# You want a divorce? I'll behead you. **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [February 17, 2009, 1:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-want-a-divorce-ill-behead-you/486261 "2009-02-17T13:47:43Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Grossbottom](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/ba8739/32.png) [@Grossbottom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grossbottom)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2009, 11:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-want-a-divorce-ill-behead-you/486261/81 "2009-02-20T23:03:46Z")
I know, right? All those Christian beheadings that go unreported, the media just focuses on the Muslims that do it to make them look bad. That’s racist, man. Don’t be so intolerant. ---
**Author:** ![Amber\_in\_Treasury](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/bc79bd/32.png) [@Amber\_in\_Treasury](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amber_in_Treasury)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2009, 11:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-want-a-divorce-ill-behead-you/486261/82 "2009-02-20T23:10:11Z")
Good job improving the image of Muslims, indeed. What a fuckface :mad: ---
**Author:** ![Fish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/bc8723/32.png) [@Fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fish)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2009, 11:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-want-a-divorce-ill-behead-you/486261/83 "2009-02-20T23:51:03Z")
> [@Baldwin](#): > > ETA: Lots of guys kill their women when they want to leave them. They don’t usually cut their heads off, though. Would we be giving Islam the benefit of the doubt if he’d merely pulled a Scott Peterson on her? I don’t think so; we’d still be saying how poorly his behavior reflected upon his religion. ---
**Author:** ![Gala\_Matrix\_Fire](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/4da419/32.png) [@Gala\_Matrix\_Fire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gala_Matrix_Fire)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2009, 1:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-want-a-divorce-ill-behead-you/486261/84 "2009-02-21T13:42:02Z")
The man in question, Muzammil Hassan, was a 44-year-old man who moved to the US _twenty-five years ago_. He has lived in the United States since he was 19. He went to American universities. He was previously married to a non-Muslim woman, whom he divorced without beheading. He killed his wife at the same time most American guys kill their wives, if they’re going to: shortly after she filed for divorce and got a court order of protection. The police were aware that the wife had been a victim of spousal abuse. You still want to blame this on his culture and religion? Incidentally, he is from Pakistan, not the Arab world. ---
**Author:** ![Gala\_Matrix\_Fire](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/4da419/32.png) [@Gala\_Matrix\_Fire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gala_Matrix_Fire)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2009, 4:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-want-a-divorce-ill-behead-you/486261/85 "2009-02-21T16:40:28Z")
Here’s some more info NOW president Kim Gandy was helpful enough to include in her latest missive: > [@](#): > > Despite these patterns that are typical of spouse abuse and murder (only the manner of killing was atypical), most of the conservative commentary has focused not on male violence toward women (surprise, surprise), nor on the importance of protecting women who have separated from a violent relationship (another surprise) but has focused instead on attacking the Muslim community. Although the crime was quickly decried by Muslim groups, many talk shows and blogs used the horror of Muzzammil’s act to indict an entire community – in a way that they would never have accused the entire Christian religion because a Methodist man murdered his estranged wife in a horrible way. Three weeks ago, a Chinese graduate student at Virginia Tech cut off a female friend’s head with a knife. Not a single news outlet referred to his religion. And from [a different Now page](http://www.now.org/issues/violence/stats.html): > [@](#): > > In 2005, 1,181 women were murdered by an intimate partner. That’s an average of three women every day. Of all the women murdered in the U.S., about one-third were killed by an intimate partner. ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2009, 4:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-want-a-divorce-ill-behead-you/486261/86 "2009-02-22T04:19:28Z")
> [@tagos](#): > > Of course I agree. Wouldn’t want to be beheaded. > > Meanwhile: [from Thailand](http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5gHYaoq-uPXBWrI79BO2qUlAJKsUg) Yes, there’s been an extremely violent Muslim insurgency in our deep South – the provinces of Pattani, Yala and Narathiwat – for five years now, with beheadings an almost daily occurrence. I have no idea why there are still any Buddhists in that area – I’d’ve fled a long time ago, same as a lot of them. Local plantations got so hard up for help for a while that they took to recruiting workers in Laos, not telling them about the trouble. Soon, _they_ started getting beheaded. It’s difficult to get medical staff to go down there, too. Many if not most medical-school graduates must work for a year or two in a government-assigned post, and there have been problems with them hacking into the computer system and changing their assignments if it’s to the deep South. It’s an extremely nasty situation and appears to be helped along some by Jemaah Islamiyah, the local al-Qaeda branch that is responsible for a lot of the trouble in Indonesia. ---
**Author:** ![Walker\_in\_Eternity](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/46a35a/32.png) [@Walker\_in\_Eternity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walker_in_Eternity)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2009, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-want-a-divorce-ill-behead-you/486261/87 "2009-02-22T16:53:11Z")
> [@Koxinga](#): > > **tagos** , no matter how many examples you present from so many places all over the world, it proves absolutely nothing because everyone knows that Islam is a religion of peace. Such acts of horrific violence are the opposite of “peaceful”, wouldn’t you agree? Then obviously they have nothing to do with Islam. Hopefully this is meant ironically?😕 ---
**Author:** ![Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/qadgop_the_mercotan/32/83_2.png) [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qadgop_the_Mercotan)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2009, 5:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-want-a-divorce-ill-behead-you/486261/88 "2009-02-22T17:02:44Z")
> [@Walker\_in\_Eternity](#): > > Hopefully this is meant ironically?😕 It’s so ironic that it’s virtually a cure for anemias due to lack of ingestion of bioavailable ferrous substances. ---
**Author:** ![Walker\_in\_Eternity](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/46a35a/32.png) [@Walker\_in\_Eternity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walker_in_Eternity)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2009, 5:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-want-a-divorce-ill-behead-you/486261/89 "2009-02-22T17:03:27Z")
> [@tagos](#): > > Indonesia is not a tolerant Muslim paradise - it is a battleground being ideologically fought over at the moment. > > Damn right I am intolerant of religion in general and Islam in particular. Anyone not blinded by false equivalency needs to protect their own superstition should be too. While I am not as strident as **tagos** I have to agree with his/her above statement. As a nonbeliever I have no desire to be buried up to my waist or neck and stoned to death. Indonesia is rife with examples of Christians and others being forcibly converted or killed if they refuse. Going back to the original argument, both sides have given statements showing that beheading may or may not be an islamic practice, but one thing seems incontrovertable and that is that this will be taken as an islamic act and therefore will add fuel to an already growing fire. ---
**Author:** ![Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/qadgop_the_mercotan/32/83_2.png) [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qadgop_the_Mercotan)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2009, 5:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-want-a-divorce-ill-behead-you/486261/90 "2009-02-22T17:18:12Z")
> [@Walker\_in\_Eternity](#): > > While I am not as strident as **tagos** I have to agree with his/her above statement. As a nonbeliever I have no desire to be buried up to my waist or neck and stoned to death. Indonesia is rife with examples of Christians and others being forcibly converted or killed if they refuse. > > Going back to the original argument, both sides have given statements showing that beheading may or may not be an islamic practice, but one thing seems incontrovertable and that is that this will be taken as an islamic act and therefore will add fuel to an already growing fire. Ditto this. People who constrain the freedoms of others & demand that behavior must be changed to conform to their belief systems irk me. Those who advocate or deal out punishment for failure to behave as demanded irk me even more. Many belief systems had made such demands of others in the past. But at present, Islam is the belief system which has the most adherents who are acting in this manner. As such, I will continue to view Islam most skeptically until such a time as this changes significantly for the better. ---
**Author:** ![Cubsfan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f4b2a3/32.png) [@Cubsfan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cubsfan)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2009, 6:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-want-a-divorce-ill-behead-you/486261/91 "2009-02-22T18:23:36Z")
> [@tomndebb](#): > > I perceive the irony. I just note that irony can be based on a perception that has little bearing on reality. A Muslim who made a big deal about how Islam was fully amenable to modern Western society who then invoked some interperetation of some clause of Shariah to inflict harm on his wife would be really ironic. Some nut that simply behaves in a murderous fashion toward his wife in a fit of rage, then turns himself in to the cops, not so much. Nothing that a Muslim does can ever be attributed to the fact that they are Muslim on this board. There is always a wave of apologists coming up with every reason OTHER than the fact that they are Muslim for why they committed whatever crime/insult was committed. It seems that the only way something can be attributed to a MUSLIM around here is if he says “PRAISE ALLAH!! I CUT OFF THE HEAD BECAUSE IM MUSLIM!!” and even then there will be calls of “he was just crazy that’s why he did it”. ---
**Author:** ![Malacandra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Malacandra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malacandra)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2009, 7:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-want-a-divorce-ill-behead-you/486261/92 "2009-02-22T19:29:16Z")
> [@Cubsfan](#): > > Nothing that a Muslim does can ever be attributed to the fact that they are Muslim on this board. There is always a wave of apologists coming up with every reason OTHER than the fact that they are Muslim for why they committed whatever crime/insult was committed. It seems that the only way something can be attributed to a MUSLIM around here is if he says “PRAISE ALLAH!! I CUT OFF THE HEAD BECAUSE IM MUSLIM!!” and even then there will be calls of “he was just crazy that’s why he did it”. Well, to be fair, when I heard of a guy killing prostitutes because “Jesus told me to do it”, I naturally assumed that he was a psychopath, not just an excessively zealous Christian. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2009, 7:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-want-a-divorce-ill-behead-you/486261/93 "2009-02-22T19:33:37Z")
> [@Walker\_in\_Eternity](#): > > Indonesia is rife with examples of Christians and others being forcibly converted or killed if they refuse. This is true. Indonesa is one of the places where Fundamentalist Islam is making a strong and virulent showing. Whether that is due to a simple resurgence of Islam or is a reaction against suppression imposed by Suharto, (similar to the pro-Islam rebellion in Iran thirty years ago after Islam was suppressed there), I do not know. > [@Walker\_in\_Eternity](#): > > Going back to the original argument, both sides have given statements showing that beheading may or may not be an islamic practice, but one thing seems incontrovertable and that is that this will be taken as an islamic act and therefore will add fuel to an already growing fire. This is true. I would hope, however, that on this board we would be less inclined to jump to rash conclusions based on prejudice over facts. > [@Cubsfan](#): > > Nothing that a Muslim does can ever be attributed to the fact that they are Muslim on this board. There is always a wave of apologists coming up with every reason OTHER than the fact that they are Muslim for why they committed whatever crime/insult was committed. It seems that the only way something can be attributed to a MUSLIM around here is if he says “PRAISE ALLAH!! I CUT OFF THE HEAD BECAUSE IM MUSLIM!!” and even then there will be calls of “he was just crazy that’s why he did it”. On the contrary, I see a number of posts trying to make a direct association between Hassan’s religion and his act of murder. Mind you, no one making that claim has provided any evidence for that association. I do not recall anyone bringing up the religious beliefs of Stephen Grant, Pyotr Shmelev, or Scott Peterson when they murdered and dismembered their wives, yet in the case of the current jerk, you seem to want us to skip over the whole “why did he do it?” question and jump right into “Of course he murdererd her, he’s Muslim,” then be upset that not everyone wants to jump on your fact free bandwagon. (And while I do not know his motivation, given that there are between half and three quarters of a billion Muslim men who are not out beheading their wives, I am not sure that “he’s crazy” fails as an explanation until such time as we actually have genuine information.) ---
**Author:** ![intention](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/e95f7d/32.png) [@intention](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/intention)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2009, 11:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-want-a-divorce-ill-behead-you/486261/94 "2009-02-22T23:07:56Z")
> [@tomndebb](#): > > … On the contrary, I see a number of posts trying to make a direct association between Hassan’s religion and his act of murder. Mind you, no one making that claim has provided any evidence for that association. I do not recall anyone bringing up the religious beliefs of Stephen Grant, Pyotr Shmelev, or Scott Peterson when they murdered and dismembered their wives, yet in the case of the current jerk, you seem to want us to skip over the whole “why did he do it?” question and jump right into “Of course he murdererd her, he’s Muslim,” then be upset that not everyone wants to jump on your fact free bandwagon. > > … I don’t see that. Mostly I see posters who are amused at the contrast between his actions and the reason he set up the TV station. If Scott Peterson had set up a TV station devoted to proving that Christians are peaceful folk and then killed his wife by nailing her to a cross, I imagine people would show much of the same amusement. It’s not the “he did it because he’s Muslim” part that I see people expounding here. It’s the “kinda strange way to prove that Islam is really peaceful” part that we find quite funny. Much on the order of the humor people find when some gay-hating fundamentalist Christian gets caught in flagrante delicto with some guy. Your response is to look at the nature of the crime, and claim that beheading is not really a part of the Muslim religion … so what? Going to bed with some guy is not a part of the Christian religion, but we can still laugh at Ted Haggard when he gets caught with his pants around his ankles. As a result, your claimed parallel between Stephen Grant, Pyotr Shmelev, or Scott Peterson is meaningless. This murder would never have made the national news in the same way, nor would it be being debated here, if it were not for the fact that he set up a TV station specifically to spread the idea that Muslims are not mindless, murderous reactionaries … immediately before proving he was one. Ted Haggard would have not made the national news in the same way were it not for his ranting and fulminating against gays … immediately before proving he was one. It is the irony of that juxtaposition, not the details of the crime, that people are laughing about. **Tomndebb** , I respect your knowledge of religion. But despite all of your book knowledge, the one real-world fact you don’t seem to have noticed is that some religions are fundamentally different from the others. They are not all just different ways of worshiping God. They don’t fit under some big rainbow-colored tent. The truth of religion is that people want to emulate the prophet or leader of religion. And this is a good thing. People ask themselves questions on the order of “What would Jesus do?”, and generally become better people by asking that kind of question. Now, I don’t care if someone wants to emulate the Buddha. Let him sit under a tree, Bodhi or otherwise, and meditate on the being of nothingness. Not a problem. And I’m perfectly happy if someone wants to be like Jesus, grow a beard, buy a guitar, wear sandals, and preach love and kindness. Again, no problem. But if someone wants to live like Mohammed, and get a bunch of followers to take over the next village and chop off the heads of all of the males with pubic hair … well, Houston, we have a problem. This is not violence done in the perverted or debased misunderstanding of religion, like say what happened during the Inquisition. This is violence done and glorified by the founder of the religion, the very prophet who started the religion. Violence in Islam is not based on a misunderstanding of Islam. It is central to the core tenets of the religion itself, as can be seen in the fact that it was practiced frequently by the founder of the religion himself. Now, apologists for Islam such as yourself always say something like “But that was the 7th century, everyone was violent back then.” Which is very true. But somehow Buddha never found it necessary to gather a gang of thugs and kill his neighbors. Jesus never got around to organizing a raiding party to chop off the heads of the Pharisees. Baha’ullah never told his followers to go kill the Muslims who were oppressing them. But Mohammed did all that and more. You continue to insist on ignoring this fundamental difference. I’m not sure why. Islam is a religion founded by a man of violence, a religion which preaches violence and the way of the sword. As you have pointed out repeatedly, many Muslims successfully ignore those preachings. They pay no attention to the strictures saying that if someone leaves Islam, cut off one hand and one foot on opposite sides of the body. And this is to their good credit, they should not be tarred with the same brush as Osama bin Laden. But that does not make the religion any less violent or less deadly. It does not remove the violent urgings from the Koran, the strictures enjoining the Muslim to kill and maim other people. Islam still, even in the 21st century, leads to women being buried up to their neck in the ground and stoned to death. Stoning people to death in this way is not a perversion of Islam. It is not based on a misunderstanding of Islam. It is Islamic to the core. There was just an honor killing of a woman who had the unbelievable nerve to get herself gang raped … care to guess the religion involved? You keep trying to spread peanut butter over the violence inherent in Islam, but I gotta tell you, **Tomndebb**. You’re one of the few people that appears to think that a religion which still, in the 21st century, insists on the idea that it’s just fine to bury women up to the neck and stone them to death for adultery is just Christianity with funny headwear and a different name for God. For the rest of us, we see the humor in some random Muslim spouting about how Islam = Peace before chopping his wife’s head off … and the fact that you are trying to stop us from laughing by pointing out that chopping heads off is not a specifically Muslim practice just means you’re not following the story. w. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2009, 2:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-want-a-divorce-ill-behead-you/486261/95 "2009-02-23T02:03:16Z")
> [@intention](#): > > I don’t see that. Mostly I see posters who are amused at the contrast between his actions and the reason he set up the TV station. I noted the irony. Go back and read what I posted. However, given that at the time this thread was begun we had rather little information about the incident, you might note that most of my responses have not been some sort of blind support for Islam, but specific respones to off-the-wall and error-filled comments such as > [@](#): > > Muslims and honor killings go together like adultery and really sharp heavy stones. > [@](#): > > Honour killing and Islam goes hand in hand and no - there is no point trying to parse some artificial distinction between some ‘Islam’ and ‘society’. That’s the whole point of Islam - it is a total way of life and ‘society’ and religious ideology has become so intertwined the distinction is meaningless. > > Honour killings are done in the name of Islam so it is Islamic regardless of apologist parsing of the mumbo-jumbo. > [@](#): > > And again - no-one bother coming in with the same old ‘No True Scotsman’ arguments. Religions are what the religious do in its name regardless of the underlying mumbo-jumbo. > > If the guy killed his wife it was no coincidence it was a beheading. > [@](#): > > It is Islamic in nature. Cite provided to show already. Islam and tribal societies have been intertwined since Islam’s inception. They are now one and the institutionalised oppression of explicitly done in the name of Islam. It is Islamic - the weak arguments of its apologists notwithstanding. I am not sure that you and I have been reading the same thread. > [@intention](#): > > Your response is to look at the nature of the crime, and claim that beheading is not really a part of the Muslim religion … so what? Going to bed with some guy is not a part of the Christian religion, but we can still laugh at Ted Haggard when he gets caught with his pants around his ankles. > > As a result, your claimed parallel between Stephen Grant, Pyotr Shmelev, or Scott Peterson is meaningless. This murder would never have made the national news in the same way, nor would it be being debated here, if it were not for the fact that he set up a TV station specifically to spread the idea that Muslims are not mindless, murderous reactionaries … immediately before proving he was one. Ted Haggard would have not made the national news in the same way were it not for his ranting and fulminating against gays … immediately before proving he was one. It is the irony of that juxtaposition, not the details of the crime, that people are laughing about. Yeah, **tagos** has been laughing uproariously and I have been attacking everyone who has laughed. > [@intention](#): > > **Tomndebb** , I respect your knowledge of religion. But despite all of your book knowledge, the one real-world fact you don’t seem to have noticed is that some religions are fundamentally different from the others. They are not all just different ways of worshiping God. They don’t fit under some big rainbow-colored tent. > > The truth of religion is that people want to emulate the prophet or leader of religion. And this is a good thing. People ask themselves questions on the order of “What would Jesus do?”, and generally become better people by asking that kind of question. I can see the better people answering WWJD?: Christian Biscotti William Cameron Ann Coulter James Dobson John Geoghan Ken Ham Ian Paisley Fred Phelps Howard Rand Pat Robertson Eric Rudolph Richard Williamson > [@intention](#): > > Now, apologists for Islam such as yourself always say something like “But that was the 7th century, everyone was violent back then.” Which is very true. But somehow Buddha never found it necessary to gather a gang of thugs and kill his neighbors. Jesus never got around to organizing a raiding party to chop off the heads of the Pharisees. Baha’ullah never told his followers to go kill the Muslims who were oppressing them. But Mohammed did all that and more. > > You continue to insist on ignoring this fundamental difference. I’m not sure why. Islam is a religion founded by a man of violence, a religion which preaches violence and the way of the sword. > > As you have pointed out repeatedly, many Muslims successfully ignore those preachings. They pay no attention to the strictures saying that if someone leaves Islam, cut off one hand and one foot on opposite sides of the body. And this is to their good credit, they should not be tarred with the same brush as Osama bin Laden. And yet, here you are doing exactly that. I am not an apologist for Islam, just someone who wishes that humans would stop acting like xenophobic apes every time they can perceive, (or manufacture), a difference between their band and another. Judaism was certainly founded with more reported violence than Islam. Do you agree that we should throw stones at Jews (or Israel) because they are founded on as much violence as Islam? The executions of Banu Qurayza were, at least, limited to the men who were claimed to have plotted to cheer the overthrow of Mohammed; the destruction of the Amalekites was complete, including infants and livestock. > [@intention](#): > > But that does not make the religion any less violent or less deadly. It does not remove the violent urgings from the Koran, the strictures enjoining the Muslim to kill and maim other people. Islam still, even in the 21st century, leads to women being buried up to their neck in the ground and stoned to death. Stoning people to death in this way is not a perversion of Islam. It is not based on a misunderstanding of Islam. It is Islamic to the core. There was just an honor killing of a woman who had the unbelievable nerve to get herself gang raped … care to guess the religion involved? You keep trying to spread peanut butter over the violence inherent in Islam, but I gotta tell you, **Tomndebb**. You’re one of the few people that appears to think that a religion which still, in the 21st century, insists on the idea that it’s just fine to bury women up to the neck and stone them to death for adultery is just Christianity with funny headwear and a different name for God. And you, unfortunately, appear to be one of the many people who will mix and match epochs and events and cultures for the purpose of drumming up a good hatred. I have been accused of playing the No true Scotsman card, but, in fact, I have pointed to specific events and phenomena that are very explicitly distinct in different parts of the world among practitioners of the same religion. **tagos** claimed that Indonesia was the exception regarding honor killings when one of his own hate sites noted that Indonesia was one of several regions where honor killings were not associated with Islam; others included Bangladesh and sub-Sahara Africa. You are willing to dismiss the fact that over half the Muslim world has no association with that barbarity in order to pretend that it is an “Islamic” thing. Stoning for adultery is clearly barbaric, as well, although you seem to be willing to overlook that the Qur’an only prescribes whipping, not stoning, and that the stonings in recent years have all occurred in a total of five countries–all noted for their retrograde cultural norms on many more areas than just religion. That is not my “No True Scotsman,” that is your cherry-picking and over-generalization that you need to employ in order to tar the entire religion with your hatred. You go to the same related cultures, over and over, to find barbarous acts that you then insist are inherent in the religion while ignoring the fact that those acts only occur in those few closely related cultures and nowhere else across the world in the same religion. It appears to me that I have the facts on my side. ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2009, 3:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-want-a-divorce-ill-behead-you/486261/96 "2009-02-23T03:48:35Z")
Well geez, speak of the devil. Yesterday afternoon (Sunday afternoon), they found the severed head of a farang (Westerner) hanging from the Rama IX Bridge here in Bangkok. See [here](http://nationmultimedia.com/2009/02/23/headlines/headlines_30096349.php). ---
**Author:** ![Koxinga](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/4af34b/32.png) [@Koxinga](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Koxinga)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2009, 4:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-want-a-divorce-ill-behead-you/486261/97 "2009-02-23T04:02:54Z")
> [@tomndebb](#): > > You are willing to dismiss the fact that over half the Muslim world has no association with that barbarity in order to pretend that it is an “Islamic” thing. Where do you get “over half”? [Going by this table](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islam_by_country#), it looks to me like you can find almost or fully half of the world’s Muslim population in Indonesia, Pakistan, India, Bangladesh and Egypt. :dubious: ETA: Oh, I see you inserted “that” barbarity, meaning, I presume, “honor killings” or beheadings or I forget which. A general association with barbarity can be overlooked, I guess, so long as it’s not “that” barbarity. But even with that caveat, I’d have to look closer at the demographics to see whether your “over half” assertion has any merit at all. ---
**Author:** ![Koxinga](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/4af34b/32.png) [@Koxinga](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Koxinga)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2009, 4:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-want-a-divorce-ill-behead-you/486261/98 "2009-02-23T04:09:30Z")
> [@Siam\_Sam](#): > > Well geez, speak of the devil. Yesterday afternoon (Sunday afternoon), they found the severed head of a farang (Westerner) hanging from the Rama IX Bridge here in Bangkok. See [here](http://nationmultimedia.com/2009/02/23/headlines/headlines_30096349.php). > [@](#): > > Two sentences, “I want but I cannot …,” and “I came to Bangkok to be you” were found written on the [bridge] railing, said police chief Colonel Chavalit Prasobsilp. Cops looking at it as a possible suicide? ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2009, 4:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-want-a-divorce-ill-behead-you/486261/99 "2009-02-23T04:12:25Z")
> [@Koxinga](#): > > Cops looking at it as a possible suicide? Amazingly for _our_ cops, the radio says they’ve ruled out suicide. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2009, 4:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-want-a-divorce-ill-behead-you/486261/100 "2009-02-23T04:38:37Z")
> [@Siam\_Sam](#): > > Well geez, speak of the devil. Yesterday afternoon (Sunday afternoon), they found the severed head of a farang (Westerner) hanging from the Rama IX Bridge here in Bangkok. See [here](http://nationmultimedia.com/2009/02/23/headlines/headlines_30096349.php). And Thailand is, as you have already noted and I have already acknowledged, suffering spill-over from the terrorists associated with Islamist Fundamentalism. > [@Koxinga](#): > > Where do you get “over half”? [Going by this table](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islam_by_country#), it looks to me like you can find almost or fully half of the world’s Muslim population in Indonesia, Pakistan, India, Bangladesh and Egypt. > > :dubious: > > ETA: Oh, I see you inserted “that” barbarity, meaning, I presume, “honor killings” or beheadings or I forget which. A general association with barbarity can be overlooked, I guess, so long as it’s not “that” barbarity. But even with that caveat, I’d have to look closer at the demographics to see whether your “over half” assertion has any merit at all. Before the attempt to confuse the thread by mixing up all acts of domestic violence, all acts of honor killings, and all acts of terrorism into one big undifferentiated ball of “Islam,” I was addressing the fact that honor killings were a particular manifestation of several closely related regional cultures. In that context, the fact that Indonesia, Bangladesh, Malaysia, and sub-Saharan African Muslim countries do not have a tradition of honor killing indicates that more than half of Muslim lands are not plagued by that barbarism. Beheadings are a separate action that (these days) are a favorite terrorist action by those Fundamentlist Islamists such as al Qaida and their related bands. While this action is pretty much confined to Muslim terrorists, (so far), the number of terrorists should be recognizable as sufficiently few as to render claims that it is a trait of Islam to be gross exaggeration. (I would also be curious as to whether it even originated in the 20th/21st century among Muslims or was it a copycat practice? Back when Reagan was arranging to provide terrorists with a steady crop of hostages by bartering with their captors, the Soviets responded to kidnappings on at least one occasion by beheading a family member of a suspected kidnapper. I do not recall any beheading by Muslims in the late 20th century prior to that event.) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-want-a-divorce-ill-behead-you/486261.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-want-a-divorce-ill-behead-you/486261.md?page=6)