Southern India, or Islam into Malaysia and Indonesia. Female genital mutilation is found among Muslim, Christian, and Animist societies in the Sahara, the Sahel and eastward across to the Horn of Africa, but has never become a Muslim, Christian, or Animist tradition anywhere else in the world. Cultures and religions are certainly interlinked, but when one finds a cultural tradition that crosses religious boundaries while not being carried by those same religions to remote geographic locations, there is nothing dubious about the distinction. What is more dubious is ascribing to any religion or any culture cultural or religious traits that actually derive from the other factor. ---
**Author:** ![Ibn\_Warraq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/e19b73/32.png) [@Ibn\_Warraq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ibn_Warraq)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2014, 8:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/islam-and-empathy/689489/114 "2014-05-31T20:51:20Z")
> [@tomndebb](#): > > Not so. Religion and cultures are clearly elements that shape each other, but there are places where the same religion is held in vastly different cultures. > Islam and the current discussion are clear examples. The tribal cultural traditions that have led to honor killings are found in Christian and Hindu societies as among Muslims along the same geographic boundaries ranging from the Maghreb and the shores of the Mediterranean, across the Middle East, and into the northern portion of the Indian subcontinent, but have not followed Christianity into Northern Europe, Hinduism in Southern India, or Islam into Malaysia and Indonesia. Female genital mutilation is found among Muslim, Christian, and Animist societies in the Sahara, the Sahel and eastward across to the Horn of Africa, but has never become a Muslim, Christian, or Animist tradition anywhere else in the world. > > Cultures and religions are certainly interlinked, but when one finds a cultural tradition that crosses religious boundaries while not being carried by those same religions to remote geographic locations, there is nothing dubious about the distinction. What is more dubious is ascribing to any religion or any culture cultural or religious traits that actually derive from the other factor. I think Nani more means that once you start looking at non-Western cultures it can become really difficult to do things like somehow separate “Navajo religion” from “Navajo culture”. Let’s remember that modern concepts like “ethnicity” or “nationality” are a modern Western invention. ---
**Author:** ![Dissonance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/85f322/32.png) [@Dissonance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dissonance)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2014, 8:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/islam-and-empathy/689489/115 "2014-05-31T20:52:58Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > That sounds like a very low number. > > What percentage of the citizens of Allied countries supported the area bombing of German and Japanese cities? I bet it was more than 14%. Not that exact question being asked, but close enough to be useful, from [War Without Mercy](http://www.amazon.com/War-Without-Mercy-Power-Pacific/dp/0394751728#reader_0394751728): > [@](#): > > In an often-quoted poll conducted in December 1944 asking “What do you think we should do with Japan as a country after the war?,” 13 percent of the respondents wanted to “kill all Japanese” and 33 percent supported destroying Japan as a political entity. > … > A poll conducted by _Fortune_ in December 1945 found that 22.7 percent of respondents wished the United States had had the opportunity to use “many more of them [atomic bombs] before Japan had a chance to surrrender.” ---
**Author:** ![Ibn\_Warraq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/e19b73/32.png) [@Ibn\_Warraq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ibn_Warraq)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2014, 8:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/islam-and-empathy/689489/116 "2014-05-31T20:56:21Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > [Example](http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/03/world/asia/myanmar-violence-buddhists-muslims.html?_r=0) of Buddhist terror: I’d also recommend Brian Victoria’s Zen at War. [http://www.amazon.com/Stories-Routledge-Critical-Studies-Buddhism/dp/0700715819/ref=sr\_1\_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1401569546&sr=8-2&keywords=Zen+at+War](http://www.amazon.com/Stories-Routledge-Critical-Studies-Buddhism/dp/0700715819/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1401569546&sr=8-2&keywords=Zen+at+War) For all it’s pluses Zen Buddhism can very easily be used to justify all sorts of atrocities as it was during WWII and the same is true of Shintoism which arguably produced the worlds first suicide bombers.\* \*. For those who automatically classify suicide bombers as evil. I myself don’t though I think the phrase could describe most. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2014, 9:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/islam-and-empathy/689489/117 "2014-05-31T21:38:25Z")
> [@Ibn\_Warraq](#): > > I think Nani more means that once you start looking at non-Western cultures it can become really difficult to do things like somehow separate “Navajo religion” from “Navajo culture”. > > Let’s remember that modern concepts like “ethnicity” or “nationality” are a modern Western invention. I am not sure that that seriously challenges my point. Honor killings and FGM are both found in multiple religions in the same cultural regions of the world. Certainly, religion and culture are intertwined and even more intertwined where secularism has not developed, but it is still possible to recognize a distinction between the two. ---
**Author:** ![nani](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/58956e/32.png) [@nani](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nani)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2014, 4:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/islam-and-empathy/689489/118 "2014-06-01T04:45:57Z")
**Tomndebb** - The problem with drawing a line between religion and culture is not only that the line doesn’t clearly exist in many places; even where it does, it exists as kind of an artificial construct that is more ideological than descriptive. I’m not convinced that it helps more than hurts. For example, it is true that describing honor killing as an Islamic problem is not useful because of the reasons mentioned in this thread – it is not universally known in the Islamic world (in fact it is denounced by many Muslims); in places where it is a major problem, it is not restricted to Muslims; etc. And it is true that killing for honor’s sake is not sanctioned in Islamic law. However, classical Islamic jurisprudence has some big loopholes that can in practice allow intra-family killings to go unpunished or treated as something less than murder. This is seen very clearly in Pakistan’s law mentioned earlier. If we ignore (or misjudge) Islam’s role in Pakistan’s accommodation of honor killing, then we can’t really begin to understand what is happening, and we can’t engage effectively. Similarly, FGM predates Islam and is quite regional. However, Muslims who do practice it can turn to Islamic sources (including hadiths) to justify themselves. Even more unfortunately, even when they choose to use that language (and they often do), the avenue for engagement that is opened as a result is all too often ignored, except by people who don’t know what they are talking about. Practices don’t have to be universal among all groups of people who identify with a particular tradition to be connected to that tradition, either. The trick is to identify what those connections are. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2014, 1:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/islam-and-empathy/689489/119 "2014-06-01T13:49:01Z")
> [@nani](#): > > **Tomndebb** - The problem with drawing a line between religion and culture is not only that the line doesn’t clearly exist in many places; even where it does, it exists as kind of an artificial construct that is more ideological than descriptive. I’m not convinced that it helps more than hurts. > > For example, it is true that describing honor killing as an Islamic problem is not useful because of the reasons mentioned in this thread – it is not universally known in the Islamic world (in fact it is denounced by many Muslims); in places where it is a major problem, it is not restricted to Muslims; etc. And it is true that killing for honor’s sake is not sanctioned in Islamic law. However, classical Islamic jurisprudence has some big loopholes that can in practice allow intra-family killings to go unpunished or treated as something less than murder. This is seen very clearly in Pakistan’s law mentioned earlier. If we ignore (or misjudge) Islam’s role in Pakistan’s accommodation of honor killing, then we can’t really begin to understand what is happening, and we can’t engage effectively. > > Similarly, FGM predates Islam and is quite regional. However, Muslims who do practice it can turn to Islamic sources (including hadiths) to justify themselves. Even more unfortunately, even when they choose to use that language (and they often do), the avenue for engagement that is opened as a result is all too often ignored, except by people who don’t know what they are talking about. > > Practices don’t have to be universal among all groups of people who identify with a particular tradition to be connected to that tradition, either. The trick is to identify what those connections are. Sorry. This looks like nothing so much as an _apologia_ for Islam bashing. You want to insist that it is “Islamic jurisprudence” that permits the toleration of these phenomena as though they were not similarly occurring among other religions of the same cultures. In any culture, the interpretation of law will be swayed by public opinion. That is what gave the U.S. _Plessy v Ferguson_: a culture that wished to keep one segment of people segregated found a way to engage in the legal fiction that “separate but equal” was equitable and supportable under the Constitution. That is how we find references to God on U.S. coins and currency: a sufficient number of people are comfortable with what they perceive to be a minor issue that courts will not rule against it. Singling out “Islamic jurisprudence” while ignoring the behavior of and tolerance by Christians, Hindus, Animists, and others engaged in the same practices is simply a form of reversed special pleading. It seems little more than an excuse to find fault with Islam while ignoring the identical fault in everyone else with identical behavior. ---
**Author:** ![Ibn\_Warraq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/e19b73/32.png) [@Ibn\_Warraq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ibn_Warraq)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2014, 3:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/islam-and-empathy/689489/120 "2014-06-01T15:59:58Z")
> [@nani](#): > > **Tomndebb** - The problem with drawing a line between religion and culture is not only that the line doesn’t clearly exist in many places; even where it does, it exists as kind of an artificial construct that is more ideological than descriptive. I’m not convinced that it helps more than hurts. > > For example, it is true that describing honor killing as an Islamic problem is not useful because of the reasons mentioned in this thread – it is not universally known in the Islamic world (in fact it is denounced by many Muslims); in places where it is a major problem, it is not restricted to Muslims; etc. And it is true that killing for honor’s sake is not sanctioned in Islamic law. However, classical Islamic jurisprudence has some big loopholes that can in practice allow intra-family killings to go unpunished or treated as something less than murder. This is seen very clearly in Pakistan’s law mentioned earlier. If we ignore (or misjudge) Islam’s role in Pakistan’s accommodation of honor killing, then we can’t really begin to understand what is happening, and we can’t engage effectively. > > Similarly, FGM predates Islam and is quite regional. However, Muslims who do practice it can turn to Islamic sources (including hadiths) to justify themselves. Even more unfortunately, even when they choose to use that language (and they often do), the avenue for engagement that is opened as a result is all too often ignored, except by people who don’t know what they are talking about. > > Practices don’t have to be universal among all groups of people who identify with a particular tradition to be connected to that tradition, either. The trick is to identify what those connections are. Nani, Coptic Christians in Egypt, who practice FGM can also refer to Christian sources as well. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/islam-and-empathy/689489.md?page=5) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/islam-and-empathy/689489.md?page=7)