Egypt: Muslim stabs his sister in the neck, killing her, because she got engaged without his consent

“When you meet the unbelievers, strike the necks…” (Qur’an 47:4) Muhammad Nabil may have considered his sister to have become an unbeliever by getting engaged against his wishes, thus rendering her disobedient (4:34). And a disobedient women could be understood as having placed herself outside the fold of Islam altogether: “And it is not fitting for a believing man or a believing woman, when Allah and his messenger have settled a matter, that they should claim any say in the matter, and whoever is rebellious to Allah and his messenger, he indeed goes astray in obvious error.” (Qur’an 33:36)

In the Qur’an, a mysterious figure, known as Khidr in Islamic tradition, kills a boy in an apparently random and gratuitous attack. He then explains: “And as for the boy, his parents were believers, and we feared that he would overburden them by transgression and disbelief. So we intended that their Lord should substitute for them one better than him in purity and nearer to mercy.” (18:80-81)

And according to Islamic law, “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.” (Reliance of the Traveller o1.1-2).

Muslims commit 91 percent of honor killings worldwide. The Palestinian Authority gives pardons or suspended sentences for honor murders. Iraqi women have asked for tougher sentences for Islamic honor murderers, who get off lightly now. Syria in 2009 scrapped a law limiting the length of sentences for honor killings, but “the new law says a man can still benefit from extenuating circumstances in crimes of passion or honour ‘provided he serves a prison term of no less than two years in the case of killing.’” And 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.”

“An Egyptian slaughters his sister in the street in front of a mosque for a shocking reason, days after her engagement!,” translated from “!مصري يذبح شقيقته في الشارع أمام مسجد لسبب صادم بعد أيام من خطوبتها,” Watanserb, September 12, 2023:

Watan – Egypt witnessed a heinous crime when a young man slaughtered his sister in the middle of the street, in front of Al-Hussein Mosque in Port Said Governorate.

The Assistant Minister of the Interior, Port Said’s Security Director, received a report about the killing of a girl by a young man on the street in front of a mosque in a new murder.

Local media quoted eyewitnesses as saying that two people on a motorcycle stopped the victim while she was walking on the street in front of the mosque.

One of the young men stabbed the girl with a knife, killing her with a wound in the neck; then he left her and fled.

The security services arrested the first accused and provided evidence of the second, and investigations revealed that the killer was the girl’s brother.

The killer’s name is Muhammad Nabil, and his sister Farida was 24 years old.

Investigations indicated that the killer committed his crime because he objected to his sister’s engagement without his consent.

Farida works in a store that sells and rents wedding dresses in one of the tourist villages in Egypt, and she had a love affair with a young man that culminated in their official engagement.

But the killer rejected this engagement and asked his sister Farida to break it, but she refused, so he decided to get rid of her.

Investigations revealed that the killer, Muhammad Nabil, got a knife, rode a motorcycle with his friend, and stabbed his sister in the street.

Nabil injured his sister with a deep wound in the neck and a stab wound in the heart, causing her immediate death.

The prosecution, which took over the investigation, was notified.