Poisoned?

Cultural Enrichment News


This Enricher vs. Enricher case from the UK is unusual for two reasons. First of all, poisoning is not a standard modus operandi for Muslim honor killings in the West. Overt violence is normally employed: a push from a balcony, a gunshot, acid in the face, and so on.

Secondly, the motive is not obvious. Was this young woman a discredit to her in-laws somehow? Was it a dowry issue? Was the husband punishing her for producing a daughter and not a son?

According to The Daily Mail:

Four Arrested as Young Mother Dies of Suspected Poisoning

Sana Abbasi had a trouble-free pregnancy but fell mysteriously ill days later

Murder detectives have arrested four relatives of a young mother who died in a suspected poisoning.

Two are being questioned and two have already been bailed after Sana Abbasi, 22, died in hospital on Friday.

Mrs Abbasi, who was from Pakistan and came to Britain because of an arranged marriage with a Bradford man, had been in the city’s Royal Infirmary with an unexplained illness for months.

The previously healthy woman was admitted with severe stomach cramps and unable to use her limbs 19 days after giving birth — without complications — to a daughter in April.

She spent most of the remaining 10 weeks of her life in intensive care apart from a brief recovery when, according to neighbours, she went home but was rushed back to hospital within days.

– – – – – – – –

A 23-year-old man and a 56-year-old woman — believed to be her husband and his mother — were arrested on suspicion of murder after her death and have been bailed pending further enquiries.

A 28-year-old man and a 25-year-old woman from Bradford, both arrested yesterday, are still in police custody. They are thought to be the husband’s brother and sister-in-law.

A post-mortem gave grounds for suspicion, a West Yorkshire Police spokeswoman said. Police are awaiting the results of toxicology tests later this week.

Though she spoke fluent English, Mrs Abbasi is thought to have led an isolated life within her husband and his mother in the Pollard Park area of Bradford.

Police believe someone in the local community will know how Mrs Abbasi died and urged anybody with information to contact them.

Her three-month-old daughter is understood no longer to be in the care of the husband’s family.



For a complete listing of previous enrichment news, see The Cultural Enrichment Archives.

Hat tip: heroyalwhyness.

10 thoughts on “Poisoned?

  1. The very honourable group “International Campaign Against Honor Killings” makes it very clear that honor killing is not “Muslim” or more correctly “Islamic”. That it is a cultural and tribal terror that happens in many parts of the world and strings back from male superiority issues.

    It would though be correct to say that much of this barbaric behavior occurs in many Muslim countries and it is abused also by fundamentalists whom enjoy ancient tribal culture to their sick advantage. Mind you, statistically, the sheer numbers that occur in Hindu dominated India makes the figure around 60/40 in India’s favor (WHO stats).

    http://solkhar.blogspot.com/2009/06/honor-killings.html

  2. “The very honourable group “International Campaign Against Honor Killings” makes it very clear that honor killing is not “Muslim” or more correctly “Islamic”. That it is a cultural and tribal terror that happens in many parts of the world and strings back from male superiority issues.”

    Nonetheless almost all honorkillings take place in islamic countries or if in the west by people originating from islamic countries. Westerners never commit honorkillings. If a familymember is killed by a westerner it is almost at all times out of jealousy and never involves the whole family or rest of kin. You can try smooth talking and white washing islam all you want but at the end of the day it turns out to be a highly violent religion AND culture.

  3. The strange thing about these killings is that it is claimed to be to uphold the family’s honor. But I have never met a Muslim that has any honor. So the idea of honor with Muslims is a sham.

    They are a people without honor!

  4. From The Reliance of the Traveller
    The translation was certified by Al-Azhar in 1991.

    Use ‘look inside’ to search for the phrase “the following are not subject to retaliation” including quotes.

    “The following are not subject to retaliation:

    -1- a child or insane person, under any circumstances (O: whether Muslim or non-Muslim.

    The ruling for a person intermitently insane is that he is considered as a sane person when in his right mind, and as if someone continously insane when in an interval of insanity. If someone against whom retaliation is obligatory subsequently becomes insane, the full penalty is nevertheless exacted. A homicide committed by someone who is drunk is (A: considered the same as that of a sane person,) like his pronouncing divorce (dis: n1.2) );

    -2- a Muslim for killing a non-Muslim;

    -3- a Jewish or Christian subject of the Islamic state for killing an apostate from Islam (O: because a subject of the state is under its protection, while killing an apostate from Islam is without consequences);

    -4- a father or mother (or their fathers of mothers) fir killing their offspring, or offspring’s offspring;

    -5- nor is retaliation permissible to a descendant for (A: his ancestor’s) killing someone whose death would otherwise entitle the descendant to retaliate, such as when his father kills his mother.”

    So you might claim that “Honor killing is not ‘muslim’ or ‘islamic'” whatever that means, but that is quite irrelevant, because we have here black on white from the Shafii fiq of Sunni that it is allowed.

    It is like splitting hairs whether it is American to carry guns or not. The fact is, in American law, as opposed to most other countries, it is allowed to carry guns.

    And In Shafii fiq, as opposed to in virtually all non-Islamic systems of law, it is allowed for parents to kill their children.

    I eagerly await links from you showing that the other 3 fiqs of Sunni, and perhaps even Shia jurisprudence, say that fathers or mothers killing their offspring or offsprings offspring are subject to retaliation. Preferrably certified translations.

    Now perhaps you would like to argue that the reliance of the traveller is merely a historic document and not something that is relevant today, I would ask why then the al-Azhar would bother to certify a translation in 1991?!

    Besides, since Islam judges reliability by degrees of separation from Mohammed, it would be rather contrary to say that since it is old you can ignore it. The koran itself is 50% older, is it thus 50% less reliable than “the reliance of the traveller”?

    Quite apart from the relation of this paragraph to so-called Honor killings, point two and three are also quite interesting. They state that there is no punishment for a muslim killing a non-muslim. And that there is no punishment for killing an apostate from islam.

  5. I think some people just simply wish to believe so much something that it comes true – only for them.

    You can post a lot of stuff there Ursus Martimus but that does not in the end make it any more incorrect. Hiding under bulk text to imply you knowing something falls under the same category.

    That Al Azhar declares something to be authentic does not make a comment on its validity of being correct or incorrect. It is a “we the undersigned declare this to be a true copy of an original….”.

    Your careful avoidance of not pointing out that what was said was the comment of an individual and not the Qur’an or amongs the popularly accepted Haddiths is not suprising. Most agenda based individuals with some arrogant assumption that they know a religion better than those who actually practice it often side-step entire facts and “pick and chose” those that suit them.

    There is no denying that many cultures and tibal customs are involved in honor killing, and many of those in Muslim countries – that just shows how much culture and tribalism is often more important than the religion (and thus smacks in the face of all these caliphate claims). Except for about four countries, the majority of Muslim countries outlaws and seriously punishes honor killings.

    The other point is that those non-Muslims of the same cultures/tribes practice the same and there are non-Muslim pars of the world that do the same. The difference in the west is that laws along with economics and education combined stop this and yet you still get “murder suicides” because it comes down to the worst of base human values.

    Lastly, go to the real websites and statistics and you will find that honor killings is global and on every continent from all communities including Eastern Europe, Catholic Phillipines and South America and most of all in Hindu dominated India were the act in rural areas is as high as in the rest and that is with low-levels of recording.

    Get the facts straight before mouthing off of you will look as embarassingly stupid as Findalis who posted above yours.

  6. The very honourable group “International Campaign Against Honor Killings” makes it very clear that honor killing is not “Muslim” or more correctly “Islamic”.

    They do have a point, actually. The same holds for Female Genital Mutilation, Umra and Hajj, Kaaba, The Well of Zam-Zam, Allah and other items in Islam – all preislamic, all adopted into Islam by Muhammad, well, because he wanted to, and because he didn’t want to change the religious taboos of the past. He’s quoted for that in Al-Tabari.

    One thing is Islamic, though, and that is stoning for adultery. That is from Bukhari, where Muhammad explicitly asks people to reinstate the barbaric punishment that the Jews had abolished centuries ago. Even though it was lifted from Jewish scripture, it is a clear novelty that Muhammad introduced, in that it had – as far as is known – not been practiced in Arabia in the time before him.

  7. Henrik,

    Honor Killing and as you put it Genital Mutlilation are cultural and tribal habits. GM is practiced in many parts of Africa in as much Christian and Animist communities as in those Muslim. Clerical leaders and governments outlaw it but still ignorant local clerics (who have not even a highschool education but just learned the Qur’an in a madrassa) still confuse it themselves because their support for tribal customs is to them a priority of Islam.

    Your linking to “Umma, Hajj Zam Zam and Allah” though is incorrect and needs to be clarified.

    First of all and most important Allah is God and that is all. Considering that Islam accepts the single Hebrew and Christian God as being the only God – that is clear. The confussion is that the pagans in Mecca added the single-one God known in Arabic as Allah amongst the idols was caught upon by anti-Islamists as some “sign”. Rather like all conspiracy theorists raise rediculous points.

    Umrah and Hajj is recognition of the importance of the site known as the Kabbah. Muslims believe this is the same site that Abraham and Moses mentioned, thus of course it predates Islam, as Judaism predates both Christianity and Islam.

    The well or Bir al Zamzam is important because Mohammed said that it also has a history linked to Judaism, that Ismail son of Abraham was dying in the desert and God sprung a well to keep him alive – one of only a few miracles mentioned directly in the Qur’an.

    Regarding stoning, most items from Bhukari show the examples of life at the time, not the Message that is in the Qur’an. Thus if Bhukari said that Mohammed ordered stoning for adultery, most scholars (that are not linked to clerics who take the literal or fundamentalist line) will say that it shows what was happening in that time and place – the need to strike out adultery was critical to the survival of the tribes of the region and would not be accepted by the Muslims.

    I put it back to you, why is stoning outlawed by almost all Muslim nations save a few hardline fundamentalist run states? Because it is in Bhukari, not in the Qur’an.

  8. Re Solkhar’s attempted deflection:

    Frankly, the West cannot set to rights all the backward cultural practices of the world and in fact is precluded from doing so by the doctrine of PC.

    Hindus – honor killings

    Muslims – honor killings and attacks around the world on any and all non-Muslims including atheists.

    We choose to be concerned about Muslim barbarity as they do not confine it to themselves and present an existential threat to others.

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